# Icelandic:  I'm just waiting for the free drinks at work tomorrow evening



## Chris Corbyn

I'm sure I'm asking all the usual newbie questions here, but anyway!

I have a subscription on snara.is, while I await the arrival of my Icelandic-English and English-Icelandic dictionaries from Reykjavík.

I'm really just starting to find my feet and at that point where I'm making *a lot* of mistakes and having to look up just about everything in a dictionary.

I was trying to write: "I'm looking forward to (the) free drinks at work tomorrow evening", which I thought out in simpler terms as:

"I'm just waiting for the free drinks at work tomorrow evening".

I'm sure there are lots of mistakes with this Icelandic, but I started with using the verb _bíða eftir_...

*Ég er bara að bíða eftir (the free drinks) í vinnu annað kvöld.*

I knew I'd need "drinks", plural in the accusative following _eftir_.  The dictionary gives: *drykkur m. (-jar, -ir)*.

Am I supposed to be able to infer the accusative plural form of the noun from this?  If I understand this definition, it tells me that "drykkur" is a strong masculine noun with the singular genitive *drykkjar* and the nominative plural *drykkir* (I'm not clear if any umlaut shifts apply to these).  Non of the declensions I've learnt in my books give declensions like this for strong masculine nouns, so I'm not sure how to deduce the accusative plural.

On instinct I thought that based on hestur:

hestur (nom. sing.), hest (acc. sing.), hesti (dat. sing.), hests (gen. sing.)
hestar (nom. pl.), hesta (acc. pl.), hestum (dat. pl.), hesta (gen. pl.)

I just compared hest/ar with drykk/ir and figured the "a" -> "i" also applied to the accusative, so I, probably incorrectly, wrote "drinks" (acc.) as "drykki".

Does the dictionary definition leave it up to the imagination to know all of the declensions, or is knowing the nominative plural and the genitive singular enough to deduce all the declensions?

Full sentence I constructed:

*Ég er bara að bíða eftir frír drykkina í vinnu annað kvöld.*

I need to revise adjectives so frír is probably not declined correctly.  The declension of drykkur is what I'm most hung up on however.


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## Tjahzi

Well, the dictionary gives you at least one hint of great importance, it tells you to which declension pattern _drykkur_ belongs. As such, we can deduce the accusative plural through the removal of the final _-r_ from the nominative plural. (Good job ignoring the _-a _of the genitive plural form, which is indeed always_ -a_ for all nouns, regardless of whether their nominative plural is _-ir_ or _-ar_.)

Regarding the adjective, it happen to know that it's irregular, namely _frí _in all cases and numbers.

HOWEVER, that said. I'd like to stress some other aspects. When translating between languages, the hard part is not so much to _conjugate the words properly_ (although that might appear to be the case with Icelandic), but rather to _use them appropriately_.

As such, are you sure that what you would use the present progressive for in English necessarily translates to progressive in Icelandic, and not pure present? 

Also, are you sure that Icelandic does not do the _libero _vs _gratuito _distinction found in Italian?

Have you considered the possibility that Icelanders might view "one's work(place)" as definite, unlike English? 

And finally, how do Icelanders say _tomorrow_?


Disclaimer: I don't speak Icelandic.


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## Chris Corbyn

Tjahzi said:


> Well, the dictionary gives you at least one hint of great importance, it tells you to which declension pattern _drykkur_ belongs. As such, we can deduce the accusative plural through the removal of the final _-r_ from the nominative plural. (Good job ignoring the _-a _of the genitive plural form, which is indeed always_ -a_ for all nouns, regardless of whether their nominative plural is _-ir_ or _-ar_.)



Ok, thanks.  I imagine this will just come with extensive reading and writing experience 



> HOWEVER, that said. I'd like to stress some other aspects. When translating between languages, the hard part is not so much to _conjugate the words properly_ (although that might appear to be the case with Icelandic), but rather to _use them appropriately_.



I agree entirely and this is something you can only really get good at with experience.  I attempted to word this simply in order to avoid over-complicating the expression and running the risk of it sounding confused.  However...



> As such, are you sure that what you would use the present progressive for in English necessarily translates to progressive in Icelandic, and not pure present?



