Commentary.

The Milroy and Milroy hypothesis (i.e. that there is a Standard Language Ideology (SLI)) seems to be predicated on the notion that all languages are in the same kind of sociolinguistic situation, and go through the same kinds of stages of standardization. This is surely an unexamined and unprovable hypothesis, but serves the ideology that standardization not only cannot be shown to exist, (i.e. standardization is a figment of someone's imagination, a mere social construct) but that the ideology that fosters standardization is hegemonistic, imperialistic, and hurtful. Not much evidence is given for the universal application of these two claims.

Since the SLI is an unproven hypothesis, we may treat it as itself an ideology, the SLI Ideology. It views standardization as hegemonistic just because English is a language spoken beyond its borders, and because exonormic standards of English pronunciation etc. are demanded of speakers who will never be able to meet the demands of the norm, mostly because the evaluators will constantly (and unfairly) shift the criteria to make attainment impossible. But there are differences between standardization of a language like Tamil and languages of wider communication like English. For one thing, Tamil is not a LOWC (Language of Wider Communication), so the notion of hegemony over other languages does not arise. Secondly, Tamil already has a standard literary language; with the focus on standardizing the spoken language, different issues come to the fore.

1.

Tamil already has a strictly codified written norm (Literary Tamil), used and accepted by all Tamils (in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore), and it is LT that is the exclusive and excluding language. Mastery of its correct forms is difficult, and illiteracy is high. Ability to speak SST is less difficult to acquire than ability to master LT. If there is any notion of hegemony or inequality it applies to LT.

2.

Tamil is not a language used widely beyond the membership of its mother tongue community; there are very few non-native speakers, and the question of even teaching the spoken language to non-native speakers did not arise until fairly recently.

3.

Because of Tamil's extreme diglossia, only LT was widely understood, but only by educated or semi-educated speakers. Its spoken dialects (regional, social) vary widely; some dialects (e.g. Sri Lanka) are mutually unintelligible with Tamil Nadu dialects.

4.

LT as a panlectal standard had become archaic and problematical. The goal was to find a hyperlect or edulect acceptable to all, not marked by region or caste features. SST is the result.