Diglossia refers to the use by a language community of two languages or dialects, a "high" or "H" variety restricted to certain formal situations, and a "low" or "L" variety for everyday interaction.[1] This page contains a list of nations, cultures, or other communities which sources describe as featuring a diglossic language situation.
In the United States, Standard English is considered H while AAVE is considered L. Its pronunciation is, in some respects, common to Southern American English, which is spoken by many African Americans and many non-African Americans in the United States. Several creolists, including William Stewart, John Dillard, and John Rickford, argue that AAVE shares so many characteristics with creole dialects spoken by black people in much of the world that AAVE itself is a creole,[2] while others maintain that there are no significant parallels.[3][4][5][6][7] Many traditional middle-class and upper-class African Americans are more comfortable with American Standard English.
In all the Arab World, standard Arabic is H and local "colloquial" Arabic is L.
The situation with the Literary Arabic (الفصحى al-fuṣ-ḥā) vs spoken varieties of Arabic (العامية al-`āmmiyya or الدارجة ad-dārija) differs from country to country but every Arab country's official language is "standard Arabic". There is no consensus on which version of Arabic should be taught to foreigners.
The debate continues about the future of the Arabic language, both among Arabic linguists in the Arab world and outside it. Some prefer the status quo (existing diglossia). The other suggestions are:
Both ideas (the Hebrew (1) or the Greek (2) language reforms) have become feasible with the globalization and the increase of the internet and mass-media usage among Arabs but there must be consensus between governments, scholars and the population and the efforts to follow. The Al-Jazeera television and others did a lot to promote standard Arabic among Arabs.
Ibrahim Kayid Mahmoud, College of Education, King Faisal University, Al-Hassa – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Literary Arabic between Diglossia and Bilingualism (excerpt):
The study has concluded that both diglossia and bilingualism are the inveterate enemies of literary Arabic; they try to annihilate it. They create a weak, hesitant, indecisive anxious individual, with limited horizons.
Additionally, they constitute the direct cause of destroying creativity and scientific productivity. It is therefore imperative to protect Literary Arabic from the dangers of diglossia and bilingualism through taking the necessary measures to foster it and to give it due emphasis. Literary Arabic should be simplified and made more appealing to the younger generations. Educational institutions and mass media should also give it due emphasis. Current educational concepts should be utilized to promote literary Arabic. Arabic teachers should be adequately qualified. It is finally suggested that the teaching of foreign languages should be delayed until after age ten, a time at which Arab children have initially mastered their mother tongue – Arabic."
As mentioned above, the new Western term "Formal Spoken Arabic" (other terms include: "Educated Spoken Arabic", "Inter-Arabic", "Middle Arabic" and "Spoken MSA") [8] is to describe the modern variety of Arabic spoken by educated Arabs, a mix between standard Arabic (acrolect) and vernacular Arabic (basilect). It is more common in Eastern Arabs states (Levante and the Gulf) but sometimes used to described high-level Egyptian or Maghrebi Arabic. This new term represents a spoken language shared by Arabs from different regions when they have to communicate to each other. The pronunciation may reveal the speaker's origin but nevertheless, this simplified version of Arabic is becoming popular with foreign students who wish to be able communicate with a wide-range of Arabic speakers. As the base for the training, the Levantine Arabic is often chosen, as the one considered by many as the closest to literary Arabic but teachers and students change according to the knowledge and interest. In Western Arab countries and Egypt the pure colloquial forms of Arabic are more dominant and, generally, knowledge and usage of standard Arabic is limited. Some speakers can easily maintain a conversation in standard Arabic, some prefer to switch to their vernacular dialect even in the formal situations.
Formal Spoken Arabic has been created through the impact of the Arab satellite channels, which are increasingly shaping the region's sociopolitical views, while also affecting the Arabic language itself.