Absolutely no idea.  The books I'm reading (Teach Yourself Icelandic, and Icelandic/Hodder & Stoughton) don't really help much in this respect, they just throw the grammar at you along with some examples.  You're probably right in that the present progressive isn't used as much as in English, unless you really mean *right now in the process of...*.  I'll keep that in mind.



> Also, are you sure that Icelandic does not do the _libero _vs _gratuito _distinction found in Italian?



I thought of this before hand and tried to establish this from a dictionary.  There certainly were alternatives for the word "free", but I picked the one that related to products, as opposed to concepts (such as time).



> Have you considered the possibility that Icelanders might view "one's work(place)" as definite, unlike English?



Absolutely.  I first wrote it like that and then threw it at Google Translate to see how it translated.  It read better without the article.  I know this is by no means a good metric of accuracy, but it sometimes helps to put your writing through Google Translate just to make sure you're not completely off-track 



> And finally, how do Icelanders say _tomorrow_?



*á morgun*, but when saying "tomorrow evening" you use *annað kvöld* (approx: other evening)


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## Tjahzi

Good good. I was not so much questioning your approach but rather raising those issue that are so easily overlooked when translating. As your questions were all regarding morphology, I feared you had missed the syntactic aspect, but good to hear that you were indeed aware of it.

Sadly, my Icelandic is nowhere near the level at which I could provide you with credible answers to those questions, though the appreciativeness of Icelandic to Swedish inclines me to guess, with varying results, sometimes. However, when dealing with morphological issues, I recommend the following tools (in addition to those found in the _resources thread_):

Arnastofnun's dictionary.
The UWDC online dictionary.
And last, and least, but still on the list, Wiktionary.

(Sooner or later some Icelander (pollodia or Sindri, that is) will come along and answer those syntactic queries.)


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## Chris Corbyn

Thanks for the links.  I had just stumbled upon http://bin.arnastofnun.is/ myself and it is indeed very useful!


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## Silver_Biscuit

For 'free' as in 'free of charge', you want *ókeypis*, which happily doesn't decline. I'm almost certain that *frír* is not appropriate. I also think that 'í vinnu*nni*' would be better - I have no specific evidence for this, it's just the way I've heard people talk about being 'at work'. Að bíða eftir is followed by the dative, so I think the declension you're looking for is 'drykkjunum'.

If you want to say you're looking forward to something, by the way, it is not more complicated. You just say 'Ég hlakka til (einhvers)'. E.g. Ég hlakka til ókeypis drykkjanna í vinnunni annað kvöld. I think that's all right.


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## sindridah

Mig hlakkar til að fá fría drykki í vinnuni annað kvöld

Would the sentence be


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## Silver_Biscuit

Oh OK, so frír is all right then. Oops.

This dictionary says '*Ég* hlakka til'...


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## Alxmrphi

Doesn't *kvöld* need the dative singular_* i*_? I thought it did.

Re: ég / mig -

Icelandic is undergoing a lot of linguistic change at the moment and the use of quirky subjects is a well documented variable in this change. It's not uncommon for these things to change (maybe because of an analysis with other experiencer verbs like _mér finnst_ or _mig langar_...). There are a lot of interesting studies to do with this:

Variation in Icelandic morphosyntax (not sure if my uni access is allowing this and will not open for others)
Death Rattle Hypothesis - Evidence from Icelandic
The Case of subjects with impersonal verbs in Insular Scandinavian (A lot mention the Dative Sickness but it's linked to acc-substitution as well)
Language change vs. stability in conservative language communities: A case study of Icelandic 

This last one specifically addresses the verb *hlakka*.


> Interestingly, two personal verbs show an instability in the case marking for their subjects similar to the one shown by the impersonal verbs just described. The verbs in question are* hlakka *(= ‘look forward to’) and _kvíða_ (= ‘be anxious’), which can thus, rather than appearing with a nominative subject, as in (4.3)a., *turn up with either an accusative* ((4.3)b. )*or a dative one* ((4.3)c.) and thereby become, as it were, impersonal:
> (4.3)a. ég hlakka til jólanna
> _...........I(NOM) look forward to Christmas_
> ...........I look forward to Christmas
> 
> (4.3)b. *mig hlakkar* til jólanna
> _..........me(ACC) look forward to Christmas_
> ...........I look forward to Christmas
> 
> (4.3)c. mér hlakkar til jólanna
> _..........Me(DAT) look forward to Christmas_
> ..........I look forward to Christmas​In the public debate in Iceland, these two verbs* have traditionally been placed alongside the impersonal ones* under the heading ‘dative sickness’. However, as_ hlakka _and _kvíða_ are personal in the standard language and seem to be *capable of assigning either accusative or dative case to their subjects in non-standard usage*.


