Autonomous language
An
autonomous language or variety is usually a
standard language that has its own established norms, as opposed to a
heteronomous variety.
An autonomous language will usually have grammar books, dictionaries and literature written in it. Autonomy is largely a
sociopolitical construct rather than a result of specific
linguistic differences.
Examples of languages which have previously been considered to be autonomous, but are now generally considered
heteronomous are: the
Scots language, now thought of as a
dialect of
English,
Provençal, now generally thought of as a dialect of
French, and
Low Saxon, thought now to be a dialect of
German.
Conversely, examples of languages which have gained autonomy are:
Serbian,
Croatian and
Bosnian from
Serbo-Croatian and
Afrikaans, which was formerly considered a dialect of
Dutch.
*
Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache# Trudgill, P. (1992) "Ausbau sociolinguistics and the perception of language status in contemporary Europe" in
International Journal of Applied Linguistics. Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 167-177