Traditionally, Bengali exhibits diglossia in both written and spoken forms of the language's uppermost registers. Shadhubhasha (সাধু shadhu = 'chaste' or 'sage'; ভাষা bhasha = 'language') exhibited longer verb inflections and heavily Sanskritized vocabulary. Up to the turn of the 19th century, most Bengali literature took this form. Cholitbhasha(চলতিভাষা ) or Cholitobhasha (চলিত cholito = 'current' or 'running'), based on the formal registers of spoken, educated dialects, has much simpler grammatical forms, and has become the modern literary standard.
In Brunei, Standard Malay (Bahasa Melayu) is promoted as the national language and is the H variety, while Brunei Malay is used very widely throughout society and it constitutes the L variety.[9] One major difference between these dialects of Malay is that Brunei Malay tends to have the verb at the front, while Standard Malay generally places it after the subject.[10] It has been estimated that 84% of core vocabulary in Brunei Malay and Standard Malay is cognate,[11] though their pronunciation often differs very considerably. While Standard Malay has six vowels, Brunei Malay has only three: /a, i, u/.[12]
One complicating factor is that English is also widely used in Brunei, especially in education, as it is the medium of instruction from upper primary school onwards,[13] so it shares the H role with Standard Malay. Another code that competes for the H role in some situations is the special palace register of Brunei Malay, which includes an elaborate system of honorific terms for addressing and referring to the Sultan and other nobles.[14] Finally, although Standard Malay is used for sermons in the mosques (as expected for the H variety), readings from the Qur'an are in Arabic.
Modern Spanish coexists with 36 other native languages, all of them official, and some widely spoken by the population, like Aymara and Quechua.
With the exception of Andorra, Catalan as spoken outside of Catalonia may be diglossic in various grades, from highly to barely diglossic. Diglossia in Catalan is typically stronger in some metropolitan areas than rural or sparsely populated areas.
This phenomenon affects Alghero (whose local Catalan dialect remains in severe danger of extinction despite the recent revival in its usage), some touristy areas and the main cities in the Balearic Islands—sometimes competing with outside languages, for example English—, most of North Catalonia and, in its Valencian modality, some areas in the Valencian Community as well.
For over two thousand years, the Chinese used Classical Chinese (Literary Chinese) as a formal standard written language. The standard written language served as a bridge for communication throughout China (and other countries in the CJKV area) for millennia.
However, the colloquial varieties of Chinese continued to evolve. The gulf became so wide between the formal written and colloquial spoken languages that it was blamed for hindering education and literacy, and some even went so far as to blame it in part for the political turmoil that occurred in China during the 19th and early 20th centuries. This eventually culminated in the adoption of written vernacular Chinese, which was based on modern spoken Mandarin, for all formal communication.
After the adoption of vernacular Chinese as the modern standard written language in the early 20th century, diglossia was no longer a big issue among the majority of Chinese speakers who learn Mandarin Chinese as the standard national dialect. However, standard Chinese and its pronunciation in local dialects is still a formal register in regions where Mandarin is not spoken natively, such as most of South China.
For instance in Hong Kong, Cantonese is the primary language of spoken communication, although all formal written communication is done in Mandarin. Unique among the other Chinese dialects, Cantonese has its own written form, but it is used only in informal contexts and is often inconsistent due to the absence of standardization.
Literate Chinese speakers can read and write in the Mandarin-based standard written language. However because the graphemes in Chinese's logographic writing system are not directly linked to pronunciation (though there are quasi-phonetic hints), Cantonese speakers who do not speak Mandarin will read aloud the characters in Cantonese pronunciation only. The resulting speech is Mandarin-based grammar and vocabulary pronounced word-by-word in Cantonese. If the same sentence were to be spoken using regular colloquial Cantonese, it might be quite different. Here is an example:
| English Sentence | Please give me his book. |
| Standard written Chinese rendition (Traditional Chinese characters) | |
| Standard written Chinese rendition (Simplified Chinese characters) | |
| Standard Chinese pronunciation of writing | Qǐng gěi wǒ tā de shū. |
| Cantonese pronunciation of writing | Chíng kāp ngóh tā dīk syū. |
| Written colloquial Cantonese rendition | |
| Colloquial Cantonese pronunciation | M̀h-gōi béi kéuih bún syū ngóh. |
In the above example, note the switching of the direct and indirect objects and the use of different vocabulary for certain words in the standard Chinese and colloquial Cantonese renditions. In addition, Cantonese grammar allows the use of classifiers to serve in the place of a genitive particle.
