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The Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache () framework is a tool developed by sociolinguists for analysing and categorising the status of language varieties along the between autonomous languages on the one hand and dialects on the other. The terms were coined by Heinz Kloss (1967). They are designed to capture the idea that there are two separate and largely independent sets of criteria and arguments for calling a variety an independent "language" rather than a "dialect": the one based on its social functions, and the other based on its objective structural properties.