diglossia
/dʌɪˈɡlɒsɪə
/noun [mass noun] Linguistics
A situation in which two languages (or two varieties of the same language) are used under different conditions within a community, often by the same speakers. The term is usually applied to languages with distinct ‘high’ and ‘low’ (colloquial) varieties, such as Arabic.In cases such as these of bilingualism without diglossia, the two languages compete for use in the same domains....
- That's why it's a classic example of diglossia, a language which has two different versions, the formal one and the one you actually speak.
- In Egypt, as elsewhere in the Arab world, the Arabic language is characterized by diglossia.
Derivatives
diglossic
- Schwyzertüütsch is the common spoken German in Switzerland, a dialect more than most others in diglossic contrast with the written and printed language.
- I showed in Chapter 2 that where bilingualism exists at the societal or individual level, the two languages are functionally differentiated and coexist in a diglossic relationship.
- Thus, the fact that a language is diglossic is actually a feature of the linguistic culture of the area where that language is used, rather than of the language per se.
Origin
1950s: from Greek diglōssos 'bilingual', on the pattern of French diglossie.