macrolanguage

See also: macro language

English

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

From macro +‎ language.

Noun

macrolanguage (plural macrolanguages)

1. (computing) Alternative spelling of macro language (“system for defining and processing macros”)
   • 2006, G. Brent Hall and Michael G. Leahy, "Internet-Based Spacial Decision Support Using Open Source Tools", Chapter XIII of Shivanand Balram and Suzana Dragićević, Collaborative Geographic Information Systems, Idea Group Inc., →ISBN, page 238:

     Much of the emphasis in spatial decision-support research continues to focus on developing tools, typically using macrolanguage scripting exclusively or scripting linked to compilable programming and commercial geographic information system software, such as workstation Arc/Info and desktop ArcGIS.

Usage notes

• This is more commonly written as two words: macro language.

Etymology 2

From macro- +‎ language.

Noun

macrolanguage (plural macrolanguages)

1. (linguistics) A "language" by common usage, which is in fact a dialect continuum consisting of widely varying varieties that may be distinct languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility.
   • 1996, Bertil Tikkanen, "Languages of interethnic communication on the Indian Subcontinent (excluding Nepal)", in Stephen Adolphe Wurm et al. (editors), Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas, Volume II.1, Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 787:

     The Indo-Aryan languages or macrolanguages of the plains merge into each other, being on the local level made up of enormous dialect continua (e.g. PANJABI-HINDI-BIHARI-RAJASTHANI-PAHARI). ¶ These fluid ‘macrolanguages’ (indicated by capital letters, e.g. HINDI) may have “dialects” which are mutually unintelligible and hard to classify.

2. (linguistics) A group of mutually intelligible speech varieties that have no traditional name in common, and which may be considered distinct languages by their speakers.
   • 1993, La Trobe working papers in linguistics‎^[1], volumes 6-8, page 161:

     A linguist working with the criterion of mutual intelligibility would recognize six languages in central and western Victoria, most of them covering large areas. These widespread languages would not have been recognized as languages by the speakers themselves and they have no native name. The largest macrolanguage covers most of western Victoria north of Ballarat and Hamilton.

3. (international standards) A book-keeping device where – when a language as defined under the ISO 639-2 standard developed by the US Library of Congress, for the purpose of encoding the languages that published books are written in, does not correspond to a single language under the ISO 639-3 standard developed by the Summer Institute of Linguistics, for the purpose of listing all the world's languages in their publication Ethnologue – the ISO 639-2 language is assigned an ISO 639-3 code as a "macrolanguage".
   • (no date), ISO 639-3, Relationship between ISO 639-3 and the other parts of ISO 639

     Some existing code elements in ISO 639-2, and the corresponding code elements in ISO 639-1, are designated in those parts of ISO 639 as individual language code elements, yet are in a one-to-many relationship with individual language code elements in [ISO 639-3]. For purposes of [ISO 639-3], they are considered to be macrolanguage code elements.

   • 2007, Jose A. Fadul (general editor), Encyclopedia Rizaliana: Student Edition, Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 6:

     Modern Arabic is classified [by the ISO] as a macrolanguage with 27 sub-languages spoken throughout the Arab world.

   • 2014, Xiao Lan Curdt-Christiansen, Andy Hancock, Learning Chinese in Diasporic Communities: Many pathways to being Chinese, John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 100:

     For this reason, the Ethnologue (2009) recognizes Chinese in their list of languages of China not as a language, but as a macrolanguage, i.e. multiple, closely related individual languages that are deemed in some usage contexts to be a […]

Usage notes

Since its adoption by the ISO, the word "macrolanguage" may be avoided in linguistics, as it has no linguistic meaning in ISO usage. Its primary usage has become to coordinate between ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-3 when those standards have different definitions of a language: The ISO 639-2 definition of a language is based on a shared writing system and literature, while the ISO 639-3 definition is based on mutual intelligibility (with some exceptions such as Serbo-Croatian, Hindustani and Malay, which are single languages linguistically but which for political reasons have been assigned multiple ISO 639-3 codes). This results in e.g. Chinese, Arabic, Quechua and Zapotec being coded as single languages under ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 but as multiple languages under ISO 639-3, so they are each assigned a macrolanguage code under ISO 639-3 in addition to their multiple individual language codes under ISO 639-3.

Further reading

• ISO 639 macrolanguage on Wikipedia.Wikipedia