Cantonese pronunciation of standard written Chinese is generally understandable to Cantonese speakers educated in the standard written language. It is most often used in Cantonese newscasts, albeit with certain substitutions of colloquial Cantonese vocabulary so as to make it not sound as stilted. This form of spoken Cantonese can be considered a higher register compared to the colloquial spoken Cantonese.
Before the modern adoption of written vernacular Chinese, the diglossic situation also applied to Mandarin speakers when Classical Chinese was the standard written language.
Continuing the previous example for comparison, using Classical Chinese it would be:
| Classical Chinese rendition (Traditional Chinese characters) | |
| Classical Chinese rendition (Simplified Chinese characters) | |
| Mandarin pronunciation of Classical Chinese | Qiú ěr yǔ wǒ qí shū. |
| Cantonese pronunciation of Classical Chinese | Kàuh yíh yúh ngóh kèih syū. |
Because Chinese's logographic writing system doesn't indicate exact pronunciation, the pronunciation of Classical Chinese in Old Chinese is generally not possible (though tentative reconstructions of the phonology of Old Chinese have been attempted). Instead, Classical Chinese is also generally pronounced according to the local dialect (such as the Mandarin and Cantonese pronunciations given above), much like how Cantonese speakers pronounce the modern Mandarin-based written Chinese using Cantonese.
Unlike the situation with modern Chinese, however, Classical Chinese spoken according to the pronunciations of the modern spoken Chinese varieties is still largely unintelligible without training due to the syntax and vocabulary changes that Chinese has undergone since Old Chinese. In addition, sound mergers in the modern dialects cause many distinct words in Classical Chinese to sound homophonous. For one notable example, see Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den.
Prior to the Norman invasion of 1066, Old English in its various dialects was spoken in England. For some centuries following the conquest, England experienced diglossia between a French-speaking ruling class and commoners who spoke English. As French gradually waned, English changed and took over until Middle and Modern English was created through the merger of this divide. However, there is still evidence of a division, between "academic" words and "common" words. Many "power" words (such as bailiff) are "academic". Similarly, many words for foods use French-derived vocabulary, while the word for the corresponding animal is of Germanic (Old English) origin: for example, pork and swine, mutton and lamb, or beef and cow.
Standard French and Walloon have traditionally been a diglossic system in Belgium's southern region, Wallonia. Similar diglossia occurs or has occurred in areas of France where other languages are dominant in the home and daily life, including French and Provençal (Occitan) in Provence and southern France, and, prior to the mid-20th century, French and Alsatian in Alsace-Lorraine.
Galicia is a classic example of diglossia, as the majority language Galician is regarded by most native speakers as inferior to the State language, Spanish, or Portuguese. Since the sixteenth century the upper layers of the Galician society, i.e. the town gentry, the civil servants and the Church, used Spanish as their main or only language whereas the vast majority of the population, made up of peasants and fishermen, continued to speak Galician. This entrenched a perception of Galician as a language of inferior people that prevented social promotion. Thus, when urbanization spread in earnest in the mid twentieth century the new middle classes and urban blue collar cohorts started to adopt Spanish in a diglossic context, Galician at home and Spanish at work. This is a situation that persists to a slightly lesser degree to this day even as both languages are official and the Galician language now enjoys a relatively strong industrial culture and media.
