# What defines a "language"?



## sokol

A language is a dialect with an army and a navy, or so the aphorism goes (which is attributed to the linguist Max Weinreich even though he hasn't coined it, but read the Wiki article for that).

But this isn't what this thread is about - rather, I just wanted to open a thread for questions about *why many languages are considered dialects* even though they could or should be defined as languages in their own right, while on the other hand *some languages seem to be rather dialects* than fully-fledged languages.
There seems to be urgent need for those questions, considering posts in so many threads here in EHL forum, that I thought it'd be better to discuss them in a thread of their own.

My position here (as a socio-linguist as which I was educated) is both linguistic and sociological; to begin the discussion, I'll give the points which I consider most important:

*- Structure: *in my opinion, only rather minimal structural difference is necessary to describe a dialect as a language; some minor phonological difference I wouldn't consider being crucial, nor would I put much importance on minor differences in lexicon, but both combined could be sufficient already, especially if combined with different morphological and syntactical features.

*- Sociology,* or rather acceptance (or its absence) of a dialect as a language in its own right: this I would consider more important than structure; and this of course is also what the _bonmot_ quoted above refers to - if there's willpower*) to define a (new) language then there will be one.
_*) And *real* power behind it too, obviously; not necessarily a navy nor even an army though, not in our modern times. _

And now let's talk in concrete examples.

Take *BCS(M) - Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, plus Montenegrin,* with the last one only recently being added to the Troika which, not so long ago, only was a "Dvoika" (that is, 2 but not 3).
*Structurally,* Serbo-Croatian standard language of Yougoslavia under Tito in, say, the 1960ies was certainly close enough to easily describe them as two varieties of a pluricentric standard language, just like American and British English, or Austrian German and "Bundesdeutsch = German German".
Concerning the *social dimension* however even then the split between Croats and Serbs was big enough to make out the "willpower" of having their own standard language respectively.
This changed *after 1990,* with political separation the social will grew (it existed, and was strong, beforehand, but political powers now were behind it), and what we have now is linguistic differences growing due to:
- new calques created especially in Croatian to remove words and constructions thought to be "Serbian";
- and with the definition of certain features as either "Serbian" or "Croatian" even though, originally, they were (and still are!) widely used by members of both nations, like e. g. "hiljada" (the word for the number of 1,000), previously also widely used by Croats (Shtokavian dialect speakers), but now "labelled" as Serbian and thus becoming a dialectal feature of Croatian Shtokavian only (and possibly becoming extinct in Croatian some time in the future).
Similar processes began taking effect concerning *Bosnian* and, recently, *Montenegrin* which I won't mention here to not complicate things even more for people with no knowledge of those languages. 

So what is happening here? Features of a previous "single language" (BCSM) which were very roughly but by no means precisely distributed along ethnical borders now are becoming singled out as "ethnical"; and at the end of the process there might be four clearly distinct (but still mutual intelligible) standard languages.
This process only has begun; formerly Serbo-Croatian language (then called Croato-Serbian only by Croats) was a standard language only created in the 19th century which only reached a more-or-less stable structure and lexicon in the 20th century - but it is now again splitting into separate languages.
For native speakers, or so I think, the "mental picture" of BCSM is already one of three (to four) languages even though linguistic structure isn't quite yet big enough (in my opinion) to clearly define those as languages linguistically already - sociologically however, I definitely would consider them being different and separate "languages".

I used BCSM as an example because here we can watch languages in the making - a rare occasion for a socio-linguist.
Scandinavian languages are different, they separated long ago, and even though they're still mutually intelligible to a rather high degree we have only few written records of how it happened that now Swedish and Norwegian are different languages; but what is known of it of course also would be relevant and interesting in this thread here (I only know the basics, thus I won't go into details here as I do not know them ).

While there is now no doubt that Norwegian and Swedish are different "languages" by common agreement the same is not yet the case for Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin. Norwegian and Swedish definitely are structurally more distinct than are Serbian and Croatian (which are the most distinctive ones so far in BCSM); but apart from that the situation is similar - both language pairs are mutually intelligible (to a high degree in the case of the Scandinavian ones, to an even higher degree, or so I would say, in case of the Slavic ones).

From a *linguistic* point of view of course even the Norwegian-Swedish differentiation could be questioned with good reason.
I was told once by a Swede that Swedish dialect differences have been levelled to a great degree while the same thing never happened in Norway; and I know that Norway has two standard languages, Bokmål which is what is used mainly, and which shows reminiscences of the once-ruling nation of Denmark (Norway was under Danish rule for centuries), and Nynorsk, a dialect-based standard language created in the attempt to replace Bokmål (the attempt failed but Nynorsk is still in use).
So what we have here if I didn't get it wrong (and please correct my inaccuracies of there are sure to be some) is a *more-or-less uniform Swedish *language - a clearly defined standard language and dialects which have been levelled (towards standard language)*) and which do not differ gravely on the one hand and two* Norwegian standard languages with a wide range of dialects* on the other one.

*) PS: I was in Årjäng once, a small provincial town in Western Värmsland (close the Norwegian border), where local Swedes (and one Norwegian girl from a nearby Norwegian valley ) assured me that they speak "the same dialect" as the guys across the border. So probably not that much levelled-out dialects, but by tendency (?) only.

If one compares this situation with the German "language" then it would be, from a structural point, almost ridiculous to claim that Norwegian and Swedish were different "languages" - as by structural comparison one would find that even _southern_ German dialects differ stronger between each other (and are barely - if at all - mutually intelligible) than do any two varieties of Norwegian and Swedish: use for this comparison Upper Wallis Swiss German dialect and Heanzisch dialect of Burgenland - dialect speakers of both region would barely understand a single word of the other dialect (except if they were previously exposed to it, or a similar one), and even when using their standard languages respectively (that is, Austrian German and Swiss German) I guess that a rural Burgenland speaker and a rural Wallis speaker still would have a hard time talking fluently with each other.
And this wouldn't even take into account the whole range of German dialects - not even close.

However, speakers of any German dialects still would refer to their native language as "Deutsch" whether they're Swiss German, Austrian, Bavarian, Saxonian or even Platt speakers of Northern Germany.

So the whole point of this long post, for those few who are still with me , is, in a nutshell: *any linguistic definition of "language" would be pointless;* a linguist really would be better served to use the term "dialect" just for "(linguistic) code" while "language" should be reserved for "institutionalised standard language" (that is, a language sanctioned by some political power).

Reflections like those instead _*lead me*_ to the opinion* that the definition of "language" in the sense used in everyday communication rather must be both social and structural, *or else there couldn't be any such definition.

(And _no_, I don't think that a pure linguistic definition of "language" as "standard language" = "institutionalised language" ever will become established for "everyday" purposes - as not even many linguists, or so it seems to me, are capable of making that distinction. )


----------



## Orlin

I think that Macedonian standard language is a good example: it's very much mutually intelligible with standard Bulgarian, especially for people from Western Bulgaria (and is structurally very close to standard Bulgarian, the principal differences are orthography and the quite numerous Serbian loans) and a bit less with Serbian. It's very easy for me to understand Macedonian thanks to my knowledge of Bulgarian and Serbian (I was in Macedonia very recently and brought some reading materials - I had no problems with them).
In my opinion definition of languages that form a dialect continuum (such are Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serbian) is purely socio-politically motivated: people decide to create a standard language and socio-political factors define almost entirely the direction of standardization - it can be clearly seen in the case of Macedonian because it was very recently standardized and the process of standardization most probably still continues.


----------



## DenisBiH

Now for my personal opinion.

A language is a dialect or a group of dialects whose speakers consider it to be:

a) a single language, even if consisting of many different dialects
b) distinct from neighboring languages

In the case of BCS, all three (I'm not sure about Montenegrin) names, Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian, go a long way back, i.e. have been used for centuries to describe some subset of BCS dialects (in some cases interchangeably and also other names such as "Illyrian", "Dalmatian", "Slavonian" etc. were used). All three names also predate the 19th century standardization. So in the case of BCS we don't necessarily have the point b) (perception of distinctness) true for all speakers (maybe not even most, but it depends on politics), but rather:

a) desire to use their own, historically attested name for a language which might be the same as the language which their neighbors call by different names
b) desire for the standardization of their language (grammar, treatment of borrowings, acceptance of newly coined words, lexis in general etc) to be in their own hands.

Had another name been chosen in the 19th century, say "Illyrian" (the one Croats used very often before Serbo-Croatian 1850 Vienna language accord), perhaps today we would have Illyrian (Serbian variety), Illyrian (Croatian variety), Illyrian (Bosnian variety) and Illyrian (Montenegrin variety). I think point b), separate standardization, would be the same as is now, except perhaps the concept of BCS(M) as a single polycentric language would be widely accepted instead of being shyly advocated by some linguists today. 

As for army and navy, it's a convenient saying, yet I believe somewhat incorrect, as sokol also hinted at. You don't need to have a state of your own to standardize a language (e.g. Serbo-Croatian in the 19th century, while most of the territory of ex-Yugoslavia was divided between the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with a semi-independent Serbia much smaller than now and with Ottoman troops still on its territory until 1867; and a tiny Montenegro). 

Anyway, the line of thinking that awards the title of "language" to only those that have a written standard is also somewhat clumsy in my opinion - historically then e.g. Serbian wouldn't have existed as a language prior to it being standardized, but only as a dialect, despite us having documents such as medieval charters in which the authors specifically refer to their language as Serbian, when contrasting it to Latin for example.


----------



## Orlin

DenisBiH said:


> Now for my personal opinion.
> 
> A language is a dialect or a group of dialects whose speakers consider it to be:
> 
> a) a single language, even if consisting of many different dialects
> b) distinct from neighboring languages
> 
> In the case of BCS, all three (I'm not sure about Montenegrin) names, Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian, go a long way back, i.e. have been used for centuries to describe some subset of BCS dialects (in some cases interchangeably and also other names such as "Illyrian", "Dalmatian", "Slavonian" etc. were used). All three names also predate the 19th century standardization. So in the case of BCS we don't necessarily have the point b) (perception of distinctness) true for all speakers (maybe not even most, but it depends on politics), but rather:
> 
> a) desire to use their own, historically attested name for a language which might be the same as the language which their neighbors call by different names
> b) desire for the standardization of their language (grammar, treatment of borrowings, acceptance of newly coined words, lexis in general etc) to be in their own hands.


 
Da, mislim da je suština problema u tome! Iz sokolovih primera vidno je da je samostalnost jezika prvenstveno stav *samih njegovih govornika* i u različitim delovima sveta imaju sasvim različit pristup (tj. da li je osamostaljenje potrebno i da li su zadovoljeni neophodni uslovi za ovu samostalnost). A jezički identitet osporavaju gotovo uvek ljudi van okvira govornika tog jezika i uglavnom politički motivirano (npr. tako je ovde na Balkanu - vidimo toliko mnogo polemike oko samostalnosti BCS jezika i makedonskog).


----------



## DenisBiH

Orlin said:


> Da, mislim da je suština problema u tome! Iz sokolovih primera vidno je da je samostalnost jezika prvenstveno stav *samih njegovih govornika* i u različitim delovima sveta imaju sasvim različit pristup (tj. da li je osamostaljenje potrebno i da li su zadovoljeni neobhodni uslovi za ovu samostalnost). A jezički identitet osporavaju gotovo uvek ljudi van okvira govornika tog jezika i uglavnom politički motivirano (npr. tako je ovde na Balkanu - vidimo toliko mnogo polemike oko samostalnosti BCS jezika i makedonskog).



Pisaću na ingleškom zarad ostalih Orline. 

Yes. And it's not even always about denying someone's right to their own separate linguistic and other identity. Take for example the name *"Serbo-Croatian"*. Both Serbs and Croats are mentioned in it, so unlike Bosniaks (back then "Muslims" by nationality) or Montenegrins they would have had nothing to complain about, right? Wrong. 

It seems to me that the name Serbo-Croatian was far more stable outside ex-Yugoslavia than inside, even during the days when Tito was the boss. So you had (in official usage) in the 1970's:

*"Serbo-Croatian"* in Serbia (and Montenegro)
*"Croato-Serbian"* in Croatia
*"Serbo-Croatian/Croato-Serbian"* in Bosnia-Herzegovina (we were trying to be extra neutral  )

Apart from that you also had "Croatian" alone used by some authors, and you had such expressions as "Croatian or Serbian" as used by Petar Skok in that etymological dictionary I often quote here on EHL.


----------



## Orlin

DenisBiH said:


> Yes. And it's not even always about denying someone's right to their own separate linguistic and other identity. Take for example the name *"Serbo-Croatian"*. Both Serbs and Croats are mentioned in it, so unlike Bosniaks (back then "Muslims" by nationality) or Montenegrins they would have had nothing to complain about, right? Wrong.


 
Ja ovde vidim sledeći razlog za nezadovoljstvo od strane Srba i/ili Hrvata - nečiji je stav bio da je to 2 *različita* naroda i samostalni jezik je simbol nacionalnog identiteta i smetalo im je da je "svoj" jezik zajednički s nekim drugim narodom.


----------



## DenisBiH

Ovdje (pri dnu članka, naslov "Povelja o bosanskom jeziku") je pogled bošnjačkih lingvista i književnika iz 2002. koji mislim da odražava "mainstream" bošnjačko mišljenje danas. Među potpisnicima Povelje su i oni koji su najviše doprinijeli standardizaciji bosanskoga jezika (Halilović, Jahić, Čedić itd.) ali i mnogi drugi iz akademskih krugova. Tu je i jedan interesantan kritički osvrt na tu povelju od strane Ivana Lovrenovića, jednog poznatog bh. intelektualca.


----------



## Lars H

Hej

This is a very interesting topic, and I think Sokol makes a good point.


This text is taken from today's *Verdens Gang*, the leading Norwegian Newspaper:
Norsk: Selskapet Virgin Galactics, med milliardæren Richard Branson i spissen, har gjennomført
Svenska: Bolaget Virgin Galactics, med miljardären Rickard Branson i spetsen, har genomfört
den aller første testflygningen av "SpaceShipTwo", som skal ta turister ut i verdensrommet.
den allra första testflygningen av "SpaceShipTwo" som skall ta turister ut i världsrymden.

As anyone can see, the differencies are quite small. Actually, it is for me -  living in Stockholm - more difficult to understand some Swedish dialects, like the rural dialects of the island Gotland, Österbotten (in Finland) parts of Dalarna - or the tiny town Årjäng .

I think that one aspect of language, is that it gathers a number of people who have agreed upon spelling and grammar rules. As there might of course be some exceptions, like Jänner/Januar.
In this respect Nynorsk is a language. The Swedish spoken in Finland is not.


----------



## Ben Jamin

sokol said:


> A language is a dialect with an army and a navy, or so the aphorism goes (which is attributed to the linguist Max Weinreich even though he hasn't coined it, but read the Wiki article for that).
> 
> ......
> 
> Reflections like those instead _*lead me*_ to the opinion* that the definition of "language" in the sense used in everyday communication rather must be both social and structural, *or else there couldn't be any such definition.
> 
> (And _no_, I don't think that a pure linguistic definition of "language" as "standard language" = "institutionalised language" ever will become established for "everyday" purposes - as not even many linguists, or so it seems to me, are capable of making that distinction. )


 
Let me share some of my reflections on the question you just have raised:
1. It is futile to seek a sharp defined defiition of 'language' and 'dialect'.
Both terms are taken from the colloquial language and attempted to use as 'scientific' terms (I know, in correct English it should be 'scholarly'). But the described objects are not sharply defined themselves, and the terms have aquired a 'fuzzy' character. Now, fuzziness does not have to mean unscientific, remember fuzzy logic that has had a great success in technology. So, both 'language' and 'dialect' "tend to be" rather than "are".
2. A dialect is usually related (tends to be) to an entity of higher degree, as in "a Y dialect of the X language", or a group: "the dialects of the Z-peninsula".
3. A dialect tends to be a local phenomenon, related to a geographical unit.
4. In the case of diglossia, a dialect tends to be spoken with the members of a "in-group" rather than of an "out-group".
5. A dialect is often one of many daughters of an older unity language (dialectal differentiation).
6. A 'dialect' tends to have a lower status than a 'language'.
7. Unlike 'dialect', an unqualified 'language' can have many more meanings. It is necessary to use qualifiers like 'natural language', 'programming language', 'national language', 'baby language', 'sign language', 'academic language', etc, etc. Thus, every dialect can be consider a language, but not vice versa.
8. A national language of a modern society consists of many sublanguages:
colloquial language, written language, formal language, academic langauage, legal langauage, chancery langauage (officialese), slangs, sociolects, poetical langauage, etc, etc. Dialects usually do not possess such a number of varieties, usually they have only one - colloquial variety.
9. Different  dialects are *expected* to be mutally intelligible, while different langauges are not. (The opposite is *sometimes* true).

