This study provides a sketch of Slovak standard language development during the pre-codification period (15th-18th centuries) within a diglossia framework. The focus is on the earlier periods of the 15th and 16th centuries – the earliest time from which there is significant direct documentation of patterns of indigenous language use in Slovakia in the form of a larger corpus of texts written in a Slavic language (be it Czech or mixed Czech-Slovak). The investigation indicates a 15th-16th century situation of Czech-Slovak diglossia that is gradually resolved in the course of the 17th-18th centuries through increasing development and use of a mixed Czech-Slovak interdialect. This study is intended to establish a starting point for more in-depth sociolinguistic investigation of early linguistic development and language standardization in the Slovak lands.
- Slovak,
- Czech,
- diglossia,
- standard language development,
- language standardization,
- pre-codification period,
- 15th century,
- 16th century,
- 17th century,
- 18th century
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/mark_richard_lauersdorf/1/
This article appeared in a special volume of Indiana Slavic Studies edited by Laura A. Janda, Ronald Feldstein, and Steven Franks as Where One’s Tongue Rules Well: A Festschrift for Charles E. Townsend.