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## sindridah

Já það á víst að vera rétta notkunin, en samt hef ég nú ekkert séð neina naglfestu um þetta. Ég vona að það sé leyfilegt að koma með smá tilvitnun um þetta 

"Þó má finna dæmi í ritmálssafni Orðabókar Háskólans um að sögnin sé notuð ópersónulega með aukafrumlagi í þolfalli og þágufalli þegar á 19. öld" 

Tekið frá http://www.visindavefur.is/svar.asp?id=5721 en annars er sagt í lokin:

"Í Íslenskri orðabók Eddu frá 2002 stendur við _e-n/e-m hlakkar til_: "!? ... *ópersónuleg notkun með aukafrumlagi í þolfalli eða þágufalli er allalgeng en ekki talin gott mál*" (bls. 596). !? merkir: "orð eða málatriði sem ekki nýtur fullrar viðurkenningar, telst ekki gott mál í venjulegu samhengi" (bls. xiii). Í Málfarsbanka Íslenskrar málstöðvar stendur: "Sögnina hlakka á að nota persónulega, ekki ópersónulega. Ég hlakka til jólanna. Ekki: "mig hlakkar til jólanna", "mér hlakkar til jólanna"". 

En já réttast er auðvitað að nota samt "Ég hlakka"


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## Alxmrphi

> "Þó má finna dæmi í ritmálssafni Orðabókar Háskólans um að sögnin sé notuð ópersónulega með aukafrumlagi í þolfalli og þágufalli þegar á 19. öld"


 
This is the most important information in my opinion.
Of course everyone should be 'aware' of good / proper style, but other options are not wrong , just different.


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## sindridah

So basicly, Mig hlakkar is pretty much common but not fully accepted.


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## Alxmrphi

sindridah said:


> So basicly, Mig hlakkar is pretty much common but not fully accepted.


 
Nákvæmlega.

In England, in Leeds for example, everyone says "I were...", it's not fully accepted everywhere, but it's very common. It's not wrong, it's just different. Everyone uses it and maybe in 50 years everyone will say "_Mig hlakkar_", this happens all the time in languages. It's not fully accepted (as a community) to end a sentence with a preposition, but every single speaker does it. Every language has these differences. They're not corruptions, they're innovations (það eru ekki spillingar, eru nýsköpunar  (?))


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## Chris Corbyn

sindridah said:


> Mig hlakkar til að fá fría drykki í vinnuni annað kvöld
> 
> Would be the sentence be



Takk fyrir. Ég held að ég skilji það núna


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## Gavril

Silver_Biscuit said:


> For 'free' as in 'free of charge', you want *ókeypis*, which happily doesn't decline.



_ókeypis _is an adverb, according to the Wisconsin Icelandic dictionary. How would you use it to translate, e.g., "The drinks are *free*" or "The *free* drinks"?


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## Alxmrphi

Gavril said:


> _ókeypis _is an adverb, according to the Wisconsin Icelandic dictionary. How would you use it to translate, e.g., "The drinks are *free*" or "The *free* drinks"?



In Ordabok.is it says:



> *ókeypis*
> 
> LÝSINGARORÐ ('adjective')
> gratuitous; free; complimentary; complementary; gratis;
> *það sem fæst ókeypis:* freebie
> 
> ATVIKSORÐ ('adverb')
> gratuitously; gratis



The blue parts I've added in.


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## kepulauan

> I knew I'd need "drinks", plural in the accusative following _eftir_.   The dictionary gives: *drykkur m. (-jar, -ir)*. Am I supposed to be able to infer the accusative plural form of the noun  from this?


You would be billed as the world's fastest learner if you did. Sometimes there are two possible options for one inflection, for example the genitive drykks/drykkjar. The dictionary implies to the native that "drykks" is not allowed.