The borders between the terms "national language" and "dialect" are elusive, but one can not say that the two mean the same, and that they might be used interchangeably, just as there does not exist any sharply defined border between Europe an Asia, but it is not true that there is no difference betwen the two.


----------



## sokol

Ben Jamin said:


> 1. It is futile to seek a sharp defined defiition of 'language' and 'dialect'.


I agree. 
There could be only a rather squishy definition of "language" (while the definition of "dialect" is clearer - for linguists at least, not so really in colloquial use ).
Still, there's a need to use the term "language"; it seems that human beings (your ordinary one on the street) doesn't feel comfortable with using the term "dialect" for every linguistic variety which could be described as a linguistic code (which has indeed been suggested by some linguists, and with good reason).

Personally I would be very happy if we could agree on not using the term "language" anymore at all but with calling each variety a "dialect" (and possibly those which are codified by grammarians, and which are institutionalised standard languages, a "standard dialect").

This would solve a great deal of problems which aren't really problems at all - first and foremost, nobody ever could claim anymore that a language didn't exist "prior to event XY" where event XY could be either a codification, or a first written document of a language, or the first political entity attributed to a language even, etc. (Those "problems" only occur due to lack of imagination for those trapped in the "language-category" thing.)

However, we do not live in an ideal world, and for this reason I fear that we will have to live with the term "language", whether I like it or not. (And I do _*not*_ like it, to confirm again, and to leave no misunderstandings whatsoever. )



Ben Jamin said:


> 2. A dialect is usually related (tends to be) to an entity of higher degree, as in "a Y dialect of the X language", or a group: "the dialects of the Z-peninsula".


This is indeed the case, however this is also one of the major problems of the language-dialect-distinction.
Some dialects of Slavic are intermediary between Eastern and Western Slavic, so-called "Rusyn dialects", considered by some being dialects of Ukrainian, but by others as a language in its own right (and I think that some even claim it's a Slovak dialect but of that I'm not sure). Guess what? Political opinions seem to play an important role of how one classifies this "dialect-language".

The same has been (and is) the case for Macedonian, to clarify as it has been mentioned above: Macedonian dialects are intermediary between Torlak (South Serbian) dialects on the one hand and Western Bulgarian ones on the other one, there's in fact a dialect continuum still existent in this area (well, to a degree; political borders have had time enough to already "begin sharpening" language borders there).

By my definition (see my original post) it is easy to identify Serbian, Macedonian and Bulgarian standard languages as separate languages by structural and social differentiation (of course Macedonian and Bulgarian are very close while both those languages are only close to Southern Serbian dialects, but not too close to Serbian standard language).
But if you look at dialects the boundaries are not so sharp as they seem to be when comparing standard languages - this is indeed similar to the Scandinavian situation (with Norwegian/Swedish being very close, and both of them being rather close to Danish, while there also has been some considerable Danish influence on Norwegian standard language - the "Danish" influence on the Balkans would be Serbian one on Macedonian, obviously ).

However, language borders are beginning to "sharpen" with political borders: this by the way also is something to be observed in many other languages.
In Austria for example dialect features which developed in Carinthian German (the so-called "Kärntner Dehnung - Carinthian lenghening of vowels") were contained by the Carinthian provincial borders - the lengthening, an innovation which began in southern and central Carinthia, couldn't jump the provincial border.
The same I guess happened in Scandinavia, and the same definitely happened in former Yougoslavia (even under "common rule", so to speak - even before that time, under Habsburg rule: the dialect continuum between Slovene and Kajkavian Croatian, once surely rather fluent, was interrupted by then-provincial border of Austria/Slovene parts and Hungary/Croatian parts).

So even to subsume dialects A, B and C under language ABC while dialects D, E and F are subsumed under language DEF is arbitrary - well, not completely random really, but to a degree certainly (more in some cases, less in others).
Had history put Kajkavian Croatian regions under Austrian rather than Hungarian rules then Kajkavians probably would call their language Slovene now, or else would Eastern Slovenia have been under Hungarian rule (or Central Slovenia even for that matter) then they probably would call themselves either "Kajkavians" or "Croats".

But as things were different they're calling themselves Slovenes and Kajkavian Croats respectively (and this won't change anymore there, both structure and linguistic identity of both groups respectively have developed and evolved in different directions - they're both different now linguistically, and also in linguistic/national identity).



Ben Jamin said:


> 3. A dialect tends to be a local phenomenon, related to a geographical unit.


As a linguist I would define a dialect as a regional variety, distributed according to region (as opposed to a sociolect, which is a social variety - distributed along the social stratum).
Your definition of dialect is not in conflict with this, however I think you might intend to mean with this also: "dialect = language spoken by people in intimate or, at most, informal contexts" which then would be a social dimension - and which "should" not be part of the definition of dialect, however most people think of dialect being both a (regional) dialect as well as a sociolect. Switzerland is the best example that this is by far an universal rule, but Switzerland diglossia is only one of many, which leads to your point #4:


Ben Jamin said:


> 4. In the case of diglossia, a dialect tends to be spoken with the members of a "in-group" rather than of an "out-group".


Well, there exist plenty of diglossia definitions (which in itself is an absurdity, but sadly it is true - even linguists unfortunately cannot agree on a common and unified definition of the term "diglossia").
But the prevailing definition of diglossia is rather that in diglossia dialect is spoken not only in intimate situations but that there is a co-existence of both dialect(s) and standard language in a broad range of informal and (partly) even formal conversational situations.
And in this case, diglossia indeed would rather mean that a foreigner who is learning a "language-in-diglossia" (like Arabic, also) is well-advised to try and acquire at least passive competence in the dialects, for a simple reason: if he or she doesn't grave problems will occur - even if you might be understood more or less in an Algerian bazaar if talking MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) you might have serious trouble to understand people speaking their local varieties.

But diglossia really is such a huge topic - it really would deserve a thread of its own (I think we even might have one already).


Ben Jamin said:


> 5. A dialect is often one of many daughters of an older unity language (dialectal differentiation).


That may be the case oftentimes, but it is not what defines a dialect, or what makes a dialect distinct from languages.

Also, languages usually are one of many daughters of an ancient language (Romance, Slavic, Semitic languages, take your pick ) - which only shows how arbitrary the definition of language can be, from a structural and especially from an historical point of view.

(Part #2 to follow)


----------



## sokol

(part #2) 



Ben Jamin said:


> 6. A 'dialect' tends to have a lower status than a 'language'.


Ah, here we have it - the social dimension. Some dialects indeed do, but those then are both dialects and sociolects; talking in linguistic terms it is essential to differentiate between regional and social dimension - which, of course, rarely is done in colloquial speech.



Ben Jamin said:


> 7. Unlike 'dialect', an unqualified 'language' can have many more meanings. It is necessary to use qualifiers like 'natural language', 'programming language', 'national language', 'baby language', 'sign language', 'academic language', etc, etc. Thus, every dialect can be consider a language, but not vice versa.


Oh, but any standard language could also be considered a dialect  the vice-versa-thing works for linguists (not for your average man on the street admittedly, they'd object here ;-)), and many linguists have done so (this, by the way, includes me).
Personally I would very much prefer to just call standard languages "standard dialects". But well, language is a living thing, I won't be able to change the use of terms when millions insist on some usage - they won't care if I consider their use being "misleading" or even "faulty". 



Ben Jamin said:


> 8. A national language of a modern society consists of many sublanguages:
> colloquial language, written language, formal language, academic langauage, legal langauage, chancery langauage (officialese), slangs, sociolects, poetical langauage, etc, etc. Dialects usually do not possess such a number of varieties, usually they have only one - colloquial variety.


Not so in diglossic language situations. 
The differentiation between written and spoken language, academic vs. technical vs. everyday language etc. by the way is a differentiation of register - dialects (that is, dialects as you define it ) also develop registers if allowed to (that is, if they're used in other domains but intimate ones, if used rather widely by society).

Only in language situations where dialects are restricted to a very small spectrum of social life - usually intimate conversations (between family and friends only) - dialects tend to be "almost" single-register-codes. Such things have been observed by many linguists, one of whom is Norman Denison who wrote many articles about Sauris/Zahre - a small Alpine village in Friuli/Italy: there, people only used their German dialects for intimate situations, Furlan dialect for informal ones and Italian standard language for formal situations only (this was so in the 1960ies, situation now has changed - German dialect there is almost extinct but may be used in any domain, even written, by those who try to keep it alive).
There, dialect (their German dialect, in this particular case) indeed practically was only a single-register-variety while Furlan dialect occupied a number of registers and Italian an even broader range; on the other hand, Italian then - in the 1960ies - never was used in intimate situations while this is the case there now (as said, situation changed).



Ben Jamin said:


> 9. Different  dialects are *expected* to be mutally intelligible, while different langauges are not. (The opposite is *sometimes* true).


This in fact oftentimes is _not_ the case.
As you formulated, they're "expected" to be mutually intelligible - by those who think that they all belong to the same "language".
But as faulty as the definition of "language" by those people is, as wrong is the prejudice that dialects of "one single language" should be mutually intelligible.
In German language they definitely aren't, and the same could be said for many other languages (with Chinese probably being one of the most extreme cases).
On the other hand, as Lars confirmed, a "foreign standard language" like Norwegian could be mutually intelligible to a Swede to a higher degree than a dialect of his or her "own language" Swedish. 

And I can assure you of some similar cases in Slavic languages: I'm rather sure that many a Slovene from Primorje (coastal region) might find Croatian more intelligible than Prekmurje dialect (easternmost Slovenia, on the opposite side of Primorje so to speak - and very much different from Slovene coastal dialects).
And surely a Croatian from Dubrovnik will have no problems whatsoever in understanding Bosnians ore even Serbs from Central Serbia while they might find Kajkavian (= Croatian!) dialects barely intelligible at all.

But BCSM is a very special case; German would be a much better example to demonstrate that mutual intelligibility either isn't a valid criterium to define language or else would give reason to split German language into at least half a dozen different "languages".
German dialects look "more intelligible" than they are due to levelling of dialects which has been relatively strong in some regions while in others dialects have become restricted to intimate situations only (the latter especially but not only in wide parts of Northern Germany).
By the way, similar processes happened in Italy.



Ben Jamin said:


> The borders between the terms "national language" and "dialect" are elusive, but one can not say that the two mean the same, and that they might be used interchangeably, just as there does not exist any sharply defined border between Europe an Asia, but it is not true that there is no difference betwen the two.


So we agree that the borders between the two are elusive; but we don't agree on why and how this is the case. 

Interesting points you made, and no offence, I only "sharpened" my own definition of how I understand those terms (and what I think about even using them ): so this isn't intended as "negative criticism" but, hopefully, constructive one. 

(PS: I don't think I'll answer any posts here in so much detail again - just takes too much time really. )


----------



## Frank06

Ben Jamin said:


> 1. It is futile to seek a sharp defined definition of 'language' and 'dialect'.


Agreed, but for completely different reasons .
Besides, even though you think it's futile, you do give some rather stark definitions of/distinctions between language and dialect. I must say I am confused. 


> 2. A dialect is usually related (tends to be) to an entity of higher degree, as in "a Y dialect of the X language", or a group: "the dialects of the Z-peninsula".


Something I also missed in Sokol's post: "usually related". Okay, but by whom?


> 3. A dialect tends to be a local phenomenon, related to a geographical unit.


I checked three linguistic dictionaries and one publication on dialectology. Three out of 4 books (Crystal, Trask, Wolfram) define dialect as 
as a language variety, either regionally or socially. Only Matthews equates dialect with a variety spoken in a certain region.  


> 5. A dialect is often one of many daughters of an older unity language (dialectal differentiation).


Not sure if I understand. Can you please give an example? And what about that "older unity language?"


> 7. Unlike 'dialect', an unqualified 'language' can have many more meanings. It is necessary to use qualifiers like 'natural language', 'programming language', 'national language', 'baby language', 'sign language', 'academic language', etc, etc. Thus, every dialect can be consider a language, but not vice versa.


This is a word game, no?


> 8. A national language of a modern society consists of many sublanguages:
> colloquial language, written language, formal language, academic langauage, legal langauage, chancery langauage (officialese), slangs, sociolects, poetical langauage, etc, etc. Dialects usually do not possess such a number of varieties, usually they have only one - colloquial variety.


Well, only if you do make a very sharp distinction/definition. Do you mean national language equals standardised language? 


> 9. Different  dialects are *expected* to be mutally intelligible, while different langauges are not. (The opposite is *sometimes* true).


So often true, that it cannot serve as an argument, imo.


----------



## Ben Jamin

sokol said:


> I agree.
> There could be only a rather squishy definition of "language" (while the definition of "dialect" is clearer - for linguists at least, not so really in colloquial use ).
> Still, there's a need to use the term "language"; it seems that human beings (your ordinary one on the street) doesn't feel comfortable with using the term "dialect" for every linguistic variety which could be described as a linguistic code (which has indeed been suggested by some linguists, and with good reason).
> 
> Personally I would be very happy if we could agree on not using the term "language" anymore at all but with calling each variety a "dialect" (and possibly those which are codified by grammarians, and which are institutionalised standard languages, a "standard dialect").
> 
> This would solve a great deal of problems which aren't really problems at all - first and foremost, nobody ever could claim anymore that a language didn't exist "prior to event XY" where event XY could be either a codification, or a first written document of a language, or the first political entity attributed to a language even, etc. (Those "problems" only occur due to lack of imagination for those trapped in the "language-category" thing.)
> 
> However, we do not live in an ideal world, and for this reason I fear that we will have to live with the term "language", whether I like it or not. (And I do _*not*_ like it, to confirm again, and to leave no misunderstandings whatsoever. )
> 
> 
> This is indeed the case, however this is also one of the major problems of the language-dialect-distinction.
> Some dialects of Slavic are intermediary between Eastern and Western Slavic, so-called "Rusyn dialects", considered by some being dialects of Ukrainian, but by others as a language in its own right (and I think that some even claim it's a Slovak dialect but of that I'm not sure). Guess what? Political opinions seem to play an important role of how one classifies this "dialect-language".
> 
> The same has been (and is) the case for Macedonian, to clarify as it has been mentioned above: Macedonian dialects are intermediary between Torlak (South Serbian) dialects on the one hand and Western Bulgarian ones on the other one, there's in fact a dialect continuum still existent in this area (well, to a degree; political borders have had time enough to already "begin sharpening" language borders there).
> 
> By my definition (see my original post) it is easy to identify Serbian, Macedonian and Bulgarian standard languages as separate languages by structural and social differentiation (of course Macedonian and Bulgarian are very close while both those languages are only close to Southern Serbian dialects, but not too close to Serbian standard language).
> But if you look at dialects the boundaries are not so sharp as they seem to be when comparing standard languages - this is indeed similar to the Scandinavian situation (with Norwegian/Swedish being very close, and both of them being rather close to Danish, while there also has been some considerable Danish influence on Norwegian standard language - the "Danish" influence on the Balkans would be Serbian one on Macedonian, obviously ).
> 
> However, language borders are beginning to "sharpen" with political borders: this by the way also is something to be observed in many other languages.
> In Austria for example dialect features which developed in Carinthian German (the so-called "Kärntner Dehnung - Carinthian lenghening of vowels") were contained by the Carinthian provincial borders - the lengthening, an innovation which began in southern and central Carinthia, couldn't jump the provincial border.
> The same I guess happened in Scandinavia, and the same definitely happened in former Yougoslavia (even under "common rule", so to speak - even before that time, under Habsburg rule: the dialect continuum between Slovene and Kajkavian Croatian, once surely rather fluent, was interrupted by then-provincial border of Austria/Slovene parts and Hungary/Croatian parts).
> 
> So even to subsume dialects A, B and C under language ABC while dialects D, E and F are subsumed under language DEF is arbitrary - well, not completely random really, but to a degree certainly (more in some cases, less in others).
> Had history put Kajkavian Croatian regions under Austrian rather than Hungarian rules then Kajkavians probably would call their language Slovene now, or else would Eastern Slovenia have been under Hungarian rule (or Central Slovenia even for that matter) then they probably would call themselves either "Kajkavians" or "Croats".
> 
> But as things were different they're calling themselves Slovenes and Kajkavian Croats respectively (and this won't change anymore there, both structure and linguistic identity of both groups respectively have developed and evolved in different directions - they're both different now linguistically, and also in linguistic/national identity).
> 
> 
> As a linguist I would define a dialect as a regional variety, distributed according to region (as opposed to a sociolect, which is a social variety - distributed along the social stratum).
> Your definition of dialect is not in conflict with this, however I think you might intend to mean with this also: "dialect = language spoken by people in intimate or, at most, informal contexts" which then would be a social dimension - and which "should" not be part of the definition of dialect, however most people think of dialect being both a (regional) dialect as well as a sociolect. Switzerland is the best example that this is by far an universal rule, but Switzerland diglossia is only one of many, which leads to your point #4:
> 
> Well, there exist plenty of diglossia definitions (which in itself is an absurdity, but sadly it is true - even linguists unfortunately cannot agree on a common and unified definition of the term "diglossia").
> But the prevailing definition of diglossia is rather that in diglossia dialect is spoken not only in intimate situations but that there is a co-existence of both dialect(s) and standard language in a broad range of informal and (partly) even formal conversational situations.
> And in this case, diglossia indeed would rather mean that a foreigner who is learning a "language-in-diglossia" (like Arabic, also) is well-advised to try and acquire at least passive competence in the dialects, for a simple reason: if he or she doesn't grave problems will occur - even if you might be understood more or less in an Algerian bazaar if talking MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) you might have serious trouble to understand people speaking their local varieties.
> 
> But diglossia really is such a huge topic - it really would deserve a thread of its own (I think we even might have one already).
> 
> That may be the case oftentimes, but it is not what defines a dialect, or what makes a dialect distinct from languages.
> 
> Also, languages usually are one of many daughters of an ancient language (Romance, Slavic, Semitic languages, take your pick ) - which only shows how arbitrary the definition of language can be, from a structural and especially from an historical point of view.
> 
> (Part #2 to follow)


 
I can see that you either agree partially with my "definitions" (or rather observations) or you broaden them with 'new' features. This is exactly what I meant - the linguistic reality has no sharp borders, and neither can the description tools create artficial sharp distinctions. One "entity" can have different, even contradictory features.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Lars H said:


> Hej
> 
> This is a very interesting topic, and I think Sokol makes a good point.
> 
> 
> This text is taken from today's *Verdens Gang*, the leading Norwegian Newspaper:
> Norsk: Selskapet Virgin Galactics, med milliardæren Richard Branson i spissen, har gjennomført
> Svenska: Bolaget Virgin Galactics, med miljardären Rickard Branson i spetsen, har genomfört
> den aller første testflygningen av "SpaceShipTwo", som skal ta turister ut i verdensrommet.
> den allra första testflygningen av "SpaceShipTwo" som skall ta turister ut i världsrymden.
> 
> As anyone can see, the differencies are quite small. Actually, it is for me - living in Stockholm - more difficult to understand some Swedish dialects, like the rural dialects of the island Gotland, Österbotten (in Finland) parts of Dalarna - or the tiny town Årjäng .
> 
> I think that one aspect of language, is that it gathers a number of people who have agreed upon spelling and grammar rules. As there might of course be some exceptions, like Jänner/Januar.
> In this respect Nynorsk is a language. The Swedish spoken in Finland is not.


