Sociolinguistica: language and Religion (original) (raw)
Related papers
Via Latgalica, 2010
This article looks at Latgalian from a perspective of a classification of languages. It starts by discussing relevant terms relating to sociolinguistic language types. It argues that Latgalian and its speakers show considerable similarities with many languages in Europe which are considered to be regional languages – hence, also Latgalian should be classified as such. In a second part, the article uses sociolinguistic data to indicate that the perceptions of speakers confirm this classification. Therefore, Latgalian should also officially be treated with the respect that other regional languages in Europe enjoy.
Some Remarks on Linguistic Aspects of Religion
Religion is vitally bound to language in various and intricate ways. On the most obvious level, a number of religions have a sacred language in which their sacred writings are recorded or in which religious rites are performed. The linguistic dimension of religion, however, extends far beyond the use of a particular natural language in liturgical contexts and it is the extent of this dimension that this paper attempts to outline (though, because of the vastness of the problem involved on the one hand and the unrelenting space limitations on the other, the following remarks shall be confined mostly to the Christian religion and based on predominantly Polish language data). The areas dicussed include the spelling convention, lexis and phraseology, grammar, imagery and the concept of "religiolect."
Migration is one of the key factors of modern social processes. In Russia, external immigration makes it possible to compensate for the natural decline of the population and provide the economy with the necessary workforce. Russia's participation in integration associations in the post-Soviet space is added to the above-mentioned factors. In the structure of external migration, labour migration takes absolute priority. Most of those who come to work are from the Muslim population. Demographic trends characteristic of this population allow us to make predictions about a significant increase in their presence and influence in the future on changes in the ethno-religious composition of the population of Russian regions. A number of researchers talk about the emergence of migrant enclaves. The high religiosity of Muslim migrants suggests that the educational influence of the Russian Muslim clergy could be an effective means for their interculturation. The lack of effective adaptation and interculturation leads to an increase in inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions. The results of the surveys reflect the growth of negative ratings in the attitude of Russians to migrants. Two key conclusions: the influence of the Muslim clergy, focused on the cultivation of national identity, could be an effective way to adapt and prevent the trends of voluntary segregation of migrant communities; but so far, the role of religious organizations in the adaptation of migrants is not significant.
ETHNO-RELIGIOUS MINORITY IN THE BORDERLAND: THE CASE OF LATGALIAN OLD BELIEVERS (LATVIA)
Trames. Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences 24(4): 519-531, 2020
Territorially scattered or dispersed minorities have been representing certain realities of political geography, therefore the risk of ethnic or religious conflicts due to rapid globalization and cosmopolitanism tendencies demands a search for new conflict-reducing mechanisms. The Old Believers' community of Latvia, an ethnic-denominational group within the Russian ethnos, presents a sustainable form of the country's political, ethnic, cultural, and religious landscape. Latgale, the southeastern part of Latvia, has the greatest Old Believers' group residing outside Russia. The aim of the research is to investigate the Old Believers' community in Latgale region as a model for settling ethnic conflicts, focusing on the exploration of their life experience and oral testimonies by applying cultural-historical, biographical, descriptive methods and qualitative data analysis.
Language and religion in Central Ukraine
International Journal of the Sociology of Language
This article investigates the relationship between linguistic preferences, religiousness and religious denomination in Central Ukraine. On the one hand, the Ukrainian linguistic situation is characterized by the co-existence of Ukrainian, Russian and substandard forms of Ukrainian Russian mixed speech, on the other hand, the Orthodoxy in Ukraine is split into different denominations. In Central Ukraine, most notably the conflict between the Kyїv and the Moscow Patriarchate is relevant. For both linguistic and religious affiliation, a correlation with political preferences has been postulated, and, in a similar vein, a connection between religious denomination and the degree of religiousness on the one hand, and different aspects of linguistic affiliation, i. e. language usage and native language, as well as attitudes toward substandard speech on the other hand. Based on field work from 2014, we show that there is no preference for the Russian language among members of the Moscow Pat...
Language or Dialect?: The Politicisation of Language in Central and Eastern Europe
Tropos, 2014
Language formed the ideological foundation of many national movements in Central and Eastern Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The decision on whether a people spoke a language or a dialect was not based on arguments about linguistic proximity or distance, but rather on political definitions of who constituted the ethno-linguistic nation. This led to languages being combined or split in accordance with nation-building projects. Often overlooked is the impact of this politicisation of language on sub-national and regional dialects, which are today not accorded the status of languages. This paper focuses on the case study of Latgalian, which is used as a means of everyday communication by 150,000-200,000 people in eastern Latvia. It is officially classified as a ‘historical variety’ and ‘dialect’ of Latvian, but linguists have made the case for it being a separate language. The debate over the distance and proximity of languages/dialects is especially pronounced in this ‘peripheral’ (from the perspective of Riga) and highly multi-ethnic region that borders Belarus, Lithuania, and Russia.
Sacred Language in the Borderlands: Discussions on the Language of Belarusian Catholicism
Nationalities papers, 2022
This article considers in detail the choosing of a language for the liturgy and sermons in Roman Catholic parishes in Belarus. The choice of the Belarusian language is part of a deliberate nation-building policy by the Catholic Church. Moreover, a whole network of local peculiarities, historical stereotypes, and political attitudes is concealed beneath the unified cover of a preference for the use of the Belarusian language. Based on interviews with clergy and religious activists, the article shows that the Roman Catholic Church repeatedly works out compromise solutions that allow it to adapt to the pressures of the state and believers going through a process of contradictory and conflicting nation-building.
"Language contact phenomena in three Aljamiado texts: Religion as a sociolinguistic factor"
eHumanista: Places of Encounter: Language, Culture, and Religious Identity in Medieval Iberia, 2019
Aljamiado literature, composed in Romance with Arabic writing by Moriscos, helps us to study language contact between Arabic and Romance in the Iberian Peninsula between the 14th and 16th centuries. Three pieces in particular from Manuscript 4953 of the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Spain and transcribed by Ottmar Hegyi in Cinco leyendas y otros relatos moriscos (1981) permit a view on how the Moriscos continued to practice Islam. This paper explores how religion acts as a sociolinguistic factor in motivating language contact and lexical transfer.