To make things more complicated a similar relationship exists between spoken Galician or Leonese and the literary standard that was developed when Galician became official language in 1983, as native speakers resent the fact the standard lacks naturality, does not include widely assumed phonetic or lexical features of the spoken language such as gheada (pronouncing "g" as the English "h" as in /halicia/ instead of Galicia) as well as reintroducing Galician words that have long been replaced in the spoken language by their Spanish and in some cases English equivalents. Therefore it is not uncommon to find native Galician speakers that for instance speak colloquial Galician at home, Spanish at work and standard Galician in public events or when liaising with the Public Administration.
Up until recently, Standard German was almost entirely restricted as a written language, up until the early 20th century, when Northern pronunciation was accepted as Standard, and the language spread. In fact, in cities such as Hanover and Berlin, the dialect started disappearing with the exception of a small minority of Low German speakers that only make up 5 million people. Austria also experienced the same situation, where less than 1,500,000 speakers of the dialect still remain. In most of Germany and Austria, people generally use Standard German rather than their local dialect in both informal and formal situations. This is the case of language loss, where speakers of German generally started using Standard rather than dialect. This is due to children mastering the Standard language at school and common media use of the Standard language. In Switzerland, most people, including children, generally use the dialect instead. See the Switzerland section for more information.
Until the 1970s, the Greek language distinguished between Dimotiki, the colloquial language which was used in everyday discussions and the extremely formal and archaic Katharevousa, which was used in more "educated" contexts, as in school, in court, in law texts etc. Extreme Katharevousa was, in fact, nearly pure Ancient Greek, and as such, nearly completely unintelligible to children and adults without higher education; however there was a linguistic spectrum, with so-called Simple Katharevousa quite close to Dimotiki, and the emerging urban standard of Dimotiki making more concessions to Katharevousa than its more radical form. The Greek language question, from the 1890s on, was a heated dispute on which language form was to be the official language of the state: unlike typical diglossic situations, the primacy of the H variant was disputed, and the choice of variant became politicized, with Dimotiki associated with the left wing and Katharevousa with the right; morphological choices could even end up used as political shibboleths. This dispute was eventually settled, and today the single language used in all texts is an educated variant of Dimotiki, which was enriched by many expressions from Katharevousa. This variant is commonly called Modern Greek.
The contemporary linguistic situation in Cyprus is also diglossic, with Modern Greek taking the H role, and Cypriot Greek the L role.
Hindi has two forms: the H form called shuddha Hindi and the L form called Hindustani. Both are based on the same dialect: Khariboli. The L variety, Hindustani (often simply called Hindi) contains many loanwords from Persian and Arabic (brought by the Arabic and Persian invaders in medieval times), along with a massive vocabulary of English loanwords which increase day by day. The L variety is identical with spoken Urdu—except for the fact that the latter is written in Perso-Arabic script. The H variety was standardized in the 1960s during the movement to adopt Hindi as national language of Indian Union. Shuddh (lit., pure) Hindi primarily uses words from Sanskrit to replace not only English loanwords, but also loanwords from Persian and Arabic which had been nativized for centuries. These words are called tatsam words, and they even replaced many tadbhav words, i.e. words with Sanskrit origin but having undergone profound phonological changes.
An example is the Hindi version of the sentence: "This morning I read the newspaper but could not study those books."
| Shuddh Hindi | āj | prātaḥ | maĩne | samāchār-patr(a) | paḍhā, | parantu | un | pustakõ | kā | adhyayan | nahĩ | kar | sakā. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hindustani | āj | subah | maĩne | akhbār | paḍhā, | lekin | un | kitābõ | kī | paḍhāī | nahĩ | kar | sakā. |
| Gloss | today | morning | I-erg | newspaper | read.Perfective | but | those | books | of | study | not | do | could.Perfective |
Here, prātaḥ, samāchār-patr(a) and parantu are loanwords from Sanskrit used in the H form, versus the Arabic loanwords subah, akhbār and lekin which are rather more popular in speech. Adhyayan is loanwords from Sanskrit which can even replace native tadhbhav word paḍhāī (which in turn is derived from Sanskrit paṭhana after phonological changes).On the other hand, the H form has highly minimized the use of Persian and Arabic phonemes /z/, /f/, /x/, /ɣ/ and /q/. Partly because they are written in the Hindi alphabet (devanagari, strictly speaking an alpha-syllabary) as a dot beneath traditionally existing alphabets (ज़, फ़, ख़, ग़, क़ ), and the dot is omitted in casual writing, many Hindi speakers mistake them for the Sanskrit phonemes /dʒ/, /pʰ/, /kʰ/, /ɡ/ and /k/.