 
1. You are probably a linguistically talented person. Young Swedes coming to Norway to work find themselves often lost and helpless in the new environment.
_... In this respect Nynorsk is a language. The Swedish spoken in Finland is not..._

2. I do not agree if you do not qualify the word 'language' with an adjective (for example national language, or similar). The Finlandssvenska is certainly a *language*, even if we agree that it is a dialect of Swedish.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Here is my proposal of some definitions that may make it easier to speak about language/dialect classifications:

1. A *language* is a system of signals used for communication between living creatures (LC) or IT equipment, or between LC and IT.
 
2. A *natural human language* is a system of vocal signals, consisting of words and usually arranged into sentences. Two languages can be mutually not intelligible, and then they are called separate natural languages. Two languages can be mutually partially intelligible, and then they are called _related languages_ or _dialects_ of a common “dachsprache”. Which one is used is a question of convention, and consequently often also of controversy.
 
2. A *national language* is a language of a human community, both spoken and written, used (or capable of being used) as a literary, administrative, educational, legal, and scientific tool. Two national languages can be mutually highly intelligible, but not considered dialects of the same “dachsprache” because of their status as national languages. The classification is often controversial, because of non linguistic reasons. Some languages will lie between the state of a natural and a national language.
 
3. A *dialect* is:
- a natural language that is more or less intelligible with one or more other natural languages (and often classified under a "dachsprache").
- a natural language that is conventionally classified as a dialect even if it is not longer  mutually intelligible with any other natural languages, (vide Chinese dialects).


----------



## Ben Jamin

Frank06 said:


> Quote:
> Originally Posted by *Ben Jamin*
> 
> 
> 1. It is futile to seek a sharp defined definition of 'language' and 'dialect'.
> 
> Agreed, but for completely different reasons .
> Besides, even though you think it's futile, you do give some rather stark definitions of/distinctions between language and dialect. I must say I am confused.
> 
> You should notice the wording of my definitions, they are largely inclusive, not exclusive, and therefore not "stark".
> 
> Quote:
> 2. A dialect is usually related (tends to be) to an entity of higher degree, as in "a Y dialect of the X language", or a group: "the dialects of the Z-peninsula".
> Something I also missed in Sokol's post: "usually related". Okay, but by whom?
> I do not undestand this question. If you are related to your father, you are not related *by *somebody, but by a biological fact.
> 
> Quote:
> 3. A dialect tends to be a local phenomenon, related to a geographical unit.
> I checked three linguistic dictionaries and one publication on dialectology. Three out of 4 books (Crystal, Trask, Wolfram) define dialect as
> as a language variety, either regionally or socially. Only Matthews equates dialect with a variety spoken in a certain region.
> Here you see the fuzziness and conventionality of this classification. It's not methematics.
> 
> Quote:
> 5. A dialect is often one of many daughters of an older unity language (dialectal differentiation).
> Not sure if I understand. Can you please give an example? And what about that "older unity language?"
> The "Norwegian dialects" are regarded as descendants of the "Old Norse" language, which was not differentiated into dialects in the initial phase.
> The dialects became more and more different with time.
> 
> Quote:
> 7. Unlike 'dialect', an unqualified 'language' can have many more meanings. It is necessary to use qualifiers like 'natural language', 'programming language', 'national language', 'baby language', 'sign language', 'academic language', etc, etc. Thus, every dialect can be consider a language, but not vice versa.
> This is a word game, no?
> No. It is serous. A 'language' is a "hyperonime", like "animal". It can mean highly different things, and be only confusing if not precised by an additional word.
> 
> Quote:
> 8. A national language of a modern society consists of many sublanguages:
> colloquial language, written language, formal language, academic langauage, legal langauage, chancery langauage (officialese), slangs, sociolects, poetical langauage, etc, etc. Dialects usually do not possess such a number of varieties, usually they have only one - colloquial variety.
> Well, only if you do make a very sharp distinction/definition. Do you mean national language equals standardised language?
> Why the "sharp definition"? I do not do it. Everything is fuzzy, but must be expressed somehow.
> Quote:
> 9. Different dialects are *expected* to be mutally intelligible, while different langauges are not. (The opposite is *sometimes* true).
> So often true, that it cannot serve as an argument, imo.
> An argument for what?


----------



## Lars H

Ben Jamin said:


> Young Swedes coming to Norway to work find themselves often lost and helpless in the new environment.



I could very well imagine that. Even if Norwegian is close to Swedish it takes both time and effort for a Swede to get a grip of the language, even if it is the relatively clear and simple dialect of Oslo. More so when it comes to Vestlandet. But it is not less difficult for someone from Stockholm to understand some of the Swedish dialects talked in remote areas.



Ben Jamin said:


> I do not agree if you do not qualify the word 'language' with an adjective (for example national language, or similar). The Finlandssvenska is certainly a *language*, even if we agree that it is a dialect of Swedish.



I don't have any strong opinion in this. But let me rephrase myself. This is not a rule, but could it perhaps serve as a guideline? Carrying loads of exceptions 

Dialects tend to share spelling and grammar
Languages tend to have unique spelling and grammar.

And we can point out that for Norwegian there are two sets of rules for spelling (nynorsk/bokmål), but for Swedish there is only one. How could this difference best be labelled?


----------



## Frank06

Hi,

I must say that there are parts I do understand (but with wich I don't agree at all), and parts I don't understand at all.


Ben Jamin said:


> You should notice the wording of my definitions, they are largely inclusive, not exclusive, and therefore not "stark".


I read your post several times, and I must say I didn't manage to read that into it. On this first point, we'll have to agree to disagree .



> I do not understand this question. If you are related to your father, you are not related *by *somebody, but by a biological fact.


I understood your "related to" in an other way. 
But I'll rephrase my question: 
You wrote:
"A dialect is usually related (tends to be) to an entity of higher degree, as in "a Y dialect of the X language", or a group: "the dialects of the Z-peninsula"." 
What do you mean by this and who else thinks this?



> [on dialects] Here you see the fuzziness and conventionality of this classification. It's not methematics.


No, it's definitions by three linguists:
*dialect*
Crystal: A regionally or socially distinctive variety...
Trask: A distinctive variety of a language used by speakers in a particular geographical region or in a particular social group."
Wolfram: "However, the technical use of the term in linguistics is different from its popular definition in some important, but sometimes subtle ways. [...]  neutral label to refer to any variety of a language which is shared by a group of speakers."

I humbly stick to the opinions and definitions of these three men, wiser than me...



			
				Ben Jamin said:
			
		

> 5. A dialect is often one of many daughters of an older unity language (dialectal differentiation).
> 
> 
> 
> Frank06 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not sure if I understand. Can you please give an example? And what about that "older unity language?"
> 
> 
> 
> The "Norwegian dialects" are regarded as descendants of the "Old Norse" language, which was not differentiated into dialects in the initial phase. The dialects became more and more different with time.
Click to expand...

Not differentiated in its initial phase? Here I fully disagree. I cannot follow this train of thought at all. 
Do you have indications for a kind of Unified Old Norse language? Or Unified (pre-)Old Dutch language, Unified (pre-)Old English Language? And that Unified language, was it once one of the many dialects of another Unified language, whic in itself was... you see the problem?? 
I cannot wrap my head around this, maybe I misunderstood and maybe you can explain it in a clearer way, using for example, American English dialects as a modern example. Where is the Unified American English? 



			
				Ben Jamin said:
			
		

> 9. Different dialects are *expected* to be mutally intelligible, while different languages are not. (The opposite is *sometimes* true).
> 
> 
> 
> Frank06 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So often true, that it cannot serve as an argument, imo.
> 
> 
> 
> An argument for what?
Click to expand...

Hey, that's my question . But I don't think it's an argument for anything.

I cannot help it, but I read your explanation as quite a literal "translation" of the Family Tree Model, in which the nodes represent a "Unified language". But I might be completely wrong in my interpretation.


Anyway, for me it's a matter of usage.
A bit like... In Dutch we can say it's "5 past half 3", "25 before 3" or "3.35". The 3 expressions refer all to the same moment in time, but the point of view differs. Same with the terms "language" and "dialect":
"Dutch is a language" is as correct as "Dutch is a dialect", but the point of view differs. The phrases talk about the same thing, but from another point of view, as required by the context.
[However, depending on the context "Dutch" can mean Standard Language (equals "Standard dialect", Kultursprache) or collection of dialects.]


Frank


----------



## Hulalessar

Ben Jamin said:


> Two languages can be mutually partially intelligible, and then they are called _related languages_ or _dialects_ of a common “dachsprache”.



I do not think that that will do at all.

In Ruritania they speak Coastal Ruritanian, Central Ruritanian and Highlands Ruritanian. Coastal Ruritanian and Central Ruritanian are mutually partially intelligible, as are Central Ruritanian and Highlands Ruritanian. However, Coastal Ruritanian and Highland Ruritanian have no mutual intelligibility. According to your definition, Coastal Ruritanian and Central Ruritanian considered together would be dialects of Ruritanian; Central Ruritanian and Highlands Ruritanian considered together would also be dialects of Ruritanian; however, Coastal Ruritanian and Highlands Ruritanian considered together would not be dialects of Ruritainian.

I think this highlights the difficulty linguists would have in deciding exactly what constitutes a language even if the complications brought in by socio-political considerations did not exist. Perhaps we can only say that speech form X and speech form Y are different languages if they are mutually unintelligible and there are no surviving intervening dialects that connect them.


----------



## sokol

The "Dachsprache" metaphor was created by German linguists, and personally I must say that I resent the concept of "Dachsprache": to me it is just a concept of trying to define "naive" attitudes about language(s) and dialects linguistically.

Or in other words: the "Dachsprache" concept claims that (to stick to the example of German for which it was defined first):

- All German dialects are "put under one roof" by German standard language; they are "überdacht" = "roofed" (a verb which probably doesn't exist in English yet ), they're "attributed" to a specific standard language by the fact of a standard language "put above" them.

This to me is like claiming that the hen must have been first because else there wouldn't be an egg, or alternatively claiming that the egg must have been first because from where else would have come the hen?
Both arguments would be circular - and circular explanations are pretty much useless.

So in my opinion the Dachsprache-metaphor is just as misleading (and useless) as the egg-and-hen-metaphor: as in reality neither egg nor hen was first, but the microbe was!

- Those German dialects which are not subject to influence of German standard language are called "nicht überdacht" = "not roofed", like the dialects spoken in Alsace-Lotharingia; those are considered to either belong to German language if they're structurally still close enough or else belonging to a separate language.

This again is pure nonsense from a linguistic point of view: why should Strasbourg dialect possibly (if structurally distinct enough) be considered a "language" in its own right while other dialects, like Schleswig-Holstein Platt, Burgenland-Heanzisch, Upper Valais-Highest Alemannic and many other _very_ distinctive dialects (more distinctive from standard language than Alsace dialects) be considered dialects only then?


To me the "Dachsprache" metaphor just is a way of prolonging long-dated prejudices about language and dialect as such in a way which is "supposed" to be scientific, or even socio-linguistic.
Please excuse my sharp reply, I _*do*_ know that there are plenty of linguists around supporting the "Dachsprache"-explanation; the sharpness is intended towards _*them*_, right?


----------



## Lars H

sokol said:


> Those German dialects which are not subject to influence of German standard language are called "nicht überdacht" = "not roofed", like the dialects spoken in Alsace-Lotharingia; those are considered to either belong to German language if they're structurally still close enough or else belonging to a separate language.



The concept of Dachsprache was new to me. With the risk of repeating myself from earlier, I would like to come back to the matter of spelling and grammar regarding to this topic. And German is a good language (group?) to use as illustration.

The Deutsch I learned in school serves me good when I read signs and other texts, all the way from Apenrode in Nortern Schleswig down to Meran in Süd-Tirol. But in Cimbrian _Slege_ (Asiago, Italy), _Strossburi_, _Lëtzebuerg_ or _Amsterdam_, it does not. This brings me to two questions:

a. Many groups of speakers of German variants have obviously choosen to follow the High German Standard when it comes to spelling and grammar, although there are - as we know - huge varieties in pronouncing.
b. Other groups have chosen to develop a written language of their own.

1. From a linguistic point of view, does the difference between these two strategies have any significance at all or not?
2. What would be proper labels on category a. and b. or should there be no labels at all, meaning that a. and b. are the same?


----------



## sokol

Well, Letzeburgisch is now considered a language of its own - one which has developped away enough from German to be considered a "language" even though Luxembourg dialects in fact are practically the same ones as those across the border.

Which is also one of the reasons why I personally favour the definition of language - if we must use this term at all (which, it seems, is difficult to avoid even when linguists talk with each other) - it should be both structural and social, as structurally "Luxembourg" dialect certainly would be considered "as much of a language" as its neighbouring "German" dialects while socially there's clearly a "national Luxembourg" identity with reference to its dialect as a national language.

The case of German isolated villages in Italy (of which Cimbrian is one, Sauris/Zahre another, Sappada/Ploden yet another one, and there are more) is different: there they've developped a "local" identity, they never learned German standard language there (never was part of education for a very long time at least, probably it was here and there under Habsburg rule but even of that I'm not sure ).
Those dialects spoken there are at the brink of extinction and written (also in Sappada and Sauris ) for local uses, to increase the amount of use of those dialects and thus, hopefully, contributing to them not becoming extinct. I would consider them as much as "dialects" or "languages" as any other and similar dialect in neighbouring Austria.

The absence of German standard language of course makes a difference but those cases definitely are not comparable to Luxembourg codification of a new language - a codification process which was begun on purpose, with the aim of the new language becoming a focus of national identity.

Or take Southern Tyrol: there, German standard language _*is*_ used in education, and German native speakers of Southern Tyrol put much importance on this fact (to differentiate themselves from the Italian minority in the "half-province" of Bozen/Bolzano).
However, Southern Tyrol identity is a weird "mix" which is difficult to understand even for Austrians, let alone others.  Southern Tyrolians do not really feel like they were an "Austrian minority" (even though legally they are - Austria was and is the "official arbitrator" or something for them, not sure how one should translate this to English ), nor do they really feel like Italians (they do when their skiers win for Italy - many of which are Southern Tyroleans -, but I'm not so sure if they do care that much when Italy wins in football). I've met some Southern Tyroleans in my life and as far as I understand it they feel as "Southern Tyroleans" (not even "Tyroleans" but southern ones): they've got their local identity, which is indeed a very strong one (stronger than their national one by passport, which would be Italian, or their ethnical one, by which they should call themselves Austrians or at least Tyroleans - but they do neither).
Still, they did not - and didn't intend to - create their own national language (even though they easily could, their Tyrolean dialect being distinct enough from standard language easily; which then of course also would create the paradox that there would be a "Southern Tyrolean language" very closely related to "Northern" and "Eastern Tyrolean dialects", the same paradox as in the Luxembourg case; but as said, there's no intention of doing this).

