Digraphia

A digraphic Latin/Cyrillic street sign in Gaboš, Croatia

In sociolinguistics, digraphia refers to the use of more than one writing system for the same language.[1] Synchronic digraphia is the coexistence of two or more writing systems for the same language, while diachronic digraphia (or sequential digraphia) is the replacement of one writing system by another for a particular language.[2]

Hindustani, with an Urdu literary standard written in Urdu alphabet and a Hindi standard written in Devanagari, is one of the 'textbook examples'[3] of synchronic digraphia, cases where writing systems are used contemporaneously. An example of diachronic digraphia, where one writing system replaces another, occurs in the case of Turkish, for which the traditional Arabic writing system was replaced with a Latin-based system in 1928.[4][5]

Digraphia has implications in language planning, language policy, and language ideology.

  1. ^ Dale, Ian R.H. (1980). "Digraphia". International Journal of the Sociology of Language. 1980 (26): 5–13. doi:10.1515/ijsl.1980.26.5.
  2. ^ Cheung, Yat-Shing (1992). "The form and meaning of digraphia: the case of Chinese". In K. Bolton; H. Kwok (eds.). Sociolinguistics Today: International Perspectives. London: Routledge.
  3. ^ Ahmad, Rizwan (June 2011). "Urdu in Devanagari: Shifting orthographic practices and Muslim identity in Delhi". Language in Society. 40 (3): 259–284. doi:10.1017/S0047404511000182. hdl:10576/10736. ISSN 0047-4045. S2CID 55975387.
  4. ^ Aytürk, İlker (2008). "The First Episode of Language Reform in Republican Turkey: The Language Council from 1926 to 1931". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 18 (3): 281. doi:10.1017/S1356186308008511. hdl:11693/49487. ISSN 1356-1863. JSTOR 27755954. S2CID 162474551.
  5. ^ "Tūrk Harflerinin Kabul ve Tatbiki Hakkında Kanun" (PDF) (in Turkish).

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