Bell's 1975 Language Criteria

Bell's 1975 Language Criteria

1. standardization

   • the process by which a language has been codified in some way

2. vitality

   • The existence of a living community of speakers

3. historicity

   • the fact that a particular group of people find a sense of identity by using a particular language

4. autonomy

   • feeling that one's own language is different from that of other languages

5. reduction

   • A particular variety may be regarded as a sub-variety rather than an independent entity

6. de facto norms

   • the feeling many speakers have that there are good speakers and bad speakers