Anyway, as for writing system, dialect is written in German area - widely so; especially in Switzerland but by no means only there: dialect literature and dialect pop is strong in Austria, and also in many regions in Germany (especially in the south but also in the north where people try to preserve almost extinct Platt dialects).

Actually I am a 100% sure that the corpus of written Viennese dialect is by magnitudes (!!) bigger than the whole corpus of written texts in dialects of the German linguistic islands in Northern Italy (that is, without Southern Tyrol as this is not a linguistic island, it isn't isolated from German speaking area; but for good measure you could include Southern Tyrol in the stats there and still I'm sure that the corpus of Viennese dialect is still bigger by magnitudes).

So you see, no real system behind it. Pure chaos in the German speaking nations.


----------



## Abu Rashid

sokol said:
			
		

> What defines a "language"?



The old fashioned test. Put two people in a room, if they talk, it's the same language, if they break into a round of charades then it's not. Simple, easy and pretty accurate.

If they spend more than 10% of their time explaining words with other words, then they're dialects of the same language.


----------



## sokol

Abu Rashid said:


> The old fashioned test. Put two people in a room, if they talk, it's the same language, if they break into a round of charades then it's not. Simple, easy and pretty accurate.
> 
> If they spend more than 10% of their time explaining words with other words, then they're dialects of the same language.


Nice and neat, admittedly, but ...

By this definition Norwegian and Swedish at least (probably those two plus Danish, ask Lars ) would have to be considered a single language then.


----------



## Frank06

Abu Rashid said:


> The old fashioned test. Put two people in a room, if they talk, it's the same language, if they break into a round of charades then it's not. Simple, easy and pretty accurate.
> If they spend more than 10% of their time explaining words with other words, then they're dialects of the same language.


Result: When I talk with a German, I must conclude he is talking the same language as me, because I understand him (probably the German doesn't think the same about my Brabantian). When I talk with somebody from West-Flanders, then I must conclude that it is an enterily different language.
Conclusion: this test fails miserably (as does any argument (solely) based upon mutual intelligibility).


----------



## Abu Rashid

sokol said:
			
		

> By this definition Norwegian and Swedish at least (probably those two plus Danish, ask Lars ) would have to be considered a single language then



So be it 

I'm really not a big fan of the _"We better ask them first what their language should be classified as"_ way of deciding if languages are separate or not.

A lot of things that require scientific classification are not so distinct and are often blurred at the edges, but that doesn't stop us trying to classify them according to their actual state.



			
				Frank said:
			
		

> Result: When I talk with a Gerùan, I think he is talking the same language as me (probably the german doesn't think so about my Brabantian). When I talk with somebody from West-Flanders, then I must conclude that it is an enterily different language.



Again, so be it. 



			
				Frank said:
			
		

> Otherwise said: this test fails miserably.



How so?


----------



## Frank06

Abu Rashid said:


> So be it


Hence the German speaks the same language as me, but I don't speak the same language as the German? Or, German is the same language as Dutch, but Dutch isn't the same language as German?


----------



## berndf

sokol said:


> The "Dachsprache" metaphor was created by German linguists, and personally I must say that I resent the concept of "Dachsprache": to me it is just a concept of trying to define "naive" attitudes about language(s) and dialects linguistically.


I find the concept useful to describe how dialect continua break up and for new ones my the attractive force of a common standard language. E.g. Low-German is spoken as a minority language on both sides of the Dutch-German border, yet Low-German in the Netherland today sounds like an "odd variety" of Dutch and Low-German in Germany like an "odd variety" of German. But I don't know, maybe "diglossia" is a better concept to explain such phenomena.


----------



## Istriano

1. Most Tamilians say Tamil is the oldest language in the world, for them Proto-Dravidian equals Tamil, so they say all other Dravidian languages separated from Tamil, some of them even say Malayalam is just a dialect of Tamil.

(In Europe, this would be like saying: All Germanic languages separated from Icelandic, Icelandic being the most puristic must be the oldest, and Proto-Germanic equals Icelandic, so English is just a dialect of Icelandic)

2. '' Sri Lanka Tamil may  may also be more closely related to Malayalam than it is to Tamil, but not in the minds of its speakers ''

Speakers of Sri Lanka Tamil are mistaken for Malayalis/Keralites when they go to India ( Tamil Nadu). So, both groups call their language ''Tamil'' and they write it the same way, using the 13th century grammar (it was the last time written Tamil was ''updated''). But when it comes to the spoken language, Sri Lanka Tamil is closer to the Malayalam language than to contemporary spoken Tamil Nadu Tamil.

So, it's like time twins. Varieties of one languages are prone to changes in both time and space (geographic separation). But both call their language the old name.
So, many Sri Lankans proudly call their language Tamil even they have dificulties understanding contemporary spoken Tamil Nadu Tamil.

Many Brazilians have trouble understanding contemporary spoken Continental Portuguese, yet the name of the language is the same. But Portuguese people many times call the Brazilian Portuguese: _brasileiro_, and Portuguese soap operas have been dubbed into Brazilian Portuguese (nonetheless Brazilians call their language Portuguese, not Brazilian).

3. Names like ''modern Greek'' and ''classical/ancient Greek'' are not very good, it's all Greek to me 
 Using the Tamilian point of view: ''modern Greek'' is ungrammatical, it's dirty, unworthy of research.   It's broken Greek.

4. As for B/C/S I strongly disagree with the fact Cakavian and Kajkavian may have anything to do with B and S.
In Istria, Slovenian speakers are more likely to understand the local dialect (Cakavian) than Bosnians and Serbs.
And there, the cakavian dialect and Italian are preferred to stokavian (which sounds more B/S than C).
While people in Dubrovnik sound like people from Herzegovina, in Rovinj-Rovigno they sound more like Italians+Slovenians.

I'm not sure if Stokavians would understand simple words like  koriera (_bus), _brek (_dog_), pensat (_to_ _think_), pasat (_to pass_), ki (_who_)...


----------



## ilocas2

Abu Rashid said:


> The old fashioned test. Put two people in a room, if they talk, it's the same language, if they break into a round of charades then it's not. Simple, easy and pretty accurate.
> 
> If they spend more than 10% of their time explaining words with other words, then they're dialects of the same language.



By this definition Czech l. and Slovak l. would be considered as one language. Yet the differences are quite big. Most of words just are not the same. I will use a similar example as Lars used.

SK: Prezident, ktorý priletel k bani aj s manželkou, si doberal novinárov 
CZ: Prezident, který přiletěl k dolu i s manželkou, si dobíral novináře
zhromaždených na vyhliadkovej plošine, kde čakali na začiatok záchrannej
shromážděné na vyhlídkové plošině, kde čekali na začátek záchranné
akcie. Povedal im, že si je istý, že prvý baník vytiahnutý na povrch bude mať
akce. Řekl jim, že si je jistý, že první horník vytažený na povrch bude mít
priezvisko Avalos. Pritom je známe, že pod zemou sú uväznení traja muži s
příjmení Avalos. Přitom je známo, že pod zemí jsou uvězněni tři muži s
týmto priezviskom.
tímto příjmením.


----------



## Abu Rashid

Frank said:
			
		

> Hence the German speaks the same language as me, but I don't speak the same language as the German? Or, German is the same language as Dutch, but Dutch isn't the same language as German?



If you both speak to one another, then you speak the same language, call it whatever you like.


----------



## Istriano

1. Most Portuguese understand Spanish, but most Spanish people don't understand Portuguese.
2. Most Malayalis understand Tamil, but most Tamilians don't understand Malayalam.
3. All speakers of Swiss German understand Standard German (of Germany), but few Germans can understand Swiss German
4. Most Norwegian can understand Danish, but most Danish can't understand spoken Norwegian.

As you can see many times comprehension is not symmetrical, be it in the case of independent languages or dialects


----------



## Lars H

sokol said:


> Nice and neat, admittedly, but ...
> 
> By this definition Norwegian and Swedish at least (probably those two plus Danish, ask Lars ) would have to be considered a single language then.



Agree. According to this test we do have Scandinavian dialects, not languages - and this includes Danish. My world is tumbling down !

To be serious, I do appreciate the fact that we - Scandinavians - can speak in our own tongue with other Scandinavians. Besides our respective national identities (that are quite strong) there is also a very much present Nordic identity (which for a number of reasons includes Finland although Finnish is another story).

And if this Nordic identity has anything to do with mutual fairly intelligible languages or from us sharing one language is of little interest. The outcome is still what it is.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Lars H said:


> Dialects tend to share spelling and grammar
> 
> Languages tend to have unique spelling and grammar.
> And we can point out that for Norwegian there are two sets of rules for spelling (nynorsk/bokmål), but for Swedish there is only one. How could this difference best be labelled?


 
The main point in my opinion is that we can not *find out scientifically* what a *language* and a *dialect* is. These are names given to some obervable phenomena (or rather to people's perceptions of the phenomena) and not "things in themselves" (Dinge am sich). The use of these names is a convention, and since the names have been given by many scholars independently and in different time, there are many conventions, and they do not agree with each other. 
Then we have to decide if we wish to study the classification of languages in the "language/dialect space" as purely linguistic phenomenon or as purely sociological (and political) one. If we choose the first, than we should reformulate the question "what is a language", and start with blank sheets of paper, and define "language" and "dialect" again, this time using a consistent approach, untainted by the sociological and political considerations.


----------



## Abu Rashid

Istriano said:
			
		

> As you can see many times comprehension is not symmetrical



Well if it's not symmetrical then they didn't pass my test did they, since it was that two people put in a room together could instantly talk.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Hulalessar said:


> I do not think that that will do at all.
> 
> In Ruritania they speak Coastal Ruritanian, Central Ruritanian and Highlands Ruritanian. Coastal Ruritanian and Central Ruritanian are mutually partially intelligible, as are Central Ruritanian and Highlands Ruritanian. However, Coastal Ruritanian and Highland Ruritanian have no mutual intelligibility. According to your definition, Coastal Ruritanian and Central Ruritanian considered together would be dialects of Ruritanian; Central Ruritanian and Highlands Ruritanian considered together would also be dialects of Ruritanian; however, Coastal Ruritanian and Highlands Ruritanian considered together would not be dialects of Ruritainian.
> 
> I think this highlights the difficulty linguists would have in deciding exactly what constitutes a language even if the complications brought in by socio-political considerations did not exist. Perhaps we can only say that speech form X and speech form Y are different languages if they are mutually unintelligible and there are no surviving intervening dialects that connect them.


Look, please, to my last post of Tuesday the 12. Oct.,, where I amended my definiition to cover also dialects which are not mutually intelligible.

We must, however, admit that conventional use of the term "dialect" is not consistent, and it opens for such paradoxes. Both the "genetic" and "intelligiblity" criteria are used to define a dialect. But it is important to notice that I do not impose any definitions on anybody, but I quote was is being defined by others.


----------



## DenisBiH

Istriano said:


> 4. As for B/C/S I strongly disagree with the fact Cakavian and Kajkavian may have anything to do with B and S.
> In Istria, Slovenian speakers are more likely to understand the local dialect (Cakavian) than Bosnians and Serbs.
> And there, the cakavian dialect and Italian are preferred to stokavian (which sounds more B/S than C).
> While people in Dubrovnik sound like people from Herzegovina, in Rovinj-Rovigno they sound more like Italians+Slovenians.
> 
> I'm not sure if Stokavians would understand simple words like  koriera (_bus), _brek (_dog_), pensat (_to_ _think_), pasat (_to pass_), ki (_who_)...




Oh, is that so? 

Well, I guess you're right, apart from all three being Slavic, South-Slavic, western South-Slavic and in mutual contact for centuries, they really have nothing to do with one another.

Guess what, some 3-4 centuries back, when they (Shtokavian, Chakavian, Kajkavian) were already distinct, it was a matter of course for a Franciscan from (then Ottoman) Bosnia, Nikola Lašvanin, to use Kajkavian works as a source for his most interesting chronicle. And it was quite normal for Bartol Kašić (16-17th century), a Chakavian speaker from Pag, to make an "Illyrian" grammar based on Shtokavian ikavian (which he called "Bosnian"), mixed with some Chakavian (which he called "Dalmatian"). And for that same Bartol Kašić to translate the Bible into Shtokavian ijekavian, which he called "Ragusan" (dubrovački).

And these probably weren't the only examples that show the speakers basically treating them as dialects of the same language, or "languages" within the same macro-language.

What you're citing are mostly examples of borrowings. I can also start making sentences with heavy use of orientalisms (Turkish, Arabic, Persian). They're underlined below.



> Muhabetimo ti tako moj ahbab Istriano i ja, kadli nam stiže avaz spolja da se buljuk naroda sletio oko Mehagine kahve da gleda pehlivane iz Stambola. Provirimo ti kroz pendžer kad ono čitava frtutma nastala, evladi posvud idu iz naše mahale, poskakujući, prate ih matere u dimijama i pod feredžom, i hejbet svakojakog drugog svijeta. Ah, moj Istriano efendija, prozborih ja, ne begenišem ti ja takve, kakav ćutuk insan to mora bit da ekmek i akče zarađuje vazda idući od varoši do varoši, nikad hanume, nikad rahatluka u domu svome? Nikad to nije bilo u našem devletu, nije to od adeta, ja od naših starih nikad nisam čuo za takve. No je ovo bezbeli neki novi vakat i zeman nast'o. Al' ako je tebi merak, hajdeder, imadeš moj izun.


Grammar is mostly modern Bosnian / BCS, with minor dialectal features. How much do you understand of this?


----------



## Lars H

Ben Jamin said:


> Then we have to decide if we wish to study the classification of languages in the "language/dialect space" as purely linguistic phenomenon or as purely sociological (and political) one. If we choose the first, than we should reformulate the question "what is a language", and start with blank sheets of paper, and define "language" and "dialect" again, this time using a consistent approach, untainted by the sociological and political considerations.



Piece of cake! 

First we define a "*Linguistic rule set*". All speakers that follow a given rule set regarding words to use, grammar and spelling share the same *Linguistic rule set*, like speakers of, say, Hessen German and Brandenburger German do.

Then we give these rules a bit of latitude and allow different *versions *within a given *Linguistic rule set*. By this, small differencies like AmE _movie_ and BrE_ cinema _or the writing _isn't/is not_ dont make us defining too many *Linguistic rule sets*. One could define it as if X% of the key words in one tongue, compared to a *rule set*, are identical in spelling and meaning, and Y% of the grammar is identical is it still to be seen as a *version* within the shared *rule set*. Otherwise its not. So:


Every tongue or way of speech/writing could be defined as part of a larger *rule set* (Hessen German), or being defined as an unique *rule set* (Elsässer Ditsch).
Within each *rule set* there are - or can be - different versions, mainly based on word usage, spelling and (minor) grammatical differencies.
Dialects could then be defined as different pronounciations, and to some extent different use of words, within a *rule set*.
The geographical extension of dialects could be identical with versions, or follow other borders.

This would never happen, I know. I just thought it could be fun to think it over


----------



## Frank06

Some quotes from Ask-a-Linguist [students ask, linguists answer]

Q: How many dialects of English are there:
A: To me and I think to most linguists, this is a question like "How many different shades of colour are there?" -- it depends entirely on what level of detail you want to distinguish. 

On the debate dialects/languages
A: 
- [L]inguistically, there is no debate. ''Debates'' carried out among uninformed parties are simply statements of opinion and one wins on rhetoric. A dialect is a particular way of speaking a language in a particular geographic region and/or a particular social group. 
- A standard language is simply a dialect in a state level society whose speakers or proponents have economic, social, and police power and choose to use it to enforce the use of their dialect. 
- People who use the word ''dialect'' to mean some inferior form of a language are simply ignorant, uninformed, wrong. Or else they are being deliberately obtuse to further a political or social agenda.

A: 
- Everybody speaks a dialect. It is impossible to speak a language without speaking a dialect. A dialect then is a particular way of speaking a language -- and language is an abstraction, made up of all the dialects -- of all the ways of speaking it. 
- Now here also, people who are linguistically unsophisticated and uninformed often use dialect to mean a nonstandard variety of a language. Linguists do 
not use the term in this way. Nor is the difference simply a matter of usage.


