# Is English a pluricentric language?



## Hulalessar

By "pluricentric language" I mean a language which has more than one currently used written standard. There are various varieties of written English including American, British, Indian and Australian. The two most commonly taught outside the US and the UK are American and British English. The difference between these two standards is minimal. When comparisions are made it is the differences which get emphasised and that tends to exaggerate the overall difference. Differences in orthography are minor and do affect comprehension in the slightest. There are some minor differences in grammar many of which involve simply preferring one form to another. There are some notable differences in lexicon, but they are mostly restricted to the domestic sphere: clothing, food, parts of a car etc. Adjust any differences in orthography and a report on the economy written in _The Washington Post _is indistinguishable from one appearing in _The Times_. Differences may become more apparent in a more informal register, but not to the extent that comprehension is seriously affected.

The differences between American and British English can be contrasted with the differences between Hindi and Urdu. They are both essentially the same language, but are quite distinct in that the former is heavily influenced by Sanskrit and the latter by Persian. An equivalent would be if American English had mined only Greek for learned words and British English only Latin. Whilst it cannot be denied that standard American and British English are two different things, they are like identical twins that you can tell apart by the freckles on their face. "Plurircentric" is going to involve a continuum, but is English so far to the end of the continuum that calling it pluricentric is misleading?


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## User With No Name

Hulalessar said:


> English so far to the end of the continuum that calling it pluricentric is misleading?


At least as far as the written language is concerned, I think so, yes. Glancing over your 284-word post, I see exactly one word ("whilst") that distinguishes it as having been written by somebody who is probably not American.

But if we think about the spoken language, things are more complicated. I feel quite sure that if you and I met on a street somewhere, it wouldn't take anywhere close to 284 words for each of us to figure out where the other was from. And accent (and all the other features of spoken language) tends to be a big deal for people learning English as a foreign language. 

It's an interesting question.


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## Dymn

Well it's not like there's a gulf between the different varieties of Spanish, French or German, other languages which are classified as pluricentric. In the written form, they're mostly identical. Portuguese is another kettle of fish.

I think a pluricentric language means there are various standards used by separate communities which are more or less stable and autonomous regardless of how similar they are.

For example within Spain Spanish there are various syntactical, phonological and lexical differences but those don't constitute various standards because they're constantly under exposure of a single communicative area and are converging little by little. However LatAm and Spain are totally separate societies and the exposure to each other is little so we can state each of them (well and within Latin America each of its countries) will have a more or less firm and stable standard. There are some loans that Spain Spanish has taken from Latin America, but nothing of significance.

I think in the end any language spoken in various political entities is going to be pluricentric. By political entities I don't only mean necessarily countries because for example people at both shores of the Sénia river (separating Catalonia and Valencia, traditionally identical varieties) are starting to speak differently, those from the north adopting some of the morphology and grammar from Barcelona.


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## pollohispanizado

As far as writing goes, other than some spelling choices (colour/color; centre/center) and the odd word choice, the varieties are not very different. Of course, the more informal the writing, the more different it'll be. English grammar is so simple (non-inflected) to begin with that lexical differences are the most salient.


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## Ben Jamin

pollohispanizado said:


> . English grammar is so simple (non-inflected) to begin with that lexical differences are the most salient.


Not inflected does not mean simple!


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## pollohispanizado

Ben Jamin said:


> Not inflected does not mean simple!


They are not the same, which is why I put both.


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## elroy

User With No Name said:


> Glancing over your 284-word post, I see exactly one word ("whilst") that distinguishes it as having been written by somebody who is probably not American.


 That, and "emphasised."


pollohispanizado said:


> English grammar is so simple (non-inflected) to begin with that lexical differences are the most salient.


 I'm sorry, I don't follow the argument here.  Whether or not English grammar is "simple" or not, there could (hypothetically) be many grammatical differences between the two varieties; there could be more of them than lexical differences; and they could be more salient than lexical differences.  The "simplicity" of English grammar has nothing to do with this. 

In any event, I agree with Dymn.  For a language to be pluricentric, there don't need to be many differences between different varieties.  That's not what pluricentricity  is about.


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## Hulalessar

On Googling I find that the consensus seems to be that "whilst" is mainly UK and dated or formal. I use the word quite a lot. It is probably a hangover from spending 30 years doing legal work. I hasten to add that I was in the forefront of those advocating the avoidance of archaisms in legal documents.

Whilst noting the observations on spoken language, none of which I dispute, I want to home in on _written _standards because the relationship between any given written standard and its corresponding spoken standard (if it has one) varies considerably from place to place. However many spoken varieties there are of a language is not relevant to the question of whether the written language _is_ pluricentric, though it may be relevant in answering the question of how it _became _pluricentric.

