Prestige varieties are language or dialect families which are generally considered by a society to be the most "correct" or otherwise superior.
In many cases, they are the standard form of the language, though there are exceptions, particularly in situations of covert prestige (where a non-standard dialect is highly valued).
As such, the standard language, the form promoted by authorities—usually governmental or from those in power—and considered "correct" or otherwise superior, is often the prestige variety.
[9][10][11] Prestige varieties do not exhibit features, grammatically speaking, which prove them superior in terms of logic, efficacy or aesthetics.
[8] Therefore, the prestige variety of a given language community or nation-state has symbolic significance and may act as an instrument of political power.
In general, "greater prestige tends to be attached to the notion of the standard, since it can function in higher domains, and has a written form.
"[13] While there are some counterexamples, such as Arabic, "prestigious and standard varieties [tend to] coincide to the extent that the two terms can be used interchangeably.
The terms and conditions of prestige assigned to a language variety are subject to change depending on speaker, situation and context.
[6] The relative status of language varies according to audience, situation and other contextual elements such as geographic location.
[20] Similarly, when British philologist William Jones published: The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and in the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothic and the Celtic, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit.It started a moment in time in which Sanskrit was considered the oldest language in the world, followed by other languages increasing their prestige by claiming to be as close to a presumed Proto-Indo-European language or linked to other Proto-Indo-European mythology, both in Europe and South Asia.
For example, Wolfram's documentary also shows how speakers of AAVE are often corrected by teachers, since it has linguistic features that are different from what has been deemed the "standard."
Associating the American accent with sympathetic or prestigious characters in children's TV shows/movies can have negative implications, contributing to the formation of stereotypes and biases.
This proposition recognized Ebonics as a language system in attempts for the city to receive public funding for bilingual situations.
Heavy debate arose amongst members of congress, newscasters, and other commentators with relatively little linguistics knowledge.
[32] In fact, in an article which in part tried to motivate the study of sociolinguistics, Raven McDavid wrote that "the importance of language as a mirror of culture can be demonstrated by dialect differences in American English".
[33] Thus the relation between the way speakers use a language and their social status is a long recognized tool in sociolinguistics.
In all, the village has 31 castes, ranging from Brahmins and Rajputs at the top, to Chamars and Bhangis at the bottom, and 90% of the overall population was Hindu, with the remaining 10% Muslim.
[37] An example of this was also observed in a study in Madrid, Spain, where Latin American Spanish-speakers noticed that certain features of their Spanish were evaluated negatively by local speakers.
Spanish varieties spoken in Latin American countries have linguistic differences from the way many locals in Madrid speak.
The study asserted that "To be accepted, therefore, the speakers have to "correct" these "errors" and "adapt" to the local variety of Spanish, which is considered the model to follow.
Thus, social class plays a role in determining prestige, impacting the way that Latin American Spanish is acknowledged.
[38] One notable example of the relationship between dialect and social stratification in English is William Labov's 1966 study of the variable pronunciation of r in New York City.
Labov went to three New York City department stores that catered to three clearly delineated socioeconomic groups—Saks (high), Macy's (middle), and S. Klein (low)—and studied how their employees pronounced the phrase "fourth floor".
[40] In 1966, when Labov performed his study, pronouncing words like car and guard with r was then considered an element of prestige speech.
[41] This resulted in middle-class employees, once made conscious of having to pronounce "fourth floor", altering their pronunciation in order to match that of the high prestige dialect.
Labov realized that there must be some underlying reason for their use of the dialect, which he identified as a signal of group identity.
[46] Likewise, in studies of the speech patterns in British English, Peter Trudgill observed that more working-class women spoke the standard dialect than men.
[49][50] As explanation, Trudgill suggests that for men, there is covert prestige associated with speaking the working-class dialect.
According to this interpretation then, "women's use of prestige features simply conforms to the ordinary sociolinguistic order, while men deviate from what is expected.
An example is Sanskrit, an ancient prestige language that has incorporated the vernacular pronunciations of [tʃ] and [b] for word-initial y- and v-.