The L variety is used in common speech, TV serials and Bollywood movies and songs. The H variety is used in official and government writings, scholarly books and magazines, signboards, public announcements and public speaking.
Throughout most of Italy, diglossia between Italian as H and local indigenous languages – for the most part Romance – as L has long been the normal situation. The local Romance languages, somewhat ambiguously referred to as dialetti 'dialects', are direct descendants of Latin, and until relatively recently were the first languages of most Italians. Today their use is receding, but especially in smaller towns and villages it is still common for natives to use the local variety as home language and amongst themselves, and use Italian with outsiders or in formal situations.
A similar situation is registered in areas in which a non-Romance languages are spoken in addition to Italian. Some non-Romance linguistic communities have been recognized by the State since the end of World War II, such as the German speakers in South Tyrol and Slovene speakers in the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia. In these cases, most members of the minorities are fluent in both their native language and standard Italian, resulting in a situation of bilingualism rather than diglossy. In most other cases, there is a diglossic situation between Italian as H, and the non-Romance minority languages as L. Examples include: Molise Croats, the Arabesh communities in southern Italy, Slovene speakers in Friulian Slovenia, the Resian dialect in Friuli Venezia Giulia, and Alemannic German speakers in Valle d'Aosta.
An interesting situation occurs in Valle d'Aosta, where the majority of the population is bilingual French-Italian, but live in a diglossic situation in regards to Franco-Provençal.
In much of Jamaica, most people speak Jamaican Patois, which is the low variety and Jamaican Standard English, the high variety. Outside of Kingston, most people use Jamaican Patois while in Kingston most traditional middle-class and high-class speak Standard English. Recently, Jamaican Patois has gone through a process of decreolization, similar to what happened with AAVE due to the low creole variety developed alongside with the high standard variety. If AAVE is not considered a creole language, then Jamaican Patois is the creole most closest to Standard English to the point were a conversation might hold up. Jamaican Patois has a written form, but because of the lack of standardization of the language many words can be spelled in many different ways. Occasionally Jamaican Patois is used in school.
Leonese language is a minority language in Spain and Portugal, affected by diglossia in both territories. Leonese language has been recognized in the Autonomy Statute of Castile and León (Spain) but is not an official language. Leonese minorities in Portugal have no official recognition, and Mirandese was recognized officially by the Portuguese Parliament in 1999.[15] In the case of the Leonese language, Leonese is used by a minority of people, and Spanish or Portuguese the majority. So Leonese language can be used just at home and between parents and relatives, while at work or in public Leonese regional Spanish is the widely used language. Leonese language only recognised in 2007. 16 schools offer the possibility of learning Leonese language as an out-school activity for children from 10 to 12 years old.
Malta is officially a bilingual country: both Maltese and English are official languages. Maltese is a Semitic language with extensive Italian influence.
Maltese society has been traditionally quite strongly divided, politically, between the working class and middle and upper classes and this is reflected in their language use. Although all Maltese can speak their native language, the extent to which one uses and is able to speak English often reflects one's background. This is most clearly illustrated by the different newspapers in Malta: the liberal/conservative ones are in English (with names like the Times of Malta and Malta Independent) and the more left-leaning ones are in Maltese. Maltese people of a middle- and upper-class background will often speak English or use code-switching extensively in public. There have been warnings from several quarters including a linguistics professor from the University of Malta that the Maltese language could become endangered if the government (currently the right of centre Nationalists) does not do more to promote it, in the same way that English displaced Welsh in Wales.