----------



## DenisBiH

Frank06 said:


> Some quotes from Ask-a-Linguist [students ask, linguists answer]
> 
> Q: How many dialects of English are there:
> A: To me and I think to most linguists, this is a question like "How many different shades of colour are there?" -- it depends entirely on what level of detail you want to distinguish.
> 
> On the debate dialects/languages
> A:
> - [L]inguistically, there is no debate. ''Debates'' carried out among uninformed parties are simply statements of opinion and one wins on rhetoric. A dialect is a particular way of speaking a language in a particular geographic region and/or a particular social group.
> - A standard language is simply a dialect in a state level society whose speakers or proponents have economic, social, and police power and choose to use it to enforce the use of their dialect.
> - People who use the word ''dialect'' to mean some inferior form of a language are simply ignorant, uninformed, wrong. Or else they are being deliberately obtuse to further a political or social agenda.
> 
> A:
> - Everybody speaks a dialect. It is impossible to speak a language without speaking a dialect. A dialect then is a particular way of speaking a language -- and language is an abstraction, made up of all the dialects -- of all the ways of speaking it.
> - Now here also, people who are linguistically unsophisticated and uninformed often use dialect to mean a nonstandard variety of a language. Linguists do
> not use the term in this way. Nor is the difference simply a matter of usage.




In my opinion, it's the unsophisticated people that most often use the term "unsophisticated" in totally inappropriate contexts. Oops, does that mean I'm unsophisticated?  Let's leave that aside and look at the quasi-scientific answers above.

Pearl numero uno:


> A dialect is a particular way of speaking a language in a particular geographic region and/or a particular social group.
> - A standard language is simply a dialect in a state level society whose speakers or proponents have economic, social, and police power and choose to use it to enforce the use of their dialect.


Police power? Really? I was half wondering if the author(s) of these wonderfully frightening lines above was/were going to mention torture chambers as a standard method used in promoting the use of standard language(s).

A few lines down, pearl numero due:



> - Now here also, people who are linguistically unsophisticated and uninformed often use dialect to mean a nonstandard variety of a language.


Now, if a dialect is *any* way of speaking (first quote), then it can be used to refer to nonstandard varieties of a particular language. Ok, perhaps the authors don't believe it's limited to only nonstandard varieties, but means any type of speech, including the ones conforming to the standard. And perhaps that's what they wanted to stress, albeit in an entirely inappropriate, childish, teen-like fashion (how am I doing with the adjectives so far?  )

But that's not *exactly* what the quote above says. The way it's phrased it denies even the possibility of "dialect" referring to a nonstandard variety of a language. And one needs to be precise.

Otherwise one might be considered "unsophisticated", and we wouldn't want that, would we?

Sorry for the sarcastic tone, but this kind of approach to explaining things to people really makes me grumpy.

Oh and btw, judging by the author's tone, we might want to keep him/her away from the author(s) of the Wikipedia article on dialects. Unless there are boxing fans here on EHL?



> The term dialect (from the Greek Language word dialektos, Διάλεκτος)* is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists.* One usage refers to a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers.[1] The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class.[2] A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect; a regional dialect may be termed a regiolect or topolect. *The other usage refers to a language socially subordinate to a regional or national standard language*, often historically cognate to the standard, but not a variety of it or in any other sense derived from it.* This more precise usage* enables distinguishing between varieties of a language, such as the French spoken in Nice, France, and local languages distinct from the superordinate language, e.g. Nissart, the traditional native Romance language of Nice, known in French as Niçard.


----------



## Frank06

DenisBiH said:


> In my opinion, it's the unsophisticated people that most often use the term "unsophisticated" in totally inappropriate contexts. Oops, does that mean I'm unsophisticated?  Let's leave that aside and look at the quasi-scientific answers above.


We're big boys enough to leave the stylistics for what they are and concentrate upon the contents, no? I am not sure if you're qualification "unscientific" refers to the tone or to the contents.



> Now, if a dialect is *any* way of speaking (first quote) varieties,


I read two times "particular" in stead of "any"... 


> but means any type of speech, including the ones conforming to the standard. And perhaps that's what they wanted to stress,


That's how I read and understand it too.



> Oh and btw, judging by the author's tone, we might want to keep him/her away from the author(s) of the Wikipedia article on dialects. Unless there are boxing fans here on EHL?


I don't think so. At least not if they solely stick to the, erm, quotes you mined from Wikipedia  (the whole article). 
But I'll do some quote mining too from Wikipedia


> There is no universally accepted criterion for distinguishing a language from a dialect. A number of rough measures exist, sometimes leading to contradictory results. Some linguists do not differentiate between languages and dialects, i.e. languages are dialects and vice versa. The distinction is therefore subjective and depends on the user's frame of reference.


And


> Anthropological linguists define dialect as the specific form of a language used by a speech community. In other words, the difference between language and dialect is the difference between the abstract or general and the concrete and particular. From this perspective, no one speaks a "language," everyone speaks a dialect of a language.


I think the various authors from Ask-a-Linguist I quoted won't have a lot of reasons to start a boxing game after reading this. It's almost identical to what they say.
 [BTW: I think the annoyance in the quoted texts springs from the constant similar questions they are _bombarbed_ with.]


----------



## DenisBiH

Frank06, let's go one point at a time

1) did the author of that answer bother to mention there are different viewpoints than his/her own? Erm, no. In fact, they did the opposite.



> - [L]inguistically, there is no debate. ''Debates'' carried out among uninformed parties are simply statements of opinion and one wins on rhetoric.


This, plus calling those of different opinion "unsophisticated" and "ignorant" is unscientific in both tone and content. 

2) How did the author approach the notion of standard language?



> - A standard language is simply a dialect in a state level society whose speakers or proponents have economic, social, and police power and choose to use it to enforce the use of their dialect.


This is nonsense on so many levels. 

There even doesn't have to exist a single dialect that was elevated to the status of the standard language. Bosnian and Croatian (and ijekavian Serbian) are perfect examples of this. One dialect was chosen as the basis for the standard, but certain features of it *were not* included. Thus the standard at the time it was created was basically different from all dialects, from some more, from some less. Author's "feelgood" definition does not account for this.

Moreover, even if a single dialect is chosen in its entirety as the basis of the standard, this may not last for long. Standard language may be "artificially" kept at that historical stage of its "parent" dialect, conserving features from centuries ago, with changes only made infrequently, while that original dialect keeps developing at a faster pace. I haven't seen author mentioning this either.

Also, standard language, above all, is a lot of work and a lot of effort put in standardizing and "maintaining" the standard language. This the author has basically redefined as one group of people using state organs and police power to force others to speak the same way. Yes, this has certainly happened with standard languages. But this is only part of the story, isn't it? Standard language does serve a much needed purpose, enabling speakers who otherwise could not communicate speaking their own dialects to communicate. This is certainly something that I believe is very much appreciated by many people, including me, and I very much resent the way author describes the standard language.

But let's not stop there. Author, apart from seemingly disliking standard language (no, it was not said explicitly, but the above phrasing very much points that way), is very much eager to announce to all that standard language is just one of the dialects, and that others, that are not standard, are in no way inferior.

Very cool. It makes us all feel good. Now, let's all start speaking our dialects. A doctor entering the operating room speaking to the nurse. They should both speak their dialects. But wait, there's the medical terminology that they need to use. No problem, their dialects have medical terminology. Or do they? Where does the medical terminology come from? Where does any of the high-level vocabulary come from?

Mainly from the work of those people who have invested their effort in creating a high-level vocabulary for the standard language. By deciding which words to borrow, from where, which new words to coin etc.

So now, while still "feeling good" about the fact that a non-standard dialect is in no way inferior to a standard dialect (or rather standard language), we have to admit that it actually is inferior. It does not have all the necessary vocabulary to enable the majority of its speakers to function properly in the modern world without resorting to the help of the "by police power enforced" standard. Well, perhaps those that stay on their farms and live that way (a way of life I admire btw) can manage with only their dialect. But then, they also need to do some accounting. And pay taxes. And maybe use their computers once in a while.

Yes, we could argue that some non-standard dialect may indeed have its own specialist terminology. For example. Croatian Kajkavian, which was once a thriving literary language, still has its dictionaries printed although it now is (as far as I know) mostly in the realm of, well, dialect limited in its use. But then, strictly speaking, a non-standard dialect that has some sort of standardization work done for it is no longer a non-standard dialect. It has its own standard.

So what can we do? We can say that non-standard dialect in fact is nowhere near being equal to the standard language, that speakers of the dialect have to rely heavily on the standard language and the effort put in enriching it with new words. Or we can alternatively let every dialect develop its own new words for new concepts. And if these dialects end up being very different because of this, with new legal, economic, medical etc. terminology for every 100km, we can at least "feel good" about ourselves being equal while speaking dialects and not understanding half of what the other person is saying.

Now for your comments.

Me


> Now, if a dialect is *any* way of speaking (first quote)


You


> .I read two times "particular" in stead of "any"...





> Author
> *A dialect is a particular way of speaking* a language in a particular geographic region and/or a particular social group.
> ...
> - *A standard language is simply a dialect*
> ...
> - *Everybody speaks a dialect*. It is impossible to speak a language without speaking a dialect. A dialect then is a particular way of speaking a language -- and language is an abstraction, made up of all the dialects -- of all the ways of speaking it.


If 
a) dialect is a particular way of speaking
b) standard language is also a dialect
c) everybody speaks a dialect

Could we conclude then that the author is saying that any way of speaking, standard or non-standard, is a dialect?



> That's how I read and understand it too.


Perhaps it's my English then. But let's dwell some more on the author's words.



> *
> A standard language is simply a dialect *
> ...
> *Everybody speaks a dialect*. It is impossible to speak a language without speaking a dialect. A dialect then is a particular way of speaking a language -- and language is an abstraction, made up of all the dialects -- of all the ways of speaking it.
> - Now here also, people who are linguistically unsophisticated and uninformed often use dialect to mean a nonstandard variety of a language.


Okay, so

a) everybody speaks a dialect
b) standard language is also simply a dialect

And a dialect, again according to the author is:



> A dialect is a particular way of speaking a language in a particular geographic region and/or a particular social group.


Very nice! Now, could someone help me out. I want to see where the native speakers of *standard* Bosnian (or Croatian, or Serbian, if it's easier) are located (the geographic region) or, if they're a particular social group, which group is it.

But I don't want to know about:

a) the dialect on which the standard was (mainly) based a long time ago
b) anything that does not conform 100% absolutely by the book to the standard language as described/prescribed by grammars, dictionaries etc.
c) and I want native speakers *only*. If the standard language is simply one of many dialects, it should have native speakers just as all the others do.

It shouldn't be that hard.


----------



## Istriano

DenisBiH said:


> If the standard language is simply one of many dialects, it should have native speakers just as all the others do.


There are native speakers of standard British English and German:

1. most people from Hannover speak perfect Hochdeusch, their mother tongue is Hochdeutsch, there is no local dialect in Hannover because 200 years ago the people from Hannover gave up on the local dialect and embraced the Hochdeutsch, so Hannover is one of the rare places in German-speaking area with Hochdeutsch as the only language, children there don't have to go to school to learn the standard language, Hochdeutsch is their native/mother tongue.

2. there is a small minority of upper class English who have standard English as their mother tongue (they speak everything ''by the book'' and use RP). Parents speak to their children in impeccable ''posh'' standard British English and children acquire it spontaneously. 
---

It's not true that all standard languages have to have standard technical vocabulary. In India, where the language of universities is English, most technical/scientific vocabulary is not translated in local languages.
Some purists may come with a direct translation but it sounds ridiculous to most Indians so they keep the English words (just like _dalekovidnica _sounds ridiculous compared to _televizija _in Croatian). For example, although there is a direct translation of ''wave lenght'' in some Indian languages, most times it is written phonetically (the way it is pronounced [weiv length]) in local script.


----------



## DenisBiH

Istriano said:


> There are native speakers of standard British English and German:
> 
> 1. most people from Hannover speak perfect Hochdeusch, their mother tongue is Hochdeutsch, there is no local dialect in Hannover because 200 years ago the people from Hannover gave up on the local dialect and embraced the Hochdeutsch, so Hannover is one of the rare places in German-speaking area with Hochdeutsch as the only language, children there don't have to go to school to learn the standard language, Hochdeutsch is their native/mother tongue.




Very cool. So, if I were to take, say, an 18 year old from Hannover, who was a really bad student in primary and secondary school (barely passed, really), and a really big dictionary of standard German, approximately what percentage of the words relating to law, engineering, medicine, economics etc. would this person, as a native speaker, be familiar with? 

It is, after all, his native dialect, and a standard language is nothing but simply a dialect, according to the author.


----------



## Frank06

Point 1:


			
				Ask-a-Linguist said:
			
		

> [L]inguistically, there is no debate. ''Debates'' carried out among uninformed parties are simply statements of opinion and one wins on rhetoric. (source)





DenisBiH said:


> 1) did the author of that answer bother to mention there are different viewpoints than his/her own? Erm, no. In fact, they did the opposite.


It's not because I cannot find it, that it doesn't exist. But meanwhile the pile of books on linguistics next to my keyboard is growing, and I still find no trace of radically different views on language/dialect _within the linguist community_ on the following point (which I quoted before):


			
				Ask-a-Linguist said:
			
		

> A dialect is a particular way of speaking a language in a particular geographic region and/or a particular social group. All languages have at least one dialect -- the only languages with no dialects are dead ones. A standard language is simply a dialect in a state level society whose speakers or proponents have economic, social, and police power and choose to use it to enforce the use of their dialect.


A language is a dialect with an army and a state. I fail to see the difference between that adagio and the last part of quote above. 
But I am here to learn, so could somebody else please quote at least a few linguists who radically go against this idea?
Denis, could you provide me with some quotes, for example from the linguists _you_ undoubtedly have based yourself upon? All in all, that's the spirit of EHL: provide references if asked for (if I remember well by heart).

Another issue raised by DenisBiH:


> Police power? Really? I was half wondering if the author(s) of these wonderfully frightening lines above was/were going to mention torture chambers as a standard method used in promoting the use of standard language(s).


Your humourous interpretation, intended or not, of a "police power" and torture chambers enforcing a standard variety has little to do with the issue, has it? Or maybe you need to read that part again, but more attentively.

As for "[state level society] choose to use it to enforce the use of their dialect": what's so incredibly weird about this? How many governments of countries with an official, standardised language do you know which also financially support schools in which a non-standard, regional variant is activily promoted? Me, none. But again, it's not because I can't find it that it doesn't exist. And I don't exclude the possibility that I live in an exceptional part of the world. But as far as I know, the state, which usually actively supports the standard variety, doesn't organise education in West-Flemish, Brabantian or Limburgish, to stick to this aspect only and to the three main local dialect groups. And as far as I know, neither does the Netherlands (mind you, I am not talking about Frisian and Dutch here), France, Germany, the UK (maybe apart from little tiny projects, but certainly not on a big scale). 

Now, can you please point out where exactly the quote above is unscientific?

But let's go back to the "police power", which you were so happy to lift out of context: We don't have a police power in the literal sense of the word to guard the standardised version. Schools do (with diminishing success, if I may believe the author of "the End of Standard languages", Joop van der Horst). But if you want to see the real language "police power" in action, try mentioning the split infinitive "You and me go...", etc. in the English Only Forum, try googling for reactions by "ordinary people" on language mistakes by "ordinary people", try the Brazilian sociolinguist Marcos Bagno for the social repercussions for people who speak their local variant and who are (socially)  punished by the language "police power", or language Basiji, as I prefer to call them (other synonym: grammar nazis).



> This, plus calling those of different opinion "unsophisticated" and "ignorant" is unscientific in both tone and content.


I find it a honest and direct way of putting things. And if I read Istriano's messages about the Tamil situation, then I think that "unsophisticated" and "uniformed" are incredibly polite understatements.  
Let's move on to Denis' comment on this quote (bis):


			
				Ask-a-Linguist said:
			
		

> - A standard language is simply a dialect in a state level society whose speakers or proponents have economic, social, and police power and choose to use it to enforce the use of their dialect.


Denis says: "This is nonsense on so many levels".
I think: Denis has invented a few levels himself. 


			
				DenisDiH said:
			
		

> There even doesn't have to exist a single dialect that was elevated to the status of the standard language.


I read the quote and Denis reaction many times, but I fail to see any connection. The quote mentions "their dialect", the quote doesn't says anything about where that dialect comes from, only by whom it is used. Neither is said that the standard variant is (based upon) a "single dialect that was elevated to the status of the standard language".
I don't see a point in reacting to this straw men argument.



			
				Denis said:
			
		

> Also, standard language, above all, is a lot of work and a lot of effort put in standardizing and "maintaining" the standard language. This the author has basically redefined as one group of people using state organs and police power to force others to speak the same way. Yes, this has certainly happened with standard languages.


Indeed . Try googling "school".



			
				Denis said:
			
		

> But this is only part of the story, isn't it? Standard language does serve a much needed purpose, enabling speakers who otherwise could not communicate speaking their own dialects to communicate. This is certainly something that I believe is very much appreciated by many people, including me, and I very much resent the way author describes the standard language.


I was expecting a reaction from a scientific, linguistic point of view. I was expecting a point by point analysis, in which some quotes, references and linguists would be mentioned.
But all in all, it's again about "I believe", "I resent". But where is the linguistics?