> Also, are you sure that Icelandic does not do the _libero _vs _gratuito  _distinction found in Italian?


There is a frír/frjáls distinction, and while grey areas do exist, it should be fairly hard to get this wrong I think.



> In England, in Leeds for example, everyone says "I were..."


"Were" for what tense? I'm interested in knowing about this.

I sometimes get the question "hvort segir maður 'mig langar' eða 'mér langar'?" and I'm always as surprised to see how surprised they (natives) are when I tell them the correct answer. I sure won't mourn it but beware the dative version, which is more likely to get your head hit with a newspaper.


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## Chris Corbyn

Thanks ~pollodia.



pollodia said:


> "Were" for what tense? I'm interested in knowing about this.



I'm originally from the North of England myself (Northeast to be specific) and can confirm that they often use "were" instead of "was" or "used to be".  An example would be a phrase like:

*When I were out at the supermarket this morning, I bumped into Tracy.  She were telling me all about her new job.*

However, I have to disagree that this is correct in that region of England.  It's incorrect and those who speak it (usually) realise it as being incorrect, but choose to do so because it adds a certain "local" tone to the speech.  I would only speak that way if I was (were ) imitating/exaggerating my own native accent, which is now quite changed after moving to Australia.

Using it this way actually is (depending on how you think of it), using one of the few remaining subjunctive conjugations left in the English language, but in the wrong way (If I were a rich man, ...  What if you were to.... ?).  (This was a ridiculous statement, disregard it).


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## Alxmrphi

> However, I have to disagree that this is correct in that region of  England.  It's incorrect and those who speak it (usually) realise it as  being incorrect, but choose to do so because it adds a certain "local"  tone to the speech.  I would only speak that way if I was (were ) imitating/exaggerating my own native accent, which is now quite changed after moving to Australia.


It's perfectly correct.
For some reason most people that use dialectal variants think it's an incorrect usage. It's not standard, that's true, but how can a group of people speak incorrectly so systematically? I study dialectology and regional variants of English and run into this idea all the time. For something to be incorrect it needs to be incomprehensible and/or non-systematic, which is not the case. Further south you have "was" throughout the preterite indicative "You was" etc (the opposite of North (East) speech).

People realise it's non-standard, but they think this means it's incorrect, which is frustrating because it feeds into the minds of standard speakers that non-standard users of English are uneducated and crude, which is not the case at all.. As soon as I say to someone I can point out at least 10 well respected works on dialectal English that are used by linguists and studied, they tend to see the other side of the argument (my side, i.e. the correct one ) but without a stronghold and literary tradition they feel it's somehow wrong. Notice how Scots speakers have a standardised dialect and literary tradition, and they often argue for their own dialect because they have a basis for it. They write into newspapers and complain their dialect is not being taught in schools when it should be.

I went friend see to ('I went to see a friend') <- incorrect English.
As I were off to pub I saw her again <- dialectal non-standard variant.

The history of English develops differently in different places, "brung" is an alternative preterite used systematically in various areas across England. It developed alongside "brought" historically but not in the areas around London. People who don't study linguistic variation thing the people that use it are idiots because they were not educated in school. However, more often than not these other forms are older and more traditional English words. The idea that people can naturally speak incorrectly to one another is, in itself a contradiction.

[/rant].


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## Chris Corbyn

Alxmrphi said:


> It's perfectly correct.
> For some reason most people that use dialectal variants think it's an incorrect usage. It's not standard, that's true, but how can a group of people speak incorrectly so systematically? I study dialectology and regional variants of English and run into this idea all the time. For something to be incorrect it needs to be incomprehensible and/or non-systematic, which is not the case. Further south you have "was" throughout the preterite indicative "You was" etc (the opposite of North (East) speech).
> 
> People realise it's non-standard, but they think this means it's incorrect, which is frustrating because it feeds into the minds of standard speakers that non-standard users of English are uneducated and crude, which is not the case at all..
> 
> [/rant].



I understand the concept you're putting across and don't disagree with that.  Obviously regional dialects can and do develop (and given enough isolation) entire languages can develop.

What I was referring to however, was the English language, as documented in grammar books etc.  "You was" and "I were" (except in the subjunctive) are not correct English in the technical sense.  It may be "accepted" in those regions, but that's different to being considered "correct".

