Eszter Tarsoly "Is your language good enough? Tracing the origins of value-laden postures towards language in Europe and Circum-Pannonia."

The purpose of this talk is to look at the evolution of ideas about language, in particular, how superiority and correctness came to be associated with certain language varieties (known as standards) in European linguistic thought, and how

such ideas were later imported to Central and Easter Europe.

The anxiety surrounding an idealized, multi-purpose language variety (often called good language in popular usage) is contrasted with the equally anxious, although less obvious, quest for linguistic anchorage. Evidence from Hungarian, Romance, Greek, and Slavonic languages will be discussed, with special regard to the historically evolving status of languages and language varieties.​