Abstract
This paper argues that the Dutch sociolinguistic situation in the 17th and 18th centuries should be analyzed as diaglossic, that is, involving a wide spectrum of variation in between localized spoken dialects and the supposed written standard. In fact, multiple instances of norm selection for writing render this diaglossic situation even more complex. The paper shows that multiple norm selection even occurred in cases when a strict and simple norm was selected early on, that is, in the late 16th–early 17th century. The case study is based on the Letters as Loot Corpus comprising private letters from the 1660s–1670s and the 1770s–1780s and focuses on the object form of the 1st person singular personal pronoun, namely,mijormijn. Despite the early selection ofmij, some language users in the late 17th and 18th century adoptedmijnin writing. The analysis shows a normative split in written Dutch of the time, with most language users either converging to or diverging from the supposed standard formmij.*
Highlights
The Dutch language in the 17th and 18th centuries is often described in terms of selection and codification as part of the ongoing standardization© Society for Germanic Linguistics
Recent studies have shown that the sociolinguistic situation was more complex in that written sources of the period and in particular ego-documents, such as private letters, display considerable regional, social, and individual variation (Howell 2006, Goss & Howell 2006, Nobels 2013, Simons 2013, Rutten & van der Wal 2014, Krogull 2018)
Instead of focusing on the supposed standard, the linguistic situation in the 17th and 18th centuries can more aptly be described in terms of DIAGLOSSIA, indicating a wide spectrum of variation in between localized spoken dialects on the one hand and the supposed standard found in published texts and metalinguistic discourse on the other (Rutten 2016a)
Summary
This paper argues that the Dutch sociolinguistic situation in the 17th and 18th centuries should be analyzed as diaglossic, that is, involving a wide spectrum of variation in between localized spoken dialects and the supposed written standard. Multiple instances of norm selection for writing render this diaglossic situation even more complex. The paper shows that multiple norm selection even occurred in cases when a strict and simple norm was selected early on, that is, in the late 16th– early 17th century. Despite the early selection of mij, some language users in the late 17th and 18th century adopted mijn in writing. The analysis shows a normative split in written Dutch of the time, with most language users either converging to or diverging from the supposed standard form mij.*
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