And what did the author do to make you write "I resent"?? He only described standard variety as a dialect, something which 99.9% of the linguists do. Is it possible that the "scientificness" of your explanation and of your remarks ends here?



> But let's not stop there. Author, apart from seemingly disliking standard language (no, it was not said explicitly, but the above phrasing very much points that way), is very much eager to announce to all that standard language is just one of the dialects, and that others, that are not standard, are in no way inferior. Very cool. It makes us all feel good. Now, let's all start speaking our dialects.


I think you read other quotes than the ones I posted. 



> A doctor entering the operating room speaking to the nurse. They should both speak their dialects. But wait, there's the medical terminology that they need to use. No problem, their dialects have medical terminology. Or do they? Where does the medical terminology come from? Where does any of the high-level vocabulary come from?


Since most linguists define a dialect as a language variant spoken by a group of people, the doctor and nurse are speaking a dialect, yes, or more precisely, a sociolect. And dialects/sociolects have their peculiar vocabularies, yes. What's so incredibly weird about that?

The only thing that must be weird, I guess, is that the notion "dialect", as used in linguistics, is not the same as your idea of the concept. 

I don't have time to provide a reply to the rest of Denis' post. I'm sorry to say, but it's just the kind of reasoning against which the first author I quoted reacted against. I do want to repeat, however, that I still think that that author indeed used a few incredibly polite understatements.


Frank


----------



## DenisBiH

Frank06,

of course, as always I'm willing to give references. I would, however, also ask you to properly reference your original quote I was responding to, in terms of providing the full name and qualifications held by that linguist who was answering the student. If the original author is you, I would accept that as well and won't require the name and qualifications, but I'd need to know. 

As for my quote, here's one:




> This paper focuses on the writing of grammars of previously undescribed. mostly endangered languages, which in some respects differ from other grammars. Like dictionaries, grammars can be classified on the basis of various criteria (compare Svensen 1993: 17-23):
> 
> 1. standard vs. *dialect / substandard* grammars, i.e. the language or language variety described in the grammar can be either (written) standard language or a spoken regional or societal *substandard*;


Grammaticography: The art and craft of writing grammars, Ulrike Mosel
in "Catching language: the standing challenge of grammar writing" Felix K. Ameka, Alan Charles Dench, Nicholas Evans

I will now, if you don't mind, emphasize all the sections of your original quote which the usage of dr. Mosel, as quoted above, conflicts with:



> On the debate dialects/languages
> A:
> - [L]inguistically, there is no debate. ''Debates'' carried out among uninformed parties are simply statements of opinion and one wins on rhetoric. A dialect is a particular way of speaking a language in a particular geographic region and/or a particular social group.
> -* A standard language is simply a dialect *in a state level society whose speakers or proponents have economic, social, and police power and choose to use it to enforce the use of their dialect.
> -* People who use the word ''dialect'' to mean some inferior form of a language *are simply ignorant, uninformed, wrong. Or else they are being deliberately obtuse to further a political or social agenda.
> 
> A:
> - Everybody speaks a dialect. It is impossible to speak a language without speaking a dialect. A dialect then is a particular way of speaking a language -- and language is an abstraction, made up of all the dialects -- of all the ways of speaking it.
> -* Now here also, people who are linguistically unsophisticated and uninformed often use dialect to mean a nonstandard variety of a language. Linguists do
> not use the term in this way. *Nor is the difference simply a matter of usage.


Before I proceed further answering your latest post, do we agree that dr. Mosel uses the term dialect in a different manner than your source, contrasting standard language with it and applying the term "substandard" to the dialect?


----------



## Frank06

References for post 39
1. Go to Ask a Linguist
2. Click on the link "Search Ask a Linguist"
3. Message Subject Contains: Fill in "dialect"
4. Panel Respondent: Fill in
(a) Joseph F Foster
["linguistically, there is no debate." etc.]
* http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/message-details1.cfm?asklingid=200321115
* http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/message-details1.cfm?AsklingID=200315808
(b) Geoffrey Sampsom
["How many different shades of colour are there?"]
* http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/message-details1.cfm?asklingid=200347300


An extra quote from the late Larry Trask:


> A dialect is a particular way of speaking a language, including grammar and vocabulary [Hey, here we have your doctor and nurse, F06!!]. Again, every speaker must use some dialect or other. Even standard English is just one more dialect, though one with a very special status and with some characteristics not found in other dialects.


That's my part of the deal _so far_. 

Now, I have been witnessing tons of discussions in the last few years on a whole range of topics, on a variety of message boards. 
I do know by now that 
1. This kind of discussions wears out the patience of the direct participants and the other members;
2. That patience isn't helped when people react to requests about previous information with completely new information. Certainly when that new information doesn't really help to further the discussion (see below).
I made a request about _references of your ideas_ as you stated them in a *previous* post. 


> Denis, could you provide me with some quotes, for example from the linguists you undoubtedly have based yourself upon? All in all, that's the spirit of EHL: provide references if asked for (if I remember well by heart).


You replied to that request with a *new* quote. I am sorry, but that's not the way it works.
You either have them or not, but please don't beat around the bush.

So, first I'd like to know where exactly you got your ideas as expressed in post 42, which linguist follows the same line of thinking etc. 

Maybe I am bit too fixed on (authorative) sources, but as long as I feel that I am a *student* of linguistics, I prefer to get information that can be verified and backed up by professionals in the field. Linguistics still is my preferred source of information about linguistics.

Meanwhile, you could help me in pointing out where exactly the definitions are to be found in the new quote you posted. I see a kind of classification of grammar books on languages/language varieties (such as standard varieties, regional and social varieties), but I don't see a definition.
What do you see in it?


----------



## DenisBiH

My dear Frank,

but the quote on linguists having different views on what a dialect is was given by me in my first response to your quote. If you remember, you called this "mining" or whatever.

Since you requested further references, and given how admittedly Wikipedia is not always a most reliable source, I obliged and gave you a quote of a linguist using the term "dialect" in a way radically different to the way the author you quoted describes it.

We may now argue about procedure all day long, but since you broke procedure with your very first quote failing to provide a proper reference, I don't see what would be the point? 

Now to get to the meat of your last post.



> Meanwhile, you could help me in pointing out where exactly the definitions are to be found in the new quote you posted. I see a kind of classification of grammar books on languages/language varieties (such as standard varieties, regional and social varieties), but I don't see a definition.


Ah no, my dear Frank, let me remind you of the original author's exact words one more time. 



> - People who *use* the word ''dialect'' to mean some inferior form of a language are simply ignorant, uninformed, wrong. Or else they are being deliberately obtuse to further a political or social agenda.
> ...
> - Now here also, people who are linguistically unsophisticated and uninformed often *use* dialect to mean a nonstandard variety of a language. Linguists do not use the term in this way.


Admittedly, my English may not be perfect, but "to use" and "to define" are two different words. I have provided a quote, from a linguist, who *uses* "dialect" in a way so inaptly described by the original author as "unsophisticated". Perhaps we could find one that also *defines* it so, but with regard to refuting the original author and showing he, either deliberately or out of sheer ignorance, misrepresented how linguists use the term dialect an example of different usage is sufficient, in my opinion.



> What do you see in it?


To quote myself:



> Before I proceed further answering your latest post, do we agree that dr. Mosel uses the term dialect in a different manner than your source, contrasting standard language with it and applying the term "substandard" to the dialect?


Now, can you answer the question quoted above?


----------



## sokol

DenisBiH said:


> Before I proceed further answering your latest post, do we agree that dr. Mosel uses the term dialect in a different manner than your source, contrasting standard language with it and applying the term "substandard" to the dialect?


I'd like to say a thing about this use of dialect: to equal "dialect = substandard" as is implicitly done by Ulrike Mosel is indeed not at all acceptable for a socio-linguist; and Mrs Mosel of course is not a socio-linguist but a grammarian, for her exact use of the term "dialect" really is of no relevance - her interests rather lie in the difference of grammar of a codified language which usually has more or less strict norms, and which are basically used in written language, as opposed to spoken language grammar which to her is "dialect/substandard".

In this context one could even pardon this misleading use of the term "dialect".

Whatever, the definition of dialect, even though not agreed upon by all linguists certainly, basically is *that of a variety according to user* (this one is from M. A. K. Halliday), meaning that A speaks dialect A while B speaks dialect B, and AB is bi-dialectal with competence in both A and B, and so on. Usually dialect is considered being a regional feature but here many do not differentiate between "social dialect" (or sociolect) and "regional dialect".

Be that as it may; what Mrs Mosel refers to, or what is relevant in her analysis, rather is another phenomenon - *register*, which is a variety according to use (again this definition is from MAK Halliday), meaning: written register as opposed to spoken register, to name the one where the difference is most obvious; but also formal style vs. informal style.
Oftentimes, depending on region and society and language, a dialect may be restricted to some registers - so there exist societies where a dialect is only used in intimate style.

Even so, this is not the case as a general rule - not by a long way: register and dialect are two _*completely different*_ concepts, and it is important not to mix them up. Which Mrs Mosel does, which is not really relevant in her line of work but still shouldn't be done there.


----------



## DenisBiH

sokol, that is an interesting explanation. However, this is my problem with it. A short glance at dr. (please) Mosel's publications shows this article:



> 1979 Early  language contact between Tolai, Pidgin and English in view of its sociolinguistic  background (1875-1914). Papers in Pidgin and Creole linguistics No. 2. Pacific  Linguistics A-57. Canberra: A.N.U. Press. pp. 163-181


Would this mean dr. Mosel has also contributed in the field of sociolinguistics?

And could we say that this is another example of such usage, by another linguist?


> Recall that the two alleged 'squishy' accounts of Old vs. Modern German, as in (60), on the one hand, and of the finite clause vs. the non-finite one, as in (61), hinge crucially upon the feet whether or not (60.2/3) above are really distinct in categorial terms as I characterized them. This is, no doubt, the case for written Standard German. It is not true, however, as mentioned,* for the dialect, substandard varieties*. Likewise, (58.2,3,5) above are fully grammatical


----------



## Frank06

DenisBiH said:


> My dear Frank,
> but the quote on linguists having different views on what a dialect is was given by me in my first response to your quote. If you remember, you called this "mining" or whatever.


"Quote mining" means quoting only the things from one source/author that further your case, and not quote (hence hide) parts of that very same article/author which counterspeaks your case, as I explained in post 41, bottom. 
It's almost as sad a way of debating as erecting straw men (see the part about pôlice power in my post 45), evading questions (see previous post), refusing to give references (idem) etc. It's not a way of debating I am interested in.



> We may now argue about procedure all day long, but since you broke procedure with your very first quote failing to provide a proper reference, I don't see what would be the point?


In short, no references to back up your ideas made in post 42. I can't say I am surprised. But thank you anyway.



> Now to get to the meat of your last post.
> Admittedly, my English may not be perfect, but "to use" and "to define" are two different words.


Look again at the quote and don't forget "to mean".
- People who *use* the word ''dialect'' *to mean* some inferior form of a language...
- People who *define* the word "dialect" as some inferior form of a language...
I am sorry, but differences in this case... those subtilities are lost upon me.

Now, as for a reply: You quoted an author who wrote something on the classification of *grammar books*. I am not sure if that is the best source one could come up with -- after all we're talking about dialetcs, not on the art of classifying loads of books.
Furthermore, Mosel does indeed use the word "dialect". So what?
What she doesn't do is explaining the following: She uses the "dialect" TO MEAN what?

I am sorry but I cannot read things which aren't written there. As a clair-voyant, I am rather myopic.

Anyway, looking at the rotting meat of the last few posts, I guess, that this little discussion is running towards it end. At least my part of it. 

Take care.

Frank


----------



## sokol

Well, Denis, my intention was not to criticise her work, but to put emphasis on the fact that she is not a socio-linguist, and obviously does not use the term "dialect" in a way a socio-linguist would appreciate; which, as said, is not really relevant in her line of work but still misleading.

So I didn't want to "diss" her; still, her use of the term dialect definitely is not what you should quote of her work - she might be an expert in her field of proficiency but even if she had done some major work in socio-linguistics at some point (I don't think she has) this is definitely not her field of proficiency: her field is grammar.
To study grammar she is studying exotic dialects, but her aim is not socio-linguistics, this is obvious if one only reads a single paragraph of her article there. (I've read more than that, by the way.)

Or to put it in other words: she is interested in comparing grammar of German dialects and German standard language - but the definition of dialect does not concern her there, nor does the definition of language; rather she's comparing different linguistic varieties and explaining the differences by grammatical description.

So anyway, the point here is that concerning the term "dialect" one shouldn't go and consult Mrs Mosel (and I only will call her "Dr" if she calls me "Mag", to take the hint; I've got a title to my name too).


----------



## DenisBiH

My most dear Frank




> "Quote mining" means quoting only the things from one source/author that further your case, and not quote (hence hide) parts of that very same article/author which counterspeaks your case, as I explained in post 41, bottom.


Ah, so that is what "mining" refers to. Good for me, I have learned a new word today! 

However, now that I understand what you meant I have to regretfully inform you that you're wrong. Let me repeat my quote you characterized as "mining":


> The term dialect (from the Greek Language word dialektos, Διάλεκτος) is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists.* One usage refers to a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers.[1] The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class.[2] A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect; a regional dialect may be termed a regiolect or topolect.* The other usage refers to a language socially subordinate to a regional or national standard language, often historically cognate to the standard, but not a variety of it or in any other sense derived from it. This more precise usage enables distinguishing between varieties of a language, such as the French spoken in Nice, France, and local languages distinct from the superordinate language, e.g. Nissart, the traditional native Romance language of Nice, known in French as Niçard.


The part in bold seems to me to be the definition your author is using. I didn't leave it out. It's there. You can go back and look at my post. How is this mining? 

What I did emphasize in my original quote of this paragraph is the part saying that that is not the *only* definition that linguists use. 



> It's almost as sad a way of debating as erecting straw men (see the part about pôlice power in my post 45), evading questions (see previous post), refusing to give references (idem) etc. It's not a way of debating I am interested in.


We will come back to that part of your post, rest assured.  As for not being interested, I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope that doesn't mean you would be leaving this thread, your contributions are always appreciated. 



> In short, no references to back up your ideas made in post 42. I can't say I am surprised. But thank you anyway.


You have your way of looking at it, I have mine. I'll let the readers decide for themselves.




> Look again at the quote and don't forget "to mean".
> - People who *use* the word ''dialect'' *to mean* some inferior form of a language...
> - People who *define* the word "dialect" as some inferior form of a language...
> I am sorry, but differences in this case... those subtilities are lost upon me.


No problem, I can help, I think. What dr. Mosel did was using the term "dialect" to mean a substandard variety of a language that is opposed to the standard language. She did not define it explicitly, but she used it so. To me it is clear, but perhaps it's my English again. 



> Now, as for a reply: You quoted an author who wrote something on the classification of *grammar books*. I am not sure if that is the best source one could come up with -- after all we're talking about dialetcs, not on the art of classifying loads of books.


I'm quoting an author who has two PhD's in linguistics, teaches general linguistics, and, judging by her publications, also does research  on historical development of languages, substratum issues in language development, language contact etc. I believe that she is rather qualified. 




> Furthermore, Mosel does indeed use the word "dialect". So what?
> What she doesn't do is explaining the following: She uses the "dialect" TO MEAN what?
> 
> I am sorry but I cannot read things which aren't written there. As a clair-voyant, I am rather myopic.


Let me help you. 



> 1. standard vs. dialect / substandard grammars,* i.e. the language or language variety described in the grammar can be either (written) standard language or a spoken regional or societal substandard;*


I believe "i.e." means "id est" or "that is" and usually after that some further explanation is given. I have emphasized the part with the explanation above so that you can see it clearly.




> Anyway, looking at the rotting meat of the last few posts, I guess, that this little discussion is running towards it end. At least my part of it.


I'm sorry to hear that, but I will have to respond to the "police power" etc. part of your post, even if you will not be contributing. If you reconsider your decision I would be most happy.


----------



## sokol

DenisBiH said:


> I'm quoting an author who has two PhD's in linguistics, teaches general linguistics, and, judging by her publications, also does research  on historical development of languages, substratum issues in language development, language contact etc. I believe that she is rather qualified.
> 
> Let me help you.



Then please let me help you, again different line of thinking - _*my*_ thinking.
Being a qualified grammarian, probably "just" a mediocre one, or a good one or probably one of the best ones which are around, that's not the point here really, does not qualify her for defining "dialect" as a term for language, nor does it qualify her as a socio-linguist.
Nor does she even intend to define the term "dialect" as such: this is not the crucial issue in her line of work.

She clearly has specialised in grammar and I am absolutely sure that she wouldn't even intend to offer an opinion on socio-linguistic matters. Same as a heart surgeon wouldn't dream of giving advice about ophthalmology (except if he or she were one of the very rare cases doing both heart and eye surgery).

So I think we can please conclude now this debate about Mrs Mosel which isn't on topic here anyway. As I'm thread-opener I feel I've got a right to determine the topic, I'd rather not have my thread kidnapped.


