A
literary language is a
register of a
language that is used in
literary writing. This may also include
liturgical writing. The difference between literary and non-literary (
vernacular) forms is more marked in some languages than in others. Where there is a strong divergence, the language is said to exhibit
diglossia.
For much of its history there has been a distinction in the English language between an elevated literary language and a colloquial language.[2] After the Norman conquest of England, for instance, Latin and French displaced English as the official and literary languages[3] and Standard literary English didn't emerge until the end of the Middle Ages.[4] Modern English no longer has a distinction between literary and colloquial languages.[2]
English has been used as a literary language in countries that were formerly part of the British Empire, for instance India up to the present day,[5] Malaysia in the early twentieth century,[6] and Nigeria, where English remains the official language.
The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia—the use of two distinct varieties of the same language, usually in different social contexts. Educated Arabic-speakers are usually able to communicate in MSA in formal situations. This diglossic situation facilitates code-switching in which a speaker switches back and forth between the two varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. In instances in which highly educated Arabic-speakers of different nationalities engage in conversation but find their dialects mutually unintelligible (e.g. a Moroccan speaking with a Lebanese), they are able to code switch into MSA for the sake of communication.
