Abstand and Ausbau Languages means to speak of language settings in which speakers or a portion thereof feel their language to be ‘‘threatened’’ — and therefore in need of assistance. It is a tool used in sociolinguistics to analyse and categorise the distinctiveness of related language varieties. It is intended to deal with situations in which multiple varieties from a dialect continuum have been standardized, so that they are commonly considered distinct languages even though they may be mutually intelligible.
