Variant tags for sl-rozaj: standardized Resian

[han.steenwijk at unipd.it]

On Mer, 11 Luglio 2007 4:41 pm, CE Whitehead wrote:
> han.steenwijk at unipd.it
> Tue Jul 10 13:48:12 CEST 2007
>
> wrote:
>
>>On several occasions, people chose not to use Standard Resian, preferring
>>the standardized form of their local dialect. It has even been proposed
>> to
>>teach all four major local dialects in their standardized form at school.
>
>>Han
>
> Thanks for info.
>
> So, how often is Standard Resian used?  Do you have any information?  You
> mentioned that several
> people had adopted the orthography in their writing and that it was also
> adopted by some government bodies
> (I suppose the latter prefer its neutrality and are glad to have a single
> form for all four dialects!)

Standard Resian is especially used by younger authors (say, up to 35/40
years of age), whereas older authors, who are used to their own way of
writing, are generally unwilling to adopt the new standard. These younger
authors converge on two institutions, the cultural association "Rozajanski
Dum" and the Prealpi Giulie National Park.

As to numbers, we are dealing here with a tiny minority language (about
1200 speakers), so the absolute number of authors is small, I would say 10
to 15, out of which half of them use the new standard.

The new standard exists then alongside other, individual orthographies.
The most prolific author who uses his own individual orthography is at the
moment Sergio Chinese. We will meet him in the next round of requests. As
there are no signs that these individual orthographies are spreading to
other authors, I would refrain form requesting orthography subtags for
these as well. They can be most appropiately tagged with private use
subtags.

The local authorities (i.e. the municipality of Resia) display an
ambiguous position. The mayor in office from 2000 up until now once
rejected an offer by the province to have bilingual direction signs as
well, because agreement could not be reached on the orthography to be
used. On the other hand, he financed the preparation and publication of
"Piccolo dizionario ortografico resiano".

My guess is that he does not love the new standard, but that he has no
viable alternative to turn to. And he does need Standard Resian in order
to obtain recognition for the minority with the higher authorities.

So much for village politics.

>
>
> Also is there a spoken form for this orthography?  I gather not.

No, there is not, and there is not intended to be.

Han

>
>
> Just curious.
>
> I think the subtag will be especially useful to the government then, and
> to
> some writers who do not want to write in what is just their own local
> dialect.
>
> --C. E. Whitehead
> cewcathar at hotmail.com
>
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>


--
Prof. Han Steenwijk
Cattedra di Lingua e Letteratura Slovena
Universita' di Padova
Dipartimento di Lingue e Letterature Anglo-Germaniche e Slave
Sezione di Slavistica
Via Beldomandi, 1
I-35139 Padova

tel. 049 8278669
fax. 049 8278679