Russian is a clear case of a language which is not pluricentric. Hindi/Urdu and Bahasa Malaysia/Bahasa Indonesia are clear cases of pluricentricity. Other cases may be on a continuum between these extremes. Spanish is an interesting case. Unless I have missed something, it is an admirable example of international co-operation (operating through the _Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española)_ producing a result which recognises the essential unity of the language but accepts that all regional variations are equally valid.

No such consensus is likely to emerge for English for the simple reason that there are no official academies which set out to regulate the language. Cases such as Hindi/Urdu and Bahasa Malaysia/Bahasa Indonesia have arisen for mainly nationalistic reasons. Apart from the fact that the differences between written varieties are minimal, I think I just feel uncomfortable with English being included in a class with them when the different varieties of written English have simply emerged without any agenda behind them.


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## elroy

Hulalessar said:


> "whilst" is mainly UK and dated or formal


 In my experience, "whilst" is not dated or formal in the UK; it's widely used in all kinds of registers.  In the US, it is definitely dated.  I wouldn't even classify it as "formal" because that implies it's used in modern US English, and my experience is that it's not.  Even legal documents use "while." 


Hulalessar said:


> I just feel uncomfortable with English being included in a class with them when the different varieties of written English have simply emerged without any agenda behind them.


 That's also not part of the definition of pluricentricity.  However they arose, the fact of the matter is that today, there are different standards for different varieties.


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## User With No Name

Hulalessar said:


> Unless I have missed something, it is an admirable example of international co-operation (operating through the _Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española)_ producing a result which recognises the essential unity of the language but accepts that all regional variations are equally valid.


I think this is generally true today (although I think that even today many Latin Americans would argue that Spain tends to be "first among equals.") But in any case, this relative equality is a recent thing. A couple of generations ago, it was definitely Spain's way or the highway.

(As an aside, my spell checker does not approve of your "recognises.")


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## Hulalessar

elroy said:


> That's also not part of the definition of pluricentricity.  However they arose, the fact of the matter is that today, there are different standards for different varieties.



Agreed. However, "pluricentric" is a term of sociolinguistics. If in order to determine whether a language is pluricentric you only ask whether it has two or more written varieties which look basically the same, but nevertheless exhibit some differences, then you are engaging in descriptive linguistics without any sociohistorical aspects being involved. There will be a continuum one end of which will trails off into monocentric and the other which leads into the tricky territory of whether or not you are dealing with two or more languages - an area which descriptive linguistics tends to shy away from. If you decide where the cut off points are at each end you are left with a number of languages you designate pluricentric. You then have to stand back and ask if the exercise has produced an interesting or useful result. Is there a risk that it will not be appreciated that the differences may involve a significant matter of degree? Have you created a class whose members are the equivalent of something like "things that fly"?


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## Hulalessar

User With No Name said:


> I think this is generally true today (although I think that even today many Latin Americans would argue that Spain tends to be "first among equals." But in any case, this relative equality is a recent thing. A couple of generations ago, it was definitely Spain's way or the highway.



That is pretty much what I have always imagined to be the case.

I incidentally think that the Spanish Academy ought to abandon its motto _Limpia, fija y da esplendor_ ("Cleans, fixes and gives splendour")


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## Pedro y La Torre

There are two minimally different standards. If that's "pluricentricity", so be it. There are so many variants and dialects in English that I wouldn't even know where to start. The differences between different dialects of British English (including Hiberno-English) can be vast but they are still grouped under one header, probably because of the formal written standard. The differences between Canadian English and American English appear to be concentrated in the formal written standard only (CanE generally relies on British spelling) for once you start to look at Canadian English itself, there are so many differences in the way a Newfoundlander speaks as compared to someone in B.C. that one wouldn't know where to start here either.

Personally I view English as one language with some minor written and grammatical variations but with extreme differences in accent (none of which impedes mutual intelligibility save at the very extremes).


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## Penyafort

In Spanish, works by the Real Academia Española and now the ASALE (the RAE in collaboration with the other 22 Academies) are regarded as prescriptive.

In Catalan, a pluricentric language, works by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans are regarded as prescriptive in general, while works by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua are regarded as prescriptive mainly for Valencian.

This means that dictionaries, grammars, books about spelling and doubts, published by those institutions are seen as prescriptive and official.

