Linguistic purism

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Linguistic purism or linguistic protectionism is a concept having a dual notion with respect to foreign languages and with respect to the internal variants of a language (dialects) The first meaning is the historical trend of every language to conserve intact its lexical structure of word families, in opposition to foreign influence which are considered 'impure'. The second meaning is the practice, possibly prescriptive,^[1] of determining and recognizing one linguistic variety (dialect) as being purer or of intrinsically higher quality than other varieties.

The perceived or actual decline identified by the purists may take the form of a change of vocabulary, syncretism of grammatical elements, or loanwords.^{[citation needed]} The unwanted similarity is often with a neighboring language the speakers of which are culturally or politically dominant.^{[citation needed]} The ideal may invoke logic, clarity, or the grammar of classic languages. It is often presented as a conservative measure, as a protection of a language from the encroachment of other languages or of the conservation of the national Volksgeist, but is often innovative in defining a new standard. It is sometimes part of governmental language policy that is enforced in various ways.

The practice opposite of purism, when borrowed words displace native ones, also exists. For example, in English, the native word bookstaff (German: Buchstabe) was replaced by the Latin word letter.