Diamesic variation

Translations

variazione diamesica | variation diamésique | diamesische Variation

Article

Diamesic variation is the form of variation of code or register that depends on the medium employed. It is particularly relevant for the differentiation of the oral and written codes.

Example

Examples for corpus languages are difficult to find, because traces of colloquial spoken language can emerge only indirectly or by mistake. In principle, of course, any recording of the proper spoken variety of languages that are extinct and were used in antiquity is impossible by definition.

A possible trace of colloquial Hittite may exist in the cult of Ištar of Niniveh (KUB 5.10+ obv. 2-12), where the text testifies to the presence of irregularly placed direct-speech particles that were only in part corrected by the scribe when he wrote down the text (Fortson 1998, 25), as in:

ki-nu-na-wa	EZEN4 aš-ra-ḫi-ta-aš-ši-in	wa	i-e-er
now-QUOT	festival of womanhood	QUOT	they did

where only the first -wa- is grammatically correct, but the second one might be the residual of a more free order of clitics in spoken Hittite.

=References

Fortson, B.W. 1998. A New Study of Hittite -wa(r). Journal of Cuneiform Studies 50, pp. 21-34.