Abstract
In this article we examine, from a predominantly sociolinguistic perspective, the writing systems created throughout time for the graphic rendering of the variety of Romanian spoken by the Vlachs of Eastern Serbia. We especially investigate what influences the choice of a script (Latin or Cyrillic), of orthographic conventions and of a writing system, and how this choice correlates with the ideological attitude (reintegrationist or independentist) of the proponents. To this end, we analyse the writing systems used for rendering the vernacular in “Vorba noastră”, the first publication in the local variety (1945–1948), and the systems put forward in the last 20 years by the members of the community engaged in political and linguistic debates (Paun Es Durlić, Dragomir Dragić, Slavoljub Gacović, Ljubiša lu Boža Kići, the “Gergina” Association). The analysis and the comparison of the systems attest to the importance of the ideological, social and political factors in creating and imposing an orthography for an unwritten idiom.
Highlights
Gacović, Ljubiša lu Boža Kići, the “Gergina” Association)
The current paper addressed, from a sociolinguistic perspective, the problems of creating an orthography for an unwritten idiom
1940s, it is the last 20 years that stand out by the number and significance of attempts at graphically rendering the variety of Romanian spoken in Eastern Serbia
Summary
Creating, imposing or reforming a writing system for an idiom is never a neutral, aseptic and conflictfree enterprise. Note that they are not based on a scientific investigation of the linguistic facts, but are cultural products which (re)present the Haitian postcolonial identity in different ways (closer or further from the French one), according to certain social and political interests of the competing groups and ideologies This priority given to social, political or religious facts over purely linguistic, functional ones is well documented for the graphic systems created by and for diverse communities and idioms, such as Hmong (Eira, 1998), Selsq (Priestly, 1992), Guernesiais (Sallabank, 2002). The term Ausbau, warns Kloss (1967, p. 33), cannot be applied to spoken languages, in a pre-literary stage; the whole concept implies the existence of a written variant and often the creation of distinct graphical codes
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