Formal writing

A literary language is the form (register) of a language used in written literature, which can be either a nonstandard dialect or a standardized variety of the language. Literary language sometimes is noticeably different from the spoken language (''lects''), but the difference between literary language and non-literary language is greater in some languages; thus a great divergence between a written form and a spoken vernacular, the language exhibits diglossia, a community's use of two forms of speech.

The understanding of the term differs from one linguistic tradition to another and is dependent on the terminological conventions adopted. Notably, in Eastern European and Slavic linguistics, the term "literary language" has also been used as a synonym of " standard language".

Literary English

For much of its history, there has been a distinction in the English language between an elevated literary language and a colloquial idiom.Matti Rissanen, ''History of Englishes: New Methods and Interpretations in Historical Linguistics'', Walter de Gruyter, 1992, p9. After the Norman conquest of England, for instance, Latin and French displaced English as the official and literary languages, and standardized literary English did not emerge until the end of the Middle Ages. At this time and into the Renaissance, the practice of aureation (the introduction of terms from classical languages, often through poetry) was an important part of the reclamation of status for the English language, and many historically aureate terms are now part of general common usage. Modern English no longer has quite the same distinction between literary and colloquial registers.

English has been used as a literary language in countries that were formerly part of the British Empire, for instance in India up to the present day, Malaysia in the early 20th century and Nigeria, where English remains the official language.

Written in Early Modern English, the King James Bible and works by William Shakespeare from the 17th century are defined as prototype mediums of literary English and are taught in advanced English classes. Furthermore, many literary words that are used today are found in abundance in the works of Shakespeare and as well as in King James Bible, hence the literary importance of early modern English in contemporary English literature and English studies.

Other languages

Arabic

Modern Standard Arabic is the contemporary literary and standard register of Classical Arabic used in writing across all Arabic-speaking countries and any governing body with Arabic as an official language. Many western scholars distinguish two varieties: the Classical Arabic of the Qur'an and early Islamic (7th to 9th centuries) literature; and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the standard language in use today. The modern standard language is closely based on the Classical language, and most Arabs consider the two varieties to be two registers of the same language. Literary Arabic or classical Arabic is the official language of all Arab countries and is the only form of Arabic taught in schools at all stages .

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 Kuwaiti), they are able to code switch into MSA for the sake of communication.

Aramaic

The Aramaic language has been diglossic for much of its history, with many different literary standards serving as the "high" liturgical languages, including Syriac language, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Samaritan Aramaic language and Mandaic language, while the vernacular Neo-Aramaic languages serve as the vernacular language spoken by the common people like Northeastern Neo-Aramaic ( Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Bohtan Neo-Aramaic, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, Hértevin language, Koy Sanjaq Syriac language, Senaya language), Western Neo-Aramaic, Northeastern Neo-Aramaic, Central Neo-Aramaic ( Mlahsô language, Turoyo language), Neo-Mandaic, Hulaulá language, Lishana Deni, Lishanid Noshan, Lishán Didán, Betanure Jewish Neo-Aramaic, and Barzani Jewish Neo-Aramaic.

Armenian

The Armenian language was a diglossic language for much of its history, with Classical Armenian serving as the "high" literary standard and liturgical language, and the Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian dialects serving as the vernacular language of the Armenian people. Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian were eventually standardized into their own literary forms.

Bengali

Standard Bengali has two forms:

*Chôlitôbhasha, the vernacular standard based on the elite speech of Kolkata
*Shadhubhasha, the literary standard, which employs more Sanskritized vocabulary and longer prefixes and suffixes.

Grammatically, the two forms are identical, and differing forms, such as verb conjugations, are easily converted from one form to another. However, the vocabulary is quite different from one form to the other and must be learned separately. Among the works of Rabindranath Tagore are examples of both shadhubhasha (especially among his earlier works) and chôlitôbhasha (especially among his later works). The national anthem of India was originally written in the shadhubhasha form of Bengali.

Chinese

Literary Chinese ( zh, p=Wényánwén, c=文言文, l=Literary Writing, labels=no) is the form of written Chinese used from the end of the Han dynasty to the early 20th century when it was replaced by written vernacular Chinese, or ''Baihua'' ( zh, 白話, labels=no) spoken according to Standard Mandarin pronunciation. Literary Chinese continually diverged from Classical Chinese as the dialects of China became more disparate and as the Classical written language became less representative of the spoken language. At the same time, Literary Chinese was based largely upon the Classical language, and writers frequently borrowed Classical language into their literary writings. Literary Chinese therefore shows a great deal of similarity to Classical Chinese, even though the similarity decreased over the centuries.

Starting from early 20th century, written vernacular Chinese have become a standard for Chinese writing which is mostly aligned with a standardized form of Mandarin Chinese, which however mean there are divergence between written vernacular Chinese against other Chinese variants like Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hokkien and Sichuanese. Some of these variants have their own literary form but none of them are being used in formal register.

