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Option 3 : Standard language
People generally consider ‘languages’ and ‘dialects’ to be different. They give various reasons for this- languages are spoken by more people, dialects are spoken by lesser numbers; languages have a literature, dialects do not; languages have a script, dialects do not etc. However, one cannot make a distinction between language and dialect based on script, literature and grammar. What is called a language and what is called a dialect is a social and political question.
- As Rama Kant Agnihotri notes, “What is spoken by powerful and rich people often comes to be known as ‘language’.
- Grammars and dictionaries are written for this ‘language’. Literature also comes to be written in this language.
- The ‘language’ also becomes the medium in which school teaching takes place and thus gets identified as a standard language.
- Languages which are similar to this standard language come to be known as its dialects.
- The status of a language also changes with change in the centre of power.
- When the political centre for power was Kanoj, then the language of literature was ‘Aprabhramsh’; Khadi Boli, Braj and Awadhi became its dialects.
- Similarly, when the centre for political power was Braj, then, the language of literature was Braj and the Khadi Boli spoken in Delhi and Meerut become its dialects.
- When the centre for power was Delhi and Meerut, Braj, Awadhi etc became dialects of Hindi.”
Hence, we conclude that the language also becomes the medium in which school teaching takes place and thus gets identified as Standard language.
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