Literary language
Literary language is the register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. It may be the standardized variety of a language. It can sometimes differ noticeably from the various spoken lects, but the difference between literary and non-literary forms is greater in some languages than in others. If there is a strong divergence between a written form and the spoken vernacular, the language is said to exhibit diglossia.
The understanding of the term differs from one linguistic tradition to another and is dependent on the terminological conventions adopted.
Literary English
For much of its history, there has been a distinction in the English language between an elevated literary language and a colloquial or vernacular language. After the Norman conquest of England, for instance, Latin and French displaced English as the official and literary languages, and standardized literary English did not emerge until the end of the Middle Ages. At this time and into the Renaissance, the practice of aureation was an important part of the reclamation of status for the English language, and many historically aureate terms are now part of general common usage. Modern English no longer has quite the same distinction between literary and colloquial registers.English has been used as a literary language in countries that were formerly part of the British Empire, for instance in India up to the present day, Malaysia in the early 20th century and Nigeria, where English remains the official language.
Written in Early Modern English, the King James Bible and works by William Shakespeare from the 17th century are defined as prototype mediums of literary English and are taught in advanced English classes. Furthermore, many literary words that are used today are found in abundance in the works of Shakespeare and as well as in King James Bible, hence the literary importance of early modern English in contemporary English literature and English studies.
Other languages
Arabic
is the contemporary literary and standard register of Classical Arabic used in writing across all Arabic-speaking countries and any governing body with Arabic as an official language. Many western scholars distinguish two varieties: the Classical Arabic of the Qur'an and early Islamic literature; and Modern Standard Arabic, the standard language in use today. The modern standard language is closely based on the Classical language, and most Arabs consider the two varieties to be two registers of the same language. Literary Arabic or classical Arabic is the official language of all Arab countries and is the only form of Arabic taught in schools at all stages.The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia—the use of two distinct varieties of the same language, usually in different social contexts. Educated Arabic speakers are usually able to communicate in MSA in formal situations. This diglossic situation facilitates code-switching in which a speaker switches back and forth between the two varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. In instances in which highly educated Arabic-speakers of different nationalities engage in conversation but find their dialects mutually unintelligible, they are able to code switch into MSA for the sake of communication.
Aramaic
The Aramaic language has been diglossic for much of its history, with many different literary standards serving as the "high" liturgical languages, including Syriac language, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Samaritan Aramaic language and Mandaic language, while the vernacular Neo-Aramaic languages serve as the vernacular language spoken by the common people like Northeastern Neo-Aramaic, Western Neo-Aramaic, Northeastern Neo-Aramaic, Central Neo-Aramaic, Neo-Mandaic, Hulaulá language, Lishana Deni, Lishanid Noshan, Lishán Didán, Betanure Jewish Neo-Aramaic, and Barzani Jewish Neo-Aramaic.Armenian
The Armenian language was a diglossic language for much of its history, with Classical Armenian serving as the "high" literary standard and liturgical language, and the Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian dialects serving as the vernacular language of the Armenian people. Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian were eventually standardized into their own literary forms.Bengali
Standard Bengali has two forms:- Chôlitôbhasha, the vernacular standard based on the elite speech of Kolkata.
- Shadhubhasha, the literary standard, which employs more Sanskritized vocabulary and longer prefixes and suffixes.
Chinese
Literary Chinese is the form of written Chinese used from the end of the Han dynasty to the early 20th century. Literary Chinese continually diverged from Classical Chinese, as the dialects of China became more disparate and as the classical written language became less representative of the spoken language. At the same time, Literary Chinese was based largely upon the Classical Chinese, and writers frequently borrowed from the classical language into their literary writings. Literary Chinese therefore shows a great deal of similarity to Classical Chinese, even though the similarity decreased over the centuries.Starting from early 20th century, written vernacular Chinese became the literary standard. This is mostly aligned with a standardized form of Mandarin Chinese, which however means there exists considerable divergence between written vernacular Chinese and other Chinese variants like Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hokkien and Sichuanese. Some of these variants have their own literary form, but none of them are currently used in official formal registers, although they may be used in legal transcription, and in certain media and entertainment settings.
Finnish
The Finnish language has a literary variant, literary Finnish, and a spoken variant, spoken Finnish. Both are considered a form of non-dialectal standard language, and are used throughout the country. Literary Finnish is a consciously created fusion of dialects for use as a literary language, which is rarely spoken at all, being confined to writing and official speeches.Georgian
The Georgian language has a literary liturgical form, the Old Georgian language, while the vernacular spoken varieties are the Georgian dialects and other related Kartvelian languages like Svan language, Mingrelian language, and Laz language.German
differentiates between Hochdeutsch/''Standarddeutsch and Umgangssprache. Amongst the differences are the regular use of the genitive case and the simple past tense Präteritum in written language. In vernacular German, genitive phrases are frequently replaced with a construction of "von" + dative object — comparable to English "the dog's tail" vs. "the tail of the dog". Likewise, the Präteritum can be substituted with the perfect to a certain degree. The preterite and genitive cases are still used in daily language, if rarely. Their use in vernacular can depend on the regional dialect and education of the speaker. People of higher education use the genitive more regularly in their casual speech, and the use of perfect instead of Präteritum is especially common in southern Germany, where the Präteritum is considered somewhat declamatory. The German Konjunktiv I / II is also used more often in written form, and is replaced by the conditional in spoken language, although in some southern German dialects the Konjunktiv II'' is used more often. Generally there is a continuum between more dialectical varieties and more standard varieties in German, while colloquial German nonetheless tends to increase analytic elements at the expense of synthetic elements.Greek
From the early nineteenth century until the mid-20th century, Katharevousa, a form of Greek, was used for literary purposes. In later years, Katharevousa was used only for official and formal purposes while Dimotiki, 'demotic' or popular Greek, was the daily language. This created a diglossic situation until in 1976, Dimotiki was made the official language.Hebrew
During the revival of the Hebrew language, spoken and literary Hebrew were revived separately, causing a dispersion between the two. The dispersion started to narrow sometime after the two movements merged, but substantial differences between the two still exist.Irish and Scottish Gaelic
, also called Classical Gaelic or Classical Irish was a shared literary form of Gaelic that was in use by poets in Scotland and Ireland from the 13th century to the 18th century.Before that time, the vernacular dialects of Ireland and Scotland were considered to belong to a single language, and in the late 12th century a highly formalized standard variant of that language was created for the use in Irish bardic poetry. The standard was created by medieval Gaelic poets based on the vernacular usage of the late 12th century and allowed a lot of dialectal forms that existed at that point in time, but was kept conservative and was taught virtually unchanged throughout later centuries. The grammar and metrical rules were described in a series of grammatical tracts and linguistic poems used for teaching in bardic schools.
Italian
evolved as a literary language, based principally on the Tuscan dialect, in part due to the prestige enjoyed by Florentine authors like Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, and Francesco Guicciardini. Different languages were spoken throughout Italy, almost all of which were Romance languages which had developed in every region, due to the political and cultural fragmentation of the peninsula.Now, it is the standard language of Italy, due to modern media and education, and many of Italy's other languages and dialects are dying out.