Before 1934, Italian was the official language of Malta. Those in higher class positions spoke Italian, and were often associated with the Italian irredenta movement, which promoted the unification of Malta with Italy. It was only those of lower class at the time, whose ancestors came from Sicily too long ago for them to still be fluent in Italian, who spoke Maltese. Today, the influence of the Italian language is still very present in Malta. Not only is it used in the professional workplace but also it is key to Malta's media, such as television, radio and publications.[16]
In Paraguay, both modern-day Spanish and Guaraní indigenous language are spoken, and both are official and taught in schools. But great part of the population speak an informal, barely codified variant of the latter, with many Spanish influences, called Jopará.
Polish, with respect to the upper class of the Polish society within the Kingdom of Poland, most especially landed nobility, was a low language until Jan Kochanowski stopped writing in Latin, the high language of the time, and decided to use his own native Polish as the literary language during the late sixteenth century. Polish, however, was often, but not always, the high language during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in spite of the early Belarusian being the official language.
Before World War II, the Polish intelligentsia and those trying to emulate them, over-pronounced the words with hard "h" such as "hak" ("hook" in Polish) to know when to spell a word with "h", and when to spell the soft "h" sound with "ch" as in "chleb" ("bread" in Polish). An example of a person using this method to spell properly is Jerzy Petersburski.
According to some contemporary Brazilian linguists (Bortoni, Kato, Mattos e Silva, Perini and most recently, with great impact, Bagno), Brazilian Portuguese may be a highly diglossic language. This theory claims that there is an L-variant (termed "Brazilian Vernacular"), which would be the mother tongue of all Brazilians, and an H-variant (standard Brazilian Portuguese) acquired through schooling. L-variant represents a simplified form of the language (in terms of grammar, but not of phonetics) that could have evolved from 16th century Portuguese, influenced by other European, Amerindian (mostly Tupian) and African languages, while H-variant would be based on 19th century European Portuguese (and very similar to Standard European Portuguese, with only minor differences in spelling and grammar usage). Mário A. Perini, a Brazilian linguist, even compares the depth of the differences between L- and H- variants of Brazilian Portuguese with those between Standard Spanish and Standard Portuguese. Milton M. Azevedo wrote a chapter on diglossia in his monography: Portuguese language (A linguistic introduction), published by Cambridge University Press, in 2005, parts of which are available freely on Google books.
Russian, the language spoken in Russia, was the low language from the Middle Ages till the Baroque period while Church Slavonic served for all official purposes.[17]
| Russian word | Slavonic word | Russian term |
|---|---|---|
| голос golos (voice) | гласъ glasŭ | гласная glasnaia (vowel) |
| город gorod (city, town) | градъ gradŭ | City names: Вольгоград Volgograd, Калининград Kaliningrad, etc., but Новгород Novgorod (wfw. Newtown) |
| молоко moloko (milk), кормить kormit' (feed) | млѣко mlěko, питѣти pitěti | млекопитающие mlekopitayushchie (mammals) |
In Pakistan there is a diglossia between the extremely Persianised / Arabicized Urdu (used by the literary elite such as poets, writers, and Government officials), and a colloquial Urdu that is very similar to colloquial Hindi (spoken by common people, and known as Hindustani among linguists). Colloquial Pakistani Urdu is also highly influenced by Punjabi. As English is the official language of Pakistan, there is a degree of diglossia between the upper and middle and lower classes. The upper and upper-middle classes tend to be educated in English medium schools whereas the lower class are schooled in either Urdu or one of the regional languages (usually Pashto or Sindhi). The language of the bureaucracy and the higher courts is English, but there is a high degree of code switching between Urdu, English and regional languages in the parliament, provincial legislatures and private sector.
