The paper examines the attitudes and language conceptions of dominating and non-dominating language communities of pluricentric languages which differ in many ways. It is shown that in dominating nations the one-nation-one-language concept is an undisputed basic concept which is shared by most speakers of these varieties and brings about a clear distinction between linguistic „standard“ and „nonstandard-forms“. Contrary to this speakers of non-dominating varieties find themselves under pressure to legitimate their „deviating“ language behavior, even though they might use the standard variety of their country. The situation also leads to a kind of „diglossia“ between the own national norms and the exogene norms of the dominating nation. The paper also looks at the psychological effects of this situation and at possible ways to overcome them. It is shown that the non-dominating varieties face a dilemma as a thorough codification of their actual linguistic norms sooner or later leads to a separation from the norms of the dominating variety and to the development of a language of it's own.