----------



## DenisBiH

sokol said:


> Well, Denis, my intention was not to criticise her work, but to put emphasis on the fact that she is not a socio-linguist, and obviously does not use the term "dialect" in a way a socio-linguist would appreciate; which, as said, is not really relevant in her line of work but still misleading.
> 
> So I didn't want to "diss" her; still, her use of the term dialect definitely is not what you should quote of her work - she might be an expert in her field of proficiency but even if she had done some major work in socio-linguistics at some point (I don't think she has) this is definitely not her field of proficiency: her field is grammar.
> To study grammar she is studying exotic dialects, but her aim is not socio-linguistics, this is obvious if one only reads a single paragraph of her article there. (I've read more than that, by the way.)




Ok, now I understand more clearly what you mean. But, this is bothering me. People involved in writing grammars, standardization etc, are involved with dialects. Why should we give preference to one group of linguists over another, in a matter that both groups are studying, only from different perspectives?

Furthermore, if her work deals with the standardization of languages, even if we discount her use of "dialect" as non-standard among linguists (or only sociolinguists?), we surely cannot dismiss what she thinks a standard language is and whether it can be equated to simply one dialect among many (another thing the author Frank quoted did). For surely, this is precisely what she does - dealing with language standardization.



> Or to put it in other words: she is interested in comparing grammar of German dialects and German standard language - but the definition of dialect does not concern her there, nor does the definition of language; rather she's comparing different linguistic varieties and explaining the differences by grammatical description.


No, that was another author (if you're referring to my last quote from Google Books)


----------



## DenisBiH

sokol said:


> Then please let me help you, again different line of thinking - _*my*_ thinking.
> Being a qualified *grammarian*, probably "just" a mediocre one, or a good one or probably one of the best ones which are around, that's not the point here really, does not qualify her for defining "dialect" as a term for language, nor does it qualify her as a socio-linguist.
> Nor does she even intend to define the term "dialect" as such: this is not the crucial issue in her line of work.




Sorry sokol, I don't think that is appropriate (the "grammarian" description). If I were to follow that kind of reasoning, I might as well define Frank's original author as "passionate adherent of a school of thought in linguistics that, for political reasons, is trying to force its own, highly debatable, view of what the standard language is" or define sociolinguistics as "the field of linguistics studying how people feel about language" and say that a sociolinguist has no business or competence, whatsoever, dabbling in the issue of defining what a standard language is.

I would be wrong, of course. We can't do that. 



> She clearly has specialised in grammar and I am absolutely sure that she wouldn't even intend to offer an opinion on socio-linguistic matters.


Writing scientific articles on sociolinguists *is* offering opinion, and the fact that it was published would signal that a peer review had seen her contribution as significant. 

But if you don't want to discuss it further, I agree. 

But I would like to hear a short definition of the difference between a sociolinguist and a dialectologist, if you don't mind.


----------



## LilithE

DenisBiH said:


> What you're citing are mostly examples of borrowings. I can also start making sentences with heavy use of orientalisms (Turkish, Arabic, Persian).



Here you are jumping to the conclusion that ALL of the words in today's dialects of Dalmatia and Istria are borrowings. But can we consider them as borrowings if they were 'inherited' from our ancestors? I agree that there are words in these dialects that really are 'borrowed' from Italian but sometimes it only looks like that. *Dalmatian* ( Dalmatski) is also an extinct Romance language and there are its words that are still very much alive in the dialects, especially on our islands. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalmatian_language

( Or Muljačić, Ž. 2000. Das dalmatische. Studien zur einen untergegangenen Sprache, Köln/Weimar/Wien: Böhlau Verlag. among sources that are more reliable than Wiki) 

It also derived for Vulgar Latin but if we don't say for other Romance languages that they 'borrowed' their words from Latin, it isn't fair to say that in this case either. The last speaker of Vegliot ( Veljotski - or dialect of Dalmatian language on the island of Krk ) died in 1897 so the last recorded usage is even relatively recent. 

I will stop here since this is all together off topic. I just wanted to poin out that although the standard B/C/S languages have mostly the same history, that isn't always or not entirely the case with our dialects.


----------



## DenisBiH

LilithE,

whether from Italian, Dalmatian Romance or some other language, I'd still say they are technically borrowings into Chakavian Croatian. Of course, I agree with you that in reality the "borrowing" may have had as much to do with substrate influence, but from the perspective of Istrian and Dalmatian Croatian these words were borrowed into it from a foreign language.


----------



## LilithE

That would still be too simple explanation. And it would actually work for the Dalmatian dialect spoken on the mainland - in Dalmatian towns for example. Dialect of the islands is more complex than that. Very often the inhabitants of Split can't understand at all the dialect of the inhabitants of Hvar for example. It isn't just the question of vocabulary but also vocals, intonation, grammar structures etc. Of course, it is still a variety of Croatian language but it is far from being a standard language with just a few 'borrowings'.


----------



## DenisBiH

LilithE said:


> That would still be too simple explanation. And it would actually work for the Dalmatian dialect spoken on the mainland - in Dalmatian towns for example. Dialect of the islands is more complex than that. Very often the inhabitants of Split can't understand at all the dialect of the inhabitants of Hvar for example. It isn't just the question of vocabulary but also vocals, intonation, grammar structures etc. Of course, it is still a variety of Croatian language but it is far from being a standard language with just a few 'borrowings'.




I don't believe I've said anything like that ("standard language with just a few borrowings"). However, the words Istriano was quoting ("pensat" etc) are (mostly if not all) lexical borrowings.

I would like to read more on Romance influence on phonology and grammar of Croatian dialects in the islands if you have some recommendations, some of what you're saying (influences of Romance on grammar) is new to me. 


And now to get back on topic. What do our esteemed linguists think of this quote (and the very interesting remainder of that chapter), how does this difference of opinion between essentialism/purism and sociolinguistics affect the debate about what a language, dialect and a standard language is (or should be in the case of that last one), if it does affect it at all?




> At the end of the chapter, I contrast the essentialist perspective with what I am calling the "sociolinguistic" position. Language activists who fall in this camp locate the definition of language in society and its linguistic practices. This position does not conceive of the link between language and social groups as "natural" or "biological" but rather, views those connections as social and political in origin. *Language not presented as a completely autonomous system, with clear-cut boundaries and standards*. Corsican is what Corsicans speak or what Corsicans collectively agree it is. *This perspective proscribes purism, accepts and validates social and linguistic diversity, and makes political or social agendas the basis for language judgments and practices.* Here, language as a project of society, a constant process of becoming rather than an essential "being".


----------



## Hulalessar

DenisBiH said:


> This is nonsense on so many levels.



I think the problem is about levels!

If I understand you correctly, what you are saying is that a "language" and  "dialect" are something qualitatively different; perhaps also that what are referred to as "standard" languages are the only "proper" languages, with everything else being substandard.

Even linguists can mean different things by "dialect" in different contexts, but when they say things like "there are only dialects", they are not necessarily saying that there are no languages, but rather saying that a language is a group of dialects. In other words "language" is one taxonomic level above "dialect", just as in the taxonomy of the natural world a genus is one taxonomic level above a species. So, just as in the natural world you cannot exhibit a specimen of a genus as such, but only of a species, so in the field of language you cannot have a specimen of a language as such, but only of a dialect. A standard language is as much a dialect as a "dialect".

The problem for linguists is in agreeing how to group the dialects. That brings us to what Ben Jamin said above:



Ben Jamin said:


> The main point in my opinion is that we can not *find out scientifically* what a *language* and a *dialect* is. These are names given to some obervable phenomena (or rather to people's perceptions of the phenomena) and not "things in themselves" (Dinge am sich). The use of these names is a convention, and since the names have been given by many scholars independently and in different time, there are many conventions, and they do not agree with each other.
> Then we have to decide if we wish to study the classification of languages in the "language/dialect space" as purely linguistic phenomenon or as purely sociological (and political) one. If we choose the first, than we should reformulate the question "what is a language", and start with blank sheets of paper, and define "language" and "dialect" again, this time using a consistent approach, untainted by the sociological and political considerations.



I think that that encapsulates the problem admirably. No one is going to disagree that there are Celtic languages and Germanic languages. Going down one taxonomic level no one is going to disagree that there is a sharp break between Northern Germanic and Western Germanic. Moving down a level again, few will dispute that we can confidently separate Continental and Insular Scandinavian. Once we get to Continental Scandinavian it starts to get tricky because the waters are muddied by the existence of standard languages closely associated with nation states. If we are "untainted by the sociological and political considerations" can there be any other conclusion than that there is only one language and that that language is Scandinavian"?

If this principle is applied elsewhere, it will of course involve some re-classification that may upset one or two people since some standard languages would get lumped together under the umbrella of a single language.


----------



## DenisBiH

Hulalessar, I believe I was commenting on this when I wrote that:



> - A standard language is simply a dialect in a state level society whose speakers or proponents have economic, social, and police power and choose to use it to enforce the use of their dialect.


Not to repeat myself (you can read that post again for much of my criticism, and there will be more in the upcoming response to one of Frank's last posts), saying that a standard language is one of many dialects is comparing apples and oranges, in my humble opinion (so that Frank doesn't rush in asking for references).

You don't speak a grammar book, you don't speak a dictionary and you most certainly don't speak a spelling guide. Just as you don't use a technical manual containing detailed schematics of a TV to watch CNN, but a real TV. Just as a programmer doesn't call methods and access data members of a class but of an instance of that class (well, unless they're static but let's not go there). I can't think of better parallels for what I'm trying to say right now, so forgive me if those are not that good.

What the author is describing above is a sort of a _lingua franca_, or rather a _dialect franca_ (although he politicizes it too much and paints a one-sided picture), which I believe might well be valid until the language is fully standardized, but after that it's the standard, and not the dialect from which it arose, that is maintained and followed by the rest. Native speakers of the original dialect then do not exercise the control on everyone else that they would if everyone else would be learning their dialect as the _dialect franca_, instead of learning and following the standard as described in grammars, dictionaries, spelling guides etc.



> If this principle is applied elsewhere, it will of course involve some re-classification that may upset one or two people since some standard languages would get lumped together under the umbrella of a single language.


Yes, this has happened in the past as well. Well and not so well meaning people dabble in what they should leave alone to the speakers and make a mess of things that then causes unnecessary resentment and sometimes bloodshed.

Scientific disciplines and viewpoints come and go, what is mainstream today will be obsolete in 40-50 years and people will still be speaking languages and dialects.

In the end, it's all about who has the biggest guns (or friends with them), so one needs not be nervous about whether someone will be upset or not. Someone always is, but it's the guns that dictate what is actually  happening. Sorry for the off topic.


----------



## Frank06

DenisBiH said:


> Before I proceed further answering your latest post, do we agree that dr. Mosel uses the term dialect in a different manner than your source, contrasting standard language with it and applying the term "substandard" to the dialect?


Yes, she does.
But it's a bit like asking what to think of a mathematician who states that 1 + 1 = 3. Probably that mathetmatican knows a lot about multiplying numbers, but not about adding them up.

Frank


----------



## DenisBiH

Frank06 said:


> Yes, she does.
> But it's a bit like asking what to think of a mathematician who states that 1 + 1 = 3. Probably that mathetmatican knows a lot about multiplying numbers, but not about adding them up.
> 
> Frank



Perhaps a "Sociolinguistic school of arithmetic" might be useful then? Here are a few other possible candidates, *if* I'm reading this quote correctly (it would be nice to have access to more of the text, but alas only snippet view).



> 14. Svejcer — Nikol'skij studied situations where the same language serves different nations, and emphasize (1986: 20): "The term standard language variant was applied to the variety of a standard language, limited to a certain national area (for example Standard English in the USA, Standard German in Austria, Standard French in Canada. Standard Spanish in Argentina and other Latin American countries). *The totality of a standard language variant and the substandard (dialect) varieties (territorial and social) within the same area forms a national language variant.* The relationship between the standard language variant and the substandard idioms within the same area is the same as between the standard language and the dialects within a language serving one nation". See also Muljaiic 1988d.


Btw, Frank, nice to have you back.  I haven't forgotten about that answer I owe you. I'm just concentrating, meditating etc. in preparation. Perhaps tonight.


----------



## sokol

Denis, I am sorry but the whole side-discussion about Ulrike Mosel and here use of terms really is pointless (and off-topic too, for that matter). 

While there indeed exist different definitions of the term "dialect" (even among linguists) one thing is clear: it is _*very*_ important to distinguish dialect and register - not all linguists make that distinction because in some fields of linguistics this isn't really relevant, but when it comes to defining what a _*language*_ is (for which we should also know what a _*dialect*_ is) this _*is*_ important.

So again, repeating myself, and again emphasising that it is not important here how Ulrike Mosel uses that term (the definition by M. A. K. Halliday, but similar ones, in other words, can be found in many works of linguists; I chose his as I find them clear and easy to understand):

A _*dialect*_ is a linguistic variety (a linguistic code) according to user. It is _*defined*_ by user.
A _*register*_ is a linguistic variety (a linguistic code) according to use. It is _*defined*_ by use.*)

*) Oh, and standard language of course is _*a*_ dialect used in both spoken and written registers in some linguistic communities, while in others standard language is restricted to written registers and highly formal spoken ones. Thus, standard language might look like it were a register in some cases (e. g. in Arabic nations) but it is still a dialect even if spoken by virtually no-one natively.

The difference is that a dialect *identifies the user* (regional and social dialects already have been mentioned, for the latter I prefer the term sociolect), while a register *identifies use* - thus, written language as such by no means defines a "language" as written language is just a register, nor is dialect as such defined as a "deficient, restricted language".

Those are the salient points here - the definition of dialect, while there exist conflicting ones, basically is rather clear: the smallest common denominator of all definitions is (or by rights should be ) that a dialect is a linguistic code, period.
For the defintion of language, on the other hand, there isn't really a smallest common denominator, which is the reason why I've begun this thread: or if there is one then it is at most "a set of dialects which are more-or-less closely related to each other, and which are identified as a 'language' more-or-less arbitrarily, be it by common prejudice or pseudo-linguistic definitions or whatever". Or something like that.

Of course there are probably very few people around who adhere to the definition of language as underlined above, but as said this is probably (!!) the smallest common denominator - that upon which all more or less agree.

And what this thread is about is those conflicting theories about what language is at all - while the definition of dialect really is not unclear, not to a linguist anyway.


----------



## DenisBiH

sokol,



> Oh, and standard language of course is _*a*_ dialect used in both spoken and written registers in some linguistic communities, while in others standard language is restricted to written registers and highly formal spoken ones. Thus, standard language might look like it were a register in some cases (e. g. in Arabic nations) but it is still a dialect even if spoken by virtually no-one natively.


In this case standard language is then artificially classified as a dialect although it is significantly different from regular dialects. It is done to fit the agenda not of linguistics, but of a particular discipline within linguistics, sociolinguistics. A discipline which seems to be, as far as I have seen browsing through Google Books, obsessively inspired by the situation in English, particularly American English regarding African-American dialects. 

This is again my humble opinion. 

On a more serious note - I don't feel comfortable having a somewhat sensitive and possibly controversial (and heated) discussion with a moderator in a topic where that person is both acting as a moderator and a participant. I will, as you have asked, refrain from mentioning dr. Mosel again, but I will also have to refrain from further answering your posts unless someone else. who is not participating actively in this discussion, takes over the role of the moderator here. I respect you very much sokol, but I don't really feel comfortable in this situation. I am writing this openly and not via PM as should be done since you have asked me openly for the second time to refrain from commenting on dr. Mosel.


----------



## Hulalessar

In _The Power of Babel_ John McWhorter said that a standard language is just a dialect that got lucky.


----------



## Alxmrphi

Hulalessar said:


> In _The Power of Babel_ John McWhorter said that a standard language is just a dialect that got lucky.



Sensible statement made by a great guy


----------



## Istriano

There is a lot of politics involved, for example in the case of Valencian vs Catalan.

As a rule, Catalans don't like Castillians, they think they don't belong to Spain, but
they are doing the same thing to Valencians, by including them in so called ''Catalan countries''...Valencia in order to escape the Catalan hegemony is 1. opting for a different name: Valencian instead of Catalan  (orthography is different, and so is phonetics, although the phonology is the same)...justified in history: Valencians have called their language Valencian rather than Catalan; 2. choosing an _optional _bilingualism (both Spanish and Valencian are equal) which is different from the Catalan nationalistic situation where use of Spanish is discouraged in Catalonia.


If Catalonia split from Spain, I'm sure the name Catalan would be deleted from official documents in Balearic islands and would be changed to Balearic, and the name Valencian would be held even stronger in the Valencian community. Unlike Catalonia, Valencia and Balears like being in Spain. 

You might say Maltese is a dialect of Arabic, Corsican is a dialect of Italian and Luxembourgese is a dialect of German, but not in the mind of their speakers!
The same can be said of Valencian, Valencian is not a dialect of Catalan; Catalan and Valencian had the same ancestor,
just like Portuguese and Galician had the same ancestor.