Chinese community in Riau Islands commonly speaks more than one Chinese dialect, such as Mandarin, Teochew, Hokkian and Hakka, along with Malay and English.
Sinhala (also known as Sinhalese), spoken in Sri Lanka, is a diglossic language. There are several differences between the literary language (also known as Literary Sinhala, LS) and the spoken language (Spoken Sinhala, SS), especially about verbs:
Literary or written Sinhala is commonly understood, and used in literary texts and formal occasions (public speeches, TV and radio news broadcasts, etc.), whereas the spoken language is used as the language of communication in everyday life. Children are taught the written language at school almost like a foreign language.
Many analysts regard the use of English in Singapore as diglossic,[18] with Singapore Standard English (SStdE) forming the H variety and Singapore Colloquial English (SCE, also known as 'Singlish') constituting the L variety. SStdE is similar to other varieties of Standard English in grammar and lexis but with some of its own features of pronunciation, particularly the use of full vowels (rather than [ə]) in most function words and also the sporadic absence of dental fricatives,[19] while SCE is characterised by a simplified grammar (including the omission of some conjunctions and the copula verb BE) and regular use of pragmatic particles such as lah and ah,[20] as well as frequent inclusion of Hokkien and Malay words.
However, other analysts prefer to see variation in the English spoken in Singapore along a continuum, with the style adopted depending on the education level and circumstances of the conversation.[21] Some proficient speakers who are well-educated have been shown to use mostly SStdE but with lots of pragmatic particles when talking to their friends,[22] and this seems to provide evidence to support the continuum analysis.
It is certainly true that speakers are able to switch quite abruptly, for example as they exit a classroom and start chatting to their friends,[23] so one way or another there are many characteristics of diglossia in spoken Singapore English.
Swiss German is often used as an example of diglossia. In German-speaking Switzerland, Swiss German is used in everyday conversations, as every German-speaking Swiss is diglossic. Unlike Austria and Germany, where Standard German replaced the local dialect, dialects are still in much use. Swiss German is also used to a certain extent in school and church practices. Swiss Standard German is almost entirely restricted as a written language, as spoken Swiss Standard German is only in extremely formal conversations such as news broadcasts.
Tagalog is the language spoken in the southern part of Luzon, the northernmost group of islands in the Philippines. Southern Luzon covers the provinces around the capital Metro Manila, and includes the capital itself. The language spoken by majority of residents of Luzon, Tagalog, is the basis for the country's national language, Filipino, which is basically the standardized form of the Tagalog spoken in Metro Manila. Tagalogs (ethnic group) originating from provinces outside of Metro Manila speak their own dialect of Tagalog. An example is of the province Batangas, which has its own dialect of Batangueño Tagalog. Speakers of Batangueño Tagalog who go to Manila often suppress their dialect and accent, eventually learning to use the Manila dialect. They would speak their native dialect only when they gather with others of their group. Also, having a regional accent is usually met with amusement, but it is not frowned upon. And although there are some who would maintain their accents, their use is very minimal outside their hometowns and peers. At the moment, very little is written using any other dialect of Tagalog other than that of Metro Manila.
Tamil is a diglossic language spoken in Tamil Nadu, a state in southern India and Northern,Eastern Regions of Sri Lanka. The classic form of the language – called "Senthamizh" – is different from the spoken form known since ancient times as Iyatramizh.
The classic form is preferred for writing, and is also used for public speaking. While the written Tamil language is mostly standard across various Tamil-speaking regions, the spoken form of the language differs widely from the written form. The diglossic form of Tamil has held back its development as a language. Therefore, Perunchitthranar, a Tamil nationalist and others of his ilk, advocated that all Tamils speak only the pure form of the language, i.e., Senthamizh.