It's actually only a small minority of people in the Northeast of England who speak this way, since even within the region we're constantly told it's wrong (at school etc).  You wouldn't, for example, go to a job interview in Middlesbrough, Leeds, or wherever, and just because you're in that region say something like "When I were a mechanic, I had to deal with X, Y and Z".  If it was "correct" you'd have no issues doing that.


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## Alxmrphi

Of course, because school and formal situations are the places for the standard, not the dialects. Most people around England have a sort of diglossia switching between standard and non-standard. When at the pub up in Liverpool (where I'm from) I talk very differently to when I'm in an interview / speaking to a lecturer at university.

I know I need to accept that the majority of people will never agree with me, but it's because they're so close-minded and don't have any idea about language. I suppose I felt the same before I started linguistics though.

p.s. better Italian is: _Cerco degli italiano che vorrebbero dell'aiuto con l'inglese in cambio per dell'aiuto con il mio italiano_.
Using '_piacere_' is more for a general state (though not _completely _incorrect in a sense like this), whereas the sense you mean is 'would like to' where you use the conditional of _volere_, not of _potere_. 

Also if you can, read this:_* was-were map*_. (Untick the options so you can see one at a time, "We was" and "They was" are used all over England).
This data is part of the BBC's massive "Voices" project.


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## Chris Corbyn

Alxmrphi said:


> p.s. better Italian is: _Cerco degli italiano che vorrebbero dell'aiuto con l'inglese in cambio per dell'aiuto con il mio italiano_.
> Using '_piacere_' is more for a general state (though not _completely _incorrect in a sense like this), whereas the sense you mean is 'would like to' where you use the conditional of _volere_, not of _potere_.



Grazie, l'ho scritto tanto tempo fa e non parlavo italiano così bene allora.  Uso l'italiano ogni giorno adesso e ci sono stato l'anno scorso.  Dovrei cambiare/rimuovere il testo perché non si legge bene.  Infatti, voglio occuparmi più con l'islandese quest'anno


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## Alxmrphi

Chris Corbyn said:


> Grazie, l'ho scritto tanto tempo fa e non parlavo italiano così bene allora.  Uso l'italiano ogni giorno adesso e ci sono stato l'anno scorso.  Dovrei cambiare/rimuovere il testo perché non si legge bene.  Infatti, voglio occuparmi più con l'islandese quest'anno



Dopo gli ultimi cinque anni mi sono occupato per la maggior parte con l'italiano e dunque non avevo molto tempo per l'islandese. E' una decisione di cui mi pento adesso perche' avrei dovuto concentrarmi con piu' di un equilibrio. In bocca al lupo comunque


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## Chris Corbyn

Alxmrphi said:


> Dopo gli ultimi cinque anni mi sono occupato per la maggior parte con l'italiano e dunque non avevo molto tempo per l'islandese. E' una decisione di cui mi pento adesso perche' avrei dovuto concentrarmi con piu' di un equilibrio. In bocca al lupo comunque



Grazie, anche a te


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## sindridah

What's going on with British people and Italian language?


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## Gavril

Alxmrphi said:


> I went friend see to ('I went to see a friend') <- incorrect English.



Not for long -- as of today, I'm going to start using this construction in my idiolect, and I'll ask my friend to join me in using it. Then, you'll have to start saying that this usage is dialectal. 

(Just kidding about my plans, but not about the arbitrariness of the word "incorrect" in this context.)


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## Alxmrphi

Gavril said:


> (Just kidding about my plans, but not about the arbitrariness of the word "incorrect" in this context.)



But it is, right now.
Because no native English speaker would ever say or instantly interpret the correct meaning from that assemblage of component parts. That's how _'incorrectness_' is defined in linguistics. If you're understood and it's part of a communal zone where people communicate this way, it's a variant.


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## Gavril

Alxmrphi said:


> But it is, right now.
> Because no native English speaker would ever say or instantly interpret the correct meaning from that assemblage of component parts.



I'm honestly not confident that's true (though it could be); the world has a lot of English speakers by now.

Also, as soon as you present the phrase "I went friend see to" as an incorrect alternative to "I went to see a friend", you are (at least in my opinion) moving the former phrase in the direction of greater clarity / acceptability, whether or not you intend to.



