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A Sociolinguistic History of Early Identities in SingaporeOrthographical Identity: Change and Ideology

A Sociolinguistic History of Early Identities in Singapore: Orthographical Identity: Change and... [Orthography is never entirely distinct from ideology (Errington, 2008). Unseth (2008) frames his introduction on language communities and their script choices in terms of representations of identity. For example, the adoption of Roman script by a number of post-Soviet states for their national languages not only signalled yet another major script change in the space of 70 years but also represented a rejection of one global orientation and the embracing of another (Hatcher, 2008). Another case in point is Turkmenistan, which experienced its fourth national script change in a century — from Perso-Arabic script (pre-Soviet) to Roman script (early Soviet) to Cyrillic script (Stalinist Soviet) to Roman script again (post-Soviet) (Clement, 2008). In Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, various languages are associated with religious worship, for example, Devanagari with Sanskrit, Pali with Buddhism, Arabic with Islam, and Latin with Christianity. Languages are embodied in scripts and act as powerful symbols of identification and cultural association. This is because the shapes and sizes of the written form is a mental phenomenon and speaks to the mind in its own special titillating way (Coulmas, 1989).] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Sociolinguistic History of Early Identities in SingaporeOrthographical Identity: Change and Ideology

Chew, Phyllis Ghim-Lian
Springer Journals — Oct 21, 2015
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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2013
ISBN
978-1-349-43657-6
Pages
70 –86
DOI
10.1057/9781137012340_5
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Orthography is never entirely distinct from ideology (Errington, 2008). Unseth (2008) frames his introduction on language communities and their script choices in terms of representations of identity. For example, the adoption of Roman script by a number of post-Soviet states for their national languages not only signalled yet another major script change in the space of 70 years but also represented a rejection of one global orientation and the embracing of another (Hatcher, 2008). Another case in point is Turkmenistan, which experienced its fourth national script change in a century — from Perso-Arabic script (pre-Soviet) to Roman script (early Soviet) to Cyrillic script (Stalinist Soviet) to Roman script again (post-Soviet) (Clement, 2008). In Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, various languages are associated with religious worship, for example, Devanagari with Sanskrit, Pali with Buddhism, Arabic with Islam, and Latin with Christianity. Languages are embodied in scripts and act as powerful symbols of identification and cultural association. This is because the shapes and sizes of the written form is a mental phenomenon and speaks to the mind in its own special titillating way (Coulmas, 1989).]

Published: Oct 21, 2015

Keywords: Roman Letter; Arabic Script; Malay Language; Muslim Identity; United Malay National Organization

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