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4 - Social Cohesion and Emerging Standards of Hindi in a Multilingual Context

from Part I - Revisiting Models and Theories of Language Standardization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2021

By
Anvita Abbi
Edited by
Wendy Ayres-Bennett  and
John Bellamy
Wendy Ayres-Bennett
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
John Bellamy
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

This chapter presents the futility of a monolithic model of standard language in the context of multilingual and multicultural India. It focuses on contact dynamics that interact in Indian multilingual and plurilingual societies to motivate speakers to accept a contact-induced variety as the norm. Conventionally, the process of standardization has been seen as promoting invariance or uniformity in language by imposing a particular variety. However, the multilingual mosaic of many countries such as India offers a model of standardization which accommodates variation to suit the specific needs of the community, granting prestige and acceptance to a non-standard variety for social cohesion. The language in question is Hindi. The chapter also draws attention to the danger of vanishing indigenous tribal languages under the pressure of one uniform standard language.

Keywords

Andamanese Hindicontact HindisHindi Beltlanguage acceptanceobjectification of languageregional varieties of Hindirestructuring Hindisemantically elaborate categories
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Language Standardization , pp. 115 - 138
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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