How can we know what is prescriptive and official in the case of English? Is it all determined by the main dictionaries and the main media? Without an official standard, it is hard to tell if a language is 'officially' pluricentric, even if we know it is in practice.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Penyafort said:


> In Spanish, works by the Real Academia Española and now the ASALE (the RAE in collaboration with the other 22 Academies) are regarded as prescriptive.
> 
> In Catalan, a pluricentric language, works by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans are regarded as prescriptive in general, while works by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua are regarded as prescriptive mainly for Valencian.
> 
> This means that dictionaries, grammars, books about spelling and doubts, published by those institutions are seen as prescriptive and official.
> 
> How can we know what is prescriptive and official in the case of English? Is it all determined by the main dictionaries and the main media? Without an official standard, it is hard to tell if a language is 'officially' pluricentric, even if we know it is in practice.



The main dictionaries as well as usage favoured in government and media generally hold sway.


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## Hulalessar

Penyafort said:


> In Spanish, works by the Real Academia Española and now the ASALE (the RAE in collaboration with the other 22 Academies) are regarded as prescriptive.



It is certainly the case in Spain that schools, government departments, the press and publishing houses follow the orthographic rules promulgated by the RAE. I am not quite so sure they follow all the grammar rules, only most of them.



Penyafort said:


> In Catalan, a pluricentric language, works by the Institut d'Estudis Catalans are regarded as prescriptive in general, while works by the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua are regarded as prescriptive mainly for Valencian.



The very existence of the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, and accordingly a different set of norms, can be attributed in large measure to the overriding consideration that Valencia does not wish to come under the hegemony of Barcelona. According to Max W. Wheeler, (Max Woodfield Wheeler - Viquipèdia, l'enciclopèdia lliure): "The language situation in the Community of Valencia is extremely complex, politically, culturally and geographically" so probably wise not to elaborate.



Penyafort said:


> How can we know what is prescriptive and official in the case of English? Is it all determined by the main dictionaries and the main media? Without an official standard, it is hard to tell if a language is 'officially' pluricentric, even if we know it is in practice.



"Official" is a bit of a tricky word in this context. Rather you have to distinguish between _de facto_ and_ de jure_. English is _de facto_ an official language of both the US and the UK, though curiously it is _de jure_ an official langage in Wales. The precise status is though not really relevant to determining whether a language is pluricentric.


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## Pedro y La Torre

Hulalessar said:


> "Official" is a bit of a tricky word in this context. Rather you have to distinguish between _de facto_ and_ de jure_. English is _de facto_ an official language of both the US and the UK, though curiously it is _de jure_ an official langage in Wales. The precise status is though not really relevant to determining whether a language is pluricentric.



It is also an "official" language in the Republic of Ireland. But it's legal standing doesn't reflect reality; it is the "second official language" of the Irish Republic but is the native language of 95% of the population.


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## Penyafort

Pedro y La Torre said:


> The main dictionaries as well as usage favoured in government and media generally hold sway.



But the point is, how does one attribute _authority _to this or that dictionary, these or those media, without being subjective? Without 'official' prescription of a certain usage, one just may go with the flow, so to speak. Even grammars by experts then may lack authority in front of what is said on the media...



Hulalessar said:


> The very existence of the Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua, and accordingly a different set of norms, can be attributed in large measure to the overriding consideration that Valencia does not wish to come under the hegemony of Barcelona.



Neither do Mexico with regard to Madrid, New York with regard to London, Sao Paulo with regard to Lisbon, etc. So something quite understandable too for Valencia because 1) it's the second main Catalan-speaking area in the world, 2) the variety used there isWestern instead of Eastern, 3) there has been an important historical influence of Aragonese on it, which is not present in Central Catalan.

Yet the Valencian Academy, just like the University of the Balearic Islands, are autonomous authorities that clearly follow a unitarian approach of the language. Which means that they do not diverge from the IEC norm, just adopt or prioritize those variations that best apply in the Valencian and Insular varieties. (They even accepted the recent simplification of diacritical marks, the most radical change in the Catalan spelling in a hundred years) It is a more unitarian approach than that of the different Portuguese varieties. In fact, it's an approach similar to the unitarian one of the Spanish varieties, only that there is a more explicit implementation of the local differences in Valencia due to historical and extralinguistic reasons. 



Hulalessar said:


> "Official" is a bit of a tricky word in this context. Rather you have to distinguish between _de facto_ and_ de jure_. English is _de facto_ an official language of both the US and the UK, though curiously it is _de jure_ an official langage in Wales. The precise status is though not really relevant to determining whether a language is pluricentric.



But I was not referring to whether the language is de jure official or not. I was talking about the existence of official institutions regulating the language, whose works are seen as prescriptive in the sense that their rules are implemented in formal usage by the government, the media and educational institutions (regardless of the fact that several media and institutions may also have their own style codes too). What I meant, regarding the topic, is that without a clear authority, it is hard to tell what is officially accepted as standard, and therefore hard to tell whether a language is 'officially' pluricentric, even if one perceives it as such (as it's the case for English).


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