Pluricentric language

A pluricentric language is a language with different standard varieties, originating from different states (sometimes from different regions, dialects or communities), without precluding the unity of the language.

Typical and well-studied examples are:
 * English, including differing standards such as British English, American English, Australian English...
 * Galician-Portuguese, including differing standards such as European Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese and Galician.
 * German, including differing standards such as German from Germany, Austrian German and Swiss German.
 * Hindi-Urdu, including two, main differing standards which are Hindi (dominant in India or among Hindus) and Urdu (dominant in Pakistan or among Muslims).
 * Catalan, including differing regional standards such as Central Catalan, Valencian Catalan, Balearic Catalan and Rossellonès Catalan.

This concept was developped mainly by two proeminent sociolinguists. The German Heinz Kloss coined the term pluricentric high languages (plurizentrische Hochsprachen), especially from 1978 on. Later, the Australian Michael Clyne promoted the term pluricentric language in 1992 (it has to be noted that several authors prefer to say polycentric languages for esthetic reasons, since poly- and centr- come both from Greek, whereas pluri- comes from Latin).