> That's how _'incorrectness_' is defined in linguistics. If you're understood and it's part of a communal zone where people communicate this way, it's a variant.


If two people qualify as a communal zone, then all it takes is me and a friend to falsify any claim of linguistic "incorrectness".


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## Alxmrphi

Gavril said:


> I'm honestly not confident that's true (though it could be); the world has a lot of English speakers by now.
> 
> If two people qualify as a communal zone, then all it takes is me and a friend to falsify any claim of linguistic "incorrectness".



So your view is there is no such thing as any incorrect language?

2 people do not qualify as a communal zone. These definitions are not watertight, they form part of a workable framework (subject to change and regular adjustments) in which people can discuss variation in language. You can frame a hypothetical with most definitions and seem to invalidate them. The fact is, you haven't and cannot falisfy anything because boundaries and accepted numbers vary among different people in the field.

If you truly think dialectologists and linguists studying variation and non-standard forms feel forced to accept that two people's use of language qualifies and validates a non-standard yet correct form, then you haven't understood how definitions are understood and used in a linguistic framework.


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## Gavril

(This discussion is getting pretty off-topic -- perhaps it should be  separated and moved to  "All Languages" or "Etymology and History of  Languages"?)



Alxmrphi said:


> So your view is there is no such thing as any incorrect language?



I think that the word "incorrect" is (almost always) a  misleadingly absolute term to use when talking about a phenomenon as  difficult to study as human language: we aren't able to observe what every speaker of a language is saying at any given time. I realize that when dialectologists and  other linguists use the term "incorrect", they don't always mean it in the absolute sense  ("This is never correct"), but I still think that a more precise term  ("non-standard", for example) should be used in its place.



> 2 people do not qualify as a communal zone. These definitions  are not watertight, they form part of a workable framework (subject to  change and regular adjustments) in which people can discuss variation in  language.


Why, in this case, do two people not qualify as a communal zone?



> You can frame a hypothetical with most definitions and seem to  invalidate them. The fact is, you haven't and cannot falisfy anything  because boundaries and accepted numbers vary among different people in  the field.
> 
> If you truly think dialectologists and linguists studying variation and  non-standard forms feel forced to accept that two people's use of  language qualifies and validates a non-standard yet correct form, then  you haven't understood how definitions are understood and used in a  linguistic framework.



It seems to me that, if two people are observed using language in a given  way and understanding one another, then this usage is automatically validated for their micro-dialect,  even if the usage doesn't conform to larger regional patterns.


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## Chris Corbyn

sindridah said:


> What's going on with British people and Italian language?



Haha, I always wanted to learn it when I was younger because it sounded so nice, but at school I didn't pay enough attention in French class and wasn't able to take a second language.  I started studying it last year after a one-week holiday there, going back a in June-August 2010 to immerse myself (and to have a long holiday!).  The way English is so tied to Latin and the fact that Italian is the closest living language to Latin today, makes it really interesting too.

Similar reasons for recently beginning to study Icelandic, but not so much due to sound (I wouldn't describe the sound of Icelandic as being so poetic like Italian); more due to the way it looks.  Seeing Icelandic in song titles by the likes of Sigur Rós, Múm, Ólafur Arnalds etc intrigued me to learn it.  A challenge if you like.  It's also a beautiful country I'm hoping to visit in summer, 2012, so I'd love to speak Icelandic there.  It's going to take considerably more effort to learn than Italian though!


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## kepulauan

Eeehm... time to split the thread? I don't have a good destination in mind though. The cigar room perhaps.

What about creoles? In which previously mentioned category does "_Don’t anyhow do can or not?_" fall: correct, incorrect, standard, dialectal, different language? It is considered normal by a few million people. Where does the boundary lie?


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## Alxmrphi

pollodia said:


> Eeehm... time to split the thread? I don't have a good destination in mind though. The cigar room perhaps.
> 
> What about creoles? In which previously mentioned category does "_Don’t anyhow do can or not?_" fall: correct, incorrect, standard, dialectal, different language? It is considered normal by a few million people. Where does the boundary lie?



The boudary is very fuzzy, but what's more important is the fact that people realise that dialects and language are not such a clear distinction. There are many observations that can distinguish the view.


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