Finnish

The Finnish language has a literary variant, literary Finnish, and a spoken variant, spoken Finnish. Both are considered a form of non-dialectal standard language, and are used throughout the country. Literary Finnish is a consciously created fusion of dialects for use as a literary language, which is rarely spoken at all, being confined to writing and official speeches.

Georgian

The Georgian language has a literary liturgical form, the Old Georgian language, while the vernacular spoken varieties are the Georgian dialects and other related Kartvelian languages like Svan language, Mingrelian language, and Laz language.

German

German differentiates between ''Hochdeutsch''/''Standarddeutsch'' ( Standard German) and ''Umgangssprache'' (everyday/vernacular language). Amongst the differences is the regular use of the genitive case or the simple past tense '' Präteritum'' in written language. In vernacular German, genitive phrases ("des Tages") are frequently replaced with a construction of "von" + dative object ("von dem Tag") - comparable to English "the dog's tail" vs. "the tail of the dog" - likewise the ''Präteritum'' ("ich ging") can be substituted with the perfect ("ich bin gegangen") to a certain degree. Nevertheless, the use of neither the ''Präteritum'' nor especially the genitive case is totally unusual in daily language, though it is considered rare, and might be dependent on a region's dialect and/or the grade of education of the speaker. People of higher education use the genitive more regularly in their casual speech and the use of perfect instead of ''Präteritum'' is especially common in southern Germany, where the ''Präteritum'' is considered somewhat declamatory. The German ''Konjunktiv I / II'' ("er habe" / "er hätte") is also used more regularly in written form being replaced by the conditional ("er würde geben") in spoken language, although in some southern German dialects the ''Konjunktiv II'' is used more often. Generally there is a continuum between more dialectical varieties to more standard varieties in German, while colloquial German nonetheless tends to increase analytic elements at the expense of synthetic elements.

Greek

From the early nineteenth century until the mid-20th century, ''Katharevousa'', a form of Greek, was used for literary purposes. In later years, ''Katharevousa'' was used only for official and formal purposes (such as politics, letters, official documents, and newscasting) while '' Dimotiki'', ‘demotic’ or popular Greek, was the daily language. This created a diglossic situation until in 1976 ''Dimotiki'' was made the official language.

Hebrew

During the revival of the Hebrew language, spoken and literary Hebrew were revived separately, causing a dispersion between the two. The dispersion started to narrow sometime after the two movements merged, but substantial differences between the two still exist.

Italian

When Italy was unified, in 1861, Italian existed mainly as a literary language. Different languages were spoken throughout the Italian Peninsula, many of which were Romance languages which had developed in every region, due to the political fragmentation of Italy. Now, it is the standard language of Italy.

Japanese

Until the late 1940s, the prominent literary language in Japan was the , which is based on the language spoken in Heian period (Late Old Japanese) and is different from the contemporary Japanese language in grammar and some vocabulary. It still has relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in ''bungo'', although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect, and fixed form poetries like Haiku and Tanka are still mainly written in this form.

In the Meiji period, some authors started to use the colloquial form of the language in their literature. Following the government policy after the World War II, the standard form of contemporary Japanese language is used for most literature published since the 1950s. The standard language is based on the colloquial language in Tokyo area, and its literary stylistics in polite form differs little from its formal speech. Notable characteristics of literary language in contemporary Japanese would include more frequent use of Chinese origin words, less use of expressions against prescriptive grammar (such as ""), and use of non-polite normal form ("/") stylistics that are rarely used in colloquial language.

Javanese

In the Javanese language, alphabet characters derived from the alphabets used to write Sanskrit, no longer in ordinary use, are used in literary words as a mark of respect.

Kannada

Kannada exhibits a strong diglossia, like Tamil, also characterised by three styles: a classical literary style modelled on the ancient language, a modern literary and formal style, and a modern colloquial form. These styles shade into each other, forming a diglossic continuum.

The formal style is generally used in formal writing and speech. It is, for example, the language of textbooks, of much of Kannada literature and of public speaking and debate. Novels, even popular ones, will use the literary style for all description and narration and use the colloquial form only for dialogue, if they use it at all. In recent times, however, the modern colloquial form has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of the modern literary style: for instance most cinema, theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio.

There are also many dialects of Kannada, Which are ''Dharwad Kannada'' of North Karnataka, Arebhashe of Dakshina Kannada and Kodagu, Kundakannada of Kundapura, Havyaka Kannada are major dialects.

Latin

Classical Latin was the literary register used in writing from 75 BC to the 3rd century AD, while Vulgar Latin was the common, spoken variety used across the Roman Empire. The Latin brought by Roman soldiers to Gaul, Iberia, or Dacia was not identical to the Latin of Cicero, and differed from it in vocabulary, syntax, and grammar. L.R. Palmer The Latin Language (repr. Univ. Oklahoma 1988, ) Some literary works with low-register language from the Classical Latin period give a glimpse into the world of early Vulgar Latin. The works of Plautus and Terence, being comedies with many characters who were slaves, preserve some early basilectal Latin features, as does the recorded speech of the freedmen in the '' Cena Trimalchionis'' by Petronius Arbiter