Bell (1976, pp.

147-57)
He listed 7 criteria that may be useful in discussing different kinds of
languages. These criteria will help to point out which language is
more developed than the others taking all the regional dialects and
languages as well:
1. Standardization
2. Vitality
3. Historicity
4. Autonomy
5. Reduction
6. Mixture
7. De facto norms
because not every variety we may want to call a language has the
same status as any other variety every language (English, Chinese,
Macedonian, Latin, Tok Pisin etc.) satisfies a different sub-set of
criteria from the list. Not all languages are equal socially.
1. Standardization
process by which a language is codified (development of
grammars, spelling books and dictionaries, and literature)
formal matters of codification and elaboration (used usually in
print, taught in schools and to non-native speakers learning the
language).
sometimes deliberately undertaken for political reasons
- 19th cent. Finns independence from Swedes and
Russians
- Today attempts for rapid standardization: India (Hindi),
Israel (Hebrew), Tanzania (Swahili) etc.
- Some languages more than one standardized variety:
e.g. Norwegian (Nynorsk and Bokmal), Yugoslavia,
Canada etc.
2. Vitality
Existence of a living community of speakers
Alive vs. dead languages
2 Celtic languages of the UK are dead: Manx and Cornish
Many aboriginal languages of the America
Latin
Once dead cannot be revived
exception: Hebrew liturgical language was used for only
religious sermons, but it revived as a spoken language till
today(modern Hebrew outgrowth of this liturgical variety) .

 Many languages are dying or in extinction (e.g. the French

dialects spoken in the Channel Islands of Jersey)
Some languages can remain a force even after they are
declared dead
e.g. Classical Greek and Latin in the Western world, Sanskrit to
the speakers of Hindi, Classical Chinese has influenced modern
Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
3. Historicity
A particular group of people find a sense of identity through
using a particular language; it belongs to them, e.g. Chinese,
Hebrew, colloquial Arabic make much of a common linguistic
ancestry.
19th century a German nation was unified around the German
language, In the 18th century- Russians had unified around a
revitalized Russian language.
4. Autonomy
A language must be felt by its speakers to be different from
other languages.
e.g. Ukranians claim their language is different from Russian;
Some speakers of Black English do not want to accept that
their variety is a variety of English but believe that it is a
separate language in its own right.
5. Reduction
A particular variety may be regarded as a sub-variety rather
than an independent entity. Sometimes a particular language is
reduced to a sub-variety as it lacks writing system or it has
some considerable restrictions in its usage
6. Mixture
Feeling speakers have about the purity of the variety they
speak. This criterion appears to be more important to speakers
of French and German than to English speakers.
Speakers of Pidgins and Creoles often feel that their languages
are not pure, debased, deficient, and marginal varieties as
they are mixture of two or more languages
7. De facto norms
Good speakers represent the norms of proper usage
compared to poor speakers who do not, and the good
speakers represent the norms of proper usage. People then feel
that one particular sub-variety of that language is representing

the best usage. Sometimes focus on one specific sub-variety

as best usage: Parisian French, Florentine variety of Italian
This feeling is called de facto norms. If all the speakers of a
language feels that it is badly spoken, that language may face
language death as those speakers become reluctant to use the
language.
Web Source:
https://www.google.dz/search?q=bell
%27+criteria+slideshare&oq=bell
%27+criteria+slideshare&aqs=chrome..69i57.11405j0j7&sourc
eid=chrome&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#q=bell
%27s+(1976)+7+criteria+of+language+slideshare