Tamil fiction-writers use "Senthamizh" for all descriptive writing and use "Iyatramizh" only to narrate conversations between the characters in their works. There have been exceptions to this rule. Noted novelist Kalki Krishnamurthy once dismissed "Senthamizh" as "Kodunthamizh" (tortured Tamil) although his novels are written almost entirely in Senthamizh, both description and conversation. Even though all Tamils—no matter how educated they are—always converse in colloquial Tamil, Tamil novels used to depict educated people speaking in the classic form. Several decades ago, most Tamil movies had characters who spoke in classical Tamil.
Regional and caste differences can be distinctly heard in spoken Tamil. Tamil in the state capital Chennai (formerly Madras) is somewhat distinct from that spoken elsewhere. Due to its proximity to Andhra Pradesh, Chennai Tamil has more Telugu loan words than the Tamil spoken in southern Tamil Nadu. Chennai Iyatramizh also often has more words of Urdu (or Deccani) than do varieties of Tamil from elsewhere in the state.
Throughout Tamil Nadu, there are several varieties of spoken Tamil. Tamil Brahmins speak a sort of "brahmin Tamil". The largely agrarian middle castes converse in their own dialect of Iyatramizh; this is the 'standard' spoken Tamil of today's Tamil movies and fiction. Similarly, the Scheduled Castes speak forms of Iyatramizh with clear grammatical differences from the varieties of other castes.
However, regional differences are more interesting to note. The Tamil dialects spoken by people in Northern districts of Tamil Nadu like Arcot, Chennai and Southern districts like Tirunelveli and Madurai are somewhat different from each other. The people from Kanyakumari speak entirely a different version which is a mixture of Tamil and Malayalam, but uniquely Kanyakumari. similar to Like in other parts of the world, the dialectical differences between various regions are vanishing due to the influence of mass communications. So apparently are the differences between the speech patterns of the various caste groupings in Tamil Nadu. It is important to note that all forms of spoken Tamil have always been mutually intelligible. Also see Tamil dialects for dialectical variations in Iyatramizh
Kannada along with Sinhalese and Tamil communities is diglossic. Translated into the school or the classroom situation, by 'being diglossic' is meant that these communities have accepted norms of linguistic excellence, the teaching of which is the purpose of the language teaching curriculum in the school. This normative variety of language is the one that people are expected to write. It is distinct from the various spoken dialects in grammar, lexis and phonology in spite of the shared features which make them mutually comprehensible to some extent. Similar situations are known in almost all language teaching activities everywhere, but, the linguistic values associated with diglossia are different from the overtones of 'good usage' that all teachers of all languages attempt to inculcate in the learners.[24]
Using the Matched-Guise Test, Laada Bilaniuk (University of Michigan) administered surveys to 2,000 participants in Ukraine. In her article "Diglossia in Flux: Language and Ethnicity in Ukraine", Bilaniuk reports that until now, Russian has been the High language and Ukrainian the Low language. However, her data shows that diglossia in Ukraine is shifting.
With the language policy of the Ukrainian government, and the continued use of Russian in many parts of the country, there are many places (including Kiev, Odessa, the Crimea, and the eastern part of the country) where people use Russian for everyday speech but Ukrainian for official purposes and street signs. Consequently, Russian is now the Low language and Ukrainian the High, which is a reversal from their relative position before Ukraine's independence.
Yavorska Galyna M. Prescriptyvna lingvistyka yak dyskurs: Mova, kultura, vlada (Prescriptive linguistics as a discourse: Language. Culture. Power). Kiev, VIPOL, 2000. 288 p. Yavorska G. Do problemy naivnoyi linguistyky (On the problem of folk linguistics). – Lingvistychni studii. Cherkassy, 1999, #3:13–20. Yavorska G. Dejaki osoblyvosti movnykh kontaktiv blyz'kosporidnenykh mov (do kharakterystyky ukrain's'koho puryzmu) (On contacts of closely related languages: some features of Ukrainian purism). In memoriam of K. Trofymovych. L'viv, Litopys, 1998.