Standard Average European

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Standard Average European (SAE) is a concept introduced in 1939 by American linguist Benjamin Whorf to group the modern Indo-European languages of Europe with shared common features. [1] Whorf argued that the SAE languages were characterized by a number of similarities, including syntax and grammar, vocabulary and its use, as well as the relationship between contrasting words and their origins, idioms, and word order, which all made them stand out from many other language groups around the world which do not share these similarities, in essence creating a continental sprachbund. His intention was to argue that the disproportionate amount of SAE-specific knowledge in linguistics created a substantial SAE-centric bias, leading to generalization errors, such as mistaking linguistic features idiosyncratic to the SAE language group for universal tendencies.

Contents

Whorf contrasted what he called the SAE tense system (which contrasts past, present and future tenses) with that of the Hopi language of North America, which Whorf analyzed as being based on a distinction not of tense, but on things that have in fact occurred (a realis mood encompassing SAE past and present) compared to things that have asyet not occurred, but which may or may not occur in the future (irrealis mood). The accuracy of Whorf's analysis of Hopi tense later became a point of controversy in linguistics.

Overview

Whorf likely considered Romance and West Germanic to form the core of the SAE, i.e. the literary languages of Europe which have seen substantial cultural influence from Latin during the medieval period. The North Germanic and Balto-Slavic languages tend to be more peripheral members.

Alexander Gode, who was instrumental in the development of Interlingua, characterized it as "Standard Average European". [2] The Romance, Germanic, and Slavic control languages of Interlingua are reflective of the language groups most often included in the SAE Sprachbund.

However, out of all the languages of Europe, only French and German have all the criteria that constitute "Standard Average European", i.e. these two are the "most European" languages. Incidentally, France and West Germany were also both founding members of the European Union and its predecessors and their languages are so-called "working languages of the EU" (besides English)

As a Sprachbund

According to Haspelmath (2001), the SAE languages form a Sprachbund characterized by the following features, sometimes called "euroversals" by analogy with linguistic universals: [3]

Besides these features, which are uncommon outside Europe and thus useful for defining the SAE area, Haspelmath (2001) lists further features characteristic of European languages (but also found elsewhere):

There is also a broad agreement in the following parameters (not listed in Haspelmath 2001):[ citation needed ]

The Sprachbund defined this way consists of the following languages: [3]

The Balkan sprachbund is thus included as a subset of the larger SAE, while Baltic Eastern Europe is a coordinate member.

Not all the languages listed above show all the listed features, so membership in SAE can be described as gradient. Based on nine of the above-mentioned common features, Haspelmath regards French and German as forming the nucleus of the Sprachbund, surrounded by a core formed by English, the other Romance languages, the Nordic languages, and the Western and Southern Slavic languages. Hungarian, the Baltic languages, the Eastern Slavic languages, and the Finnic languages form more peripheral groups. [4] All languages identified by Haspelmath as core SAE are Indo-European languages, except Hungarian and the Finnic languages. However, not all Indo-European languages are SAE languages: the Celtic, Armenian, and Indo-Iranian languages remain outside the SAE Sprachbund. [3]

The Standard Average European Sprachbund is most likely the result of ongoing language contact in the time of the Migration Period [3] and later, continuing during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.[ citation needed ] Inheritance of the SAE features from Proto-Indo-European can be ruled out because Proto-Indo-European, as currently reconstructed, lacked most of the SAE features. [4] Furthermore, in some cases younger forms of a language do have an SAE feature which attested older forms lack; for example, Latin does not have a periphrastic perfect, but modern Romance languages such as Spanish and French do. Much of the area of SAE was at various times part of the Roman Empire or the vague concept of a political entity called Christendom and thus affected by the religious, political and ideological discourse of these entities and their respective sphere of influence. This discourse and long distance communication among elites generally took place in one of the linguas francas of the era – Koine Greek and Classical Latin in Late Antiquity, Medieval Latin in the Middle Ages and finally in the modern era Modern Latin gradually being replaced by vernaculars such as modern French, German and – in the 20th and 21st century – increasingly English. These languages have left learned borrowings (also known as inkhorn terms) in the prestige variants of almost all European languages and continue to provide loanwords, calques and idioms.

See also

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References

  1. "The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language", published in (1941), Language, Culture, and Personality: Essays in Memory of Edward Sapir Edited by Leslie Spier, A. Irving Hallowell, Stanley S. Newman. Menasha, Wisconsin: Sapir Memorial Publication Fund. pp 75–93.
    Reprinted in (1956), Language, Thought and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamins Lee Whorf. Edited by John B. Carroll. Cambridge, Mass.: The M.I.T. Press. pp. 134–159.
    Quotation is Whorf (1941:77–78) and (1956:138).
    The work began to assume the character of a comparison between Hopi and western European languages. It also became evident that even the grammar of Hopi bore a relation to Hopi culture, and the grammar of European tongues to our own "Western" or "European" culture. And it appeared that the interrelation brought in those large subsummations of experience by language, such as our own terms "time," "space," "substance," and "matter." Since, with respect to the traits compared, there is little difference between English, French, German, or other European languages with the 'possible' (but doubtful) exception of Balto-Slavic and non-Indo-European, I have lumped these languages into one group called SAE, or "Standard Average European."
    (quotation pp. 77–78) and as Whorf, B. L.
  2. Alexander Gode, Ph.D. "Manifesto de Interlingua" (PDF) (in Interlingua). Retrieved February 10, 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Haspelmath (2001)
  4. 1 2 Haspelmath, Martin, 1998. How young is Standard Average European? Language Sciences.

Bibliography