Codification in the shadow of standards: ideologies in early nineteenth-century metalinguistic texts on Luxembourgish

Abstract

ABSTRACT Inspired by the ideological and multilingual turn in ‘third wave’ language standardisation studies (McLelland 2020, Walsh 2021), this paper demonstrates the value of these perspectives for historical analysis by exploring the implications of language ideologies for the early codification of Luxembourgish. As a ‘late’ standardised language (Vogl 2012), Luxembourgish provides a valuable case study for evaluating how existing powerful standard language regimes (Gal 2006) ideologically influence the discursive construction of a ‘late’ standard language, especially in multilingual borderlands. Ideologies of linguistic differentiation (Irvine & Gal 2000; Gal & Irvine 2019) are inherent in the standardisation process of Luxembourgish which sits between the Romance and Germanic language spheres of influence. The analysis focuses on metadiscourses of three early texts on Luxembourgish (Meyer 1829, Meyer & Gloden 1845, De la Fontaine 1855) in their discussions and proposals for codification. The diverse labelling of Luxembourgish in the texts forms part of a metadiscourse of differentiation and hierarchical contrast. Other core emergent discourses foreground affinities with Standard French and Standard German respectively but in differing ways that evoke the ideological notion of erasure. The final part of the analysis identifies further discourses that, in contrast, frame Luxembourgish as unique and different from other languages.