----------



## Frank06

DenisBiH said:


> If
> a) dialect is a particular way of speaking
> b) standard language is also a dialect
> c) everybody speaks a dialect
> Could we conclude then that the author is saying that any way of speaking, standard or non-standard, is a dialect?


I conclude from this that a standard language, a sociolect, a regional dialect, the variant that's often called substandard, you name it, are considered by linguists to be "dialects". "Dialect", to linguists, is a neutral label. It  isn't supposed to make us feel good or bad or whatever, as you suggested in your post 42. What's so incredibly weird about that? I don't think any linguists "resent" anything when describing a standard variant as a dialect, contrary to you. Lingistcs isn't emo-radio. 
It's not because a linguist writes 'standard' and 'substandard', that he or she attaches any personal emotional value to it, contrary to what you have been doing thorughout this discussion, and especially in post 42.


> Yes, we could argue that some non-standard dialect may indeed have its own specialist terminology...


We could argue? Have you ever listened or talked to farmers about their animals and crops, sailors about their gear, fishermen about their job? How dialect and specialised and non-standard do you want it? 
You seem to be suggesting that dialects don't have any specialised terminology. Or that they, from the moment they have a specialised terminology, the stop to be dialects?


> But then, strictly speaking, a non-standard dialect that has some sort of standardization work done for it is no longer a non-standard dialect. It has its own standard.


Are we having the same discussion? What does this mean?



> Very nice! Now, could someone help me out. I want to see where the native speakers of *standard* Bosnian (or Croatian, or Serbian, if it's easier) are located (the geographic region) or, if they're a particular social group, which group is it.


You want to see _native speakers_ of the standard Bosnian dialect. Urm, yes, and? 



> But I don't want to know about:
> a) the dialect on which the standard was (mainly) based a long time ago
> b) anything that does not conform 100% absolutely by the book to the standard language as described/prescribed by grammars, dictionaries etc.
> c) and I want native speakers *only*. If the standard language is simply one of many dialects, it should have native speakers just as all the others do.


And what do you mean by all this? Why do you want "native speakers only"? What are you talking about?

Frank
PS: Could you please also explain why you are mildly Gish Galloping this thread with snippets, whithout explaining what exactly they are supposed to illustrate.


----------



## DenisBiH

Frank06, your new comments on a couple of posts you had already answered, or so I thought, are indeed interesting and thought provoking, and will be addressed together with your comments that I have not answered yet. As you have added to them now, however, I hope you will understand the answer will inevitably be delayed until possibly tomorrow afternoon or evening. 

However, one line I will answer right now, so that I give everyone involved the chance to react to the quote, explain anything that needs explaining etc. before I proceed tomorrow.

Frank:


> I conclude from this that a standard language, a sociolect, a regional dialect, the variant that's often called substandard, you name it, are considered by linguists to be "dialects".


The quote below on standard Austrian German seems not to follow that logic. It is from a person I highly respect.  You Frank don't have to react to it now, or at all. I would like to hear the original author's opinion, but I can't really break my word, so it's up to the author alone to decide to comment or not.



> Of course you can say that Austrian German dialects _also _are German dialects (German here not referring to Germany but German-speaking). This of course is accepted and true. *But Austrian standard language is not 'a dialect' of any kind (standard language in general is not a 'dialect' but a different register; or you may use the term 'standard dialect' to describe different standard varieties, but never 'dialect' alone)*, it is only the variety of the German standard language in Austria, as is the Swiss one for Switzerland respectively.*)


Another thing:



> PS: Could you please also explain why you are mildly Gish Galloping this thread with snippets, whithout explaining what exactly they are supposed to illustrate.


Of course, as soon as you explain what relevance the pile of books next to your keyboard, or your knowledge of arithmetic, both of which you have shared with us in this thread, has with the topic of this thread. I would rather not talk this way again, as it has caused you to leave the last time, but you seem to be insisting, so, no problem. 

Besides, if I remember correctly, this whole line of discussion started from a quote by you without you explaining what you were trying to illustrate.


----------



## Frank06

Denis,

I'll take the risk of replying to your post numbered 666.

As for the Austrian linguist we both seem to be rather fond of for various reasons:


> So the whole point of this long post, for those few who are still with me , is, in a nutshell: any linguistic definition of "language" would be pointless;


I more or less agree with this, though I would have marked "linguistic definition" in bold, red, size 5 letters.


> *a linguist really would be better served to use the term "dialect" just for "(linguistic) code"* while "language" should be reserved for "institutionalised standard language" (that is, a language sanctioned by some political power).


I am not a linguist, at best an amateur. But I follow this line of thought almost completely. I made just one addition and a half, and I don't know whether Sokol would agree with the first addition: 
- That "instutionalised standard language" is considered to be a dialect too, at least from a linguistic point of view. "Dialect", again, being an incredibly neutral linguistic term, which means a lot more than regional speech, as the quotes from the linguistic lexicons indicated.
- Linguists don't make any difference themselves between dialect and standard dialects _based upon emotions, feelings of resentment_. _Hence, I should not have written and posted #63!_

I never came across a linguist who wrote that dialect x is inferior to dialect y _per se_ and _in se_. And, by the way, I guess this is the gist of my reactions to your series of posts, and especially your post 42: I never ever came across a real linguist who'd write something as "Despite the fact that among linguists the term "dialect" is used to "refer to any variety of a language which is shared by a group of people" [Wolfram], colleague X seems to dislike standard language because she claims it's a dialect (see Wolfram). I _resent_ very much the way colleague X described a standard variety as a dialect". 
That, in my opinion, would be the acme of non-scientific, non-academic, non-linguistic thinking.




			
				Denis said:
			
		

> We can say that non-standard dialect in fact is nowhere near being equal to the standard language


In Dutch we call this "kicking in an open door". Indeed, a circle is not a square. A non-standard dialect is not equal to, hence different from the standard dialect. "Not being equal", that's the basic meaning of "different", no? Mind you, I use "equal" here as "showing or having no variance in proportion, structure, or appearance", without the connotation of "having the same value", the point being that a _linguistic_ definition is free of value judgements (or as free as possible).

However, linguists might want to research the feelings towards the various dialects in a larger speech community, the value judgements which are common in a larger speech community, the way the dialects are used in a speech community, the way the various dialects are constantly mixed, or rather, the way they interact.

So it could be possible that the majority of a speech community value the standard dialect higher than a regional dialect and that they insist on calling that standard _dialect_ a _standard language_. But that's a sociolinguistic finding, not a linguistic fact. The finding that more people like cats than mice, doesn't make mice 'less animal' than cats. 

Linguists even might want to describe why the Monthy Python sketch with the doctors (if I remeber well) who mix a highly specialised medical sociolect with  very very strong regional dialect is considered to be funny. Linguists might research the differences between those dialects, a research which requires that the several dialects involved are labeled and specified (e.g. standard, regional dialect) and that the differences between these labeled dialects are made clear. 
But linguists _themselves_ don't attach emotional value to the terms nor the  distinctions. Again, that would be the acme of non-scientific, non-academic, non-linguistic thinking.

I don't see any contradiction between the idea "dialect is a neutral label" and a linguist who calls one dialect "standard language" and another dialect "regional dialect", "substandard", or, since the term dialect entails more than regional and supranational standardised dialects, social dialects as used by doctors etc. (sociolects).

Therefore I based myself upon some linguistic literature, off and on-line. On relevant bodies of works, be it books or articles I fully read, written by professional linguists. Which answers your question about what the pile of books is doing next to my keyboard. 
I must say that I am a bit surprised, by the way, that the very idea of looking things up in books on linguistics seems so strange to you.


Frank


----------



## sokol

DenisBiH said:


> sokol,
> 
> In this case standard language is then artificially classified as a dialect although it is significantly different from regular dialects.


Why, it isn't (artificially classified, that is).

What differentiates a standard language from dialects concerning _*use*_ is register; what differentiates it from dialects concernign structure is it being codified (not necessarily that is, but usually this is the case - note that standard varieties also developed when there was no 'purposeful' codification process, like e. g. in Europe in the Middle Ages).

I take it you don't like socio-linguistics - well, you don't have to, as well as I do not have to like grammatical theory. All this is completely and utterly beside the point.
Also, I'd like to point out that I am _not_ acting as a moderator here: I am an ordinary forero just as you when writing in this thread. (I wouldn't dare moderate my own thread, that'd be bad style.) Still this is my thread (as I am the thread opener); you may open a thread about grammatical theory and Ulrike Mosel's work any time you like, but please leave her aside in my thread, yes?  (Except of course if she's done some work relevant to the original topic I defined in the first post, that is "What defines a 'language'?")

So anyway, the concept of dialect really is not the problem - first because definition is not that controversial, and some very basics about dialect are really clear as mustard (pun intended).
Also while there are some conflicting views of standard language the very _concept_ of a standard language is even clearer, possibly as clear as sparkling mineral water.

However, the concept of *language* as such is at least as murky as a foggy autumn day.
I think you will agree straight as a shot that* language does not equal standard language*, right?

The important thing here is not to mix up those terms, then it'll all be easier.

So anyway, you _*found*_ a post where I used the terms incorrectly myself when referring to Austrian standard language, as quoted in your previous post, or more precisely where I even posted a conflicting definition. I'm sorry for that, how could I demand something from you when I'm not even consequent in use myself.

Very well then, obviously I'm not so certain about definitions myself.
The concept of dialect is clear, and the concept of register is.
The problem arises when a variety, a linguistic code is only used in a specific register (usually the case with standard language), but of course most if not all linguistic varieties have both "properties of a dialect" as well as "properties of a register".

So it was all my fault, sorry for that, we could have dealt with all this with a very few posts if I'd tried to bring it to the crucial point right away, which in my opinion really is:

The whole discussion broke off about the use of "substandard" for "dialect" and "standard" for "standard language": this is a distinction made on the assumption that "substandard" is somehow "subjected" under standard language, which leaves on the whole a wrong impression, as follows:
- it makes believe that dialect grammar were dependent on standard language grammar;
- it makes believe that dialects were less valuable than standard language;
- it makes even believe that dialects were straight descendants of standard languages (of course a good linguist always will realise that this is not the case, and Ulrike Mosel certainly does).

It is important for _*every*_ linguist (be he or she grammarian or socio-linguist or linguistic pathologist or whatever) to not make the mistake to see common prejudice about dialects as "essential" and "inherent features" of dialects; many linguists still do, which is the reason why I am so very much insisting on how important it is not doing this: not because we are "all equal" (that too but that has nothing to do with linguistics) but because you will arrive at *scientifically wrong conclusions* if you're led by those prejudices.

This is what this all is about really.


----------



## Ben Jamin

sokol said:


> ....
> So anyway, the concept of dialect really is not the problem - first because definition is not that controversial, and some very basics about dialect are really clear as mustard (pun intended). ...
> 
> ....
> However, the concept of *language* as such is at least as murky as a foggy autumn day.
> I think you will agree straight as a shot that* language does not equal standard language*, right? ...


 
I think that the whole problem has arised because most of the people expessing their views mix up terms belonging to linguistics, sociology and politics. If one attempts to discuss the "language" classification from a purely linguistic point of view, then the very concept of dialect becomes redundant. The student of languages will register that there are languages that mutually are not intelligible at all, and langauges with a varying degree of mutual intelligibility. Among the latter some can be classified as having "high mutual intelligibility". In sociolingusitics these could be classified as "dialects", "sociolects", "related languages", "standard languages", "local languages", and so on, but from the purely "structural" linguistic point of view this is completely superfluous. 
So, in my opinion, the concept of language and dialect belong to two different worlds, and thence the problems and controverises.

... *language does not equal standard language..*
As i posted already a few weeks ago: langauge is a hyperonyme, standard language is a "subterm", so lets not dicuss if every mammal is a horse or not.


----------



## sokol

Well actually it would suffice to only use "dialect", especially from a structural point of view: as, structurally, each linguistic variety is its own subset and combination of grammar; whether you use the word "dialect" or "language" for the concept as such is pointless.

So anyway, while for me it is not the concept of "dialect" which becomes redundant but that of "language", it is for you the other way around - which in fact means the very same thing, if I understand you correctly: each linguistic variety is a dialect = language (where the equation means that it is utterly pointless which name you give to it).

But in the world "out there", outside the ivory tower, "language" is something completely different:

- for the European Union the difference between "(official) language" and "dialect" is one of hiring translators or not doing so;

- for a citizen of any European country it could mean the difference between being a "national minority" (language) or 'just' belonging to a "socially disadvantaged group" (dialect);

- for people living on the Balkans and in Eastern Central + Eastern Europe (and partly also west of that line, but there's still a cultural divide) the difference between "language" and "dialect" is even one of being a nation, or not being one.

My original intention was to discuss to what "language" relates, how language is defined in society, and what linguists have to say about it.
I did not intend this to become a discussion about a scientific definition of "language" solely, but obviously this also is relevant enough to the original question. Still, I'd like to say that it is a pity that discussion focussed on this point mainly, in the latest posts.


----------



## Ben Jamin

sokol said:


> Well actually it would suffice to only use "dialect", especially from a structural point of view: as, structurally, each linguistic variety is its own subset and combination of grammar; whether you use the word "dialect" or "language" for the concept as such is pointless.
> 
> So anyway, while for me it is not the concept of "dialect" which becomes redundant but that of "language", it is for you the other way around - which in fact means the very same thing, if I understand you correctly: each linguistic variety is a dialect = language (where the equation means that it is utterly pointless which name you give to it).
> 
> But in the world "out there", outside the ivory tower, "language" is something completely different:
> 
> - for the European Union the difference between "(official) language" and "dialect" is one of hiring translators or not doing so;
> 
> - for a citizen of any European country it could mean the difference between being a "national minority" (language) or 'just' belonging to a "socially disadvantaged group" (dialect);
> 
> - for people living on the Balkans and in Eastern Central + Eastern Europe (and partly also west of that line, but there's still a cultural divide) the difference between "language" and "dialect" is even one of being a nation, or not being one.
> 
> My original intention was to discuss to what "language" relates, how language is defined in society, and what linguists have to say about it.
> I did not intend this to become a discussion about a scientific definition of "language" solely, but obviously this also is relevant enough to the original question. Still, I'd like to say that it is a pity that discussion focussed on this point mainly, in the latest posts.


 
I understand what you mean, and I agree that calling the entity a "language" or a "dialect" is a matter of convention. I personally prefer "language" as "all covering" term (including artificial languages and computer languages. For a language in the EU meaning one should use a double word term (to be proposed yet). I associate the term "dialect" with a situation when two " ... languages" are closely related and/or mutually intelligible, which is a narrowing of the scope of the term.
Another important point that I try to make clear is that the pure linguistic approach does not need the differentiation between "language" and "dialect", it is sociolinguistics and political linguistics that has such a need. I understand that we agree on that issue too. 
So, if the further discussion is desirable, i would propose that we should concentrate on what we should call the "languge" that has obtained a recognized status. At the same time we should remember that we operate outside the pure linguistics area.


----------



## sokol

Ben Jamin said:


> So, if the further discussion is desirable, i would propose that we should concentrate on what we should call the "languge" that has obtained a recognized status. At the same time we should remember that we operate outside the pure linguistics area.


What we should call it, yes, and what it means at all. 

The problem obviously is that by common understanding Letzebuergesh (Luxemburgish) is "officially" a language while its closely Rhineland dialects are not, or that Chinese too is considered a "language" by common understanding even though this term thus becomes one for many "dialects" which are mutually unintelligible.
And I fear there isn't a good solution for this problem of terminology - or anyway not one which would be accepted by a majority of the people out there.
Linguists*) love to create new terms for a very specific concept which is only used by linguists (or even a split-fraction of them only), but those terms hardly ever are used outside this very exclusive "elite". We could try and define a "new" term, and try to make it popular at least here at WordReference, but honestly I have no great hopes that we even could reach a consensus about it here in this thread, let alone be successful in gaining acceptance even here at WordReference.

*) Philosophers and other scientists too for that matter!


----------



## Istriano

But, de facto Luxemburgish is not a separate language since it lacks H forms.

Luxemburgish and Hochdeutsch are in diglossic situation in Luxemburg,
where Luxemburgish is an L variant, and Hochdeutsch is an H variant.

Furthermore, there's also French, that serves as a buffer, which is preferred in semiformal situations (typical of a mesolect) 

So, in Luxembourg there's  diglossia (L for Luxemburgish, H for Hochdeutsch) with bilingualism (German and French).

Luxemburgish should be treated like Swiss German in Germany linguistically and sociolinguistically, no matter what politicians may say.

Were Luxemburgish a distinctive language of its own, it would be a language of university and scientific papers which is not true (unlike Dutch in Belgium or the Netherlands) 


One more paradoxal situation.
1. Corsican is linguistically a Tuscan dialect, but politicians say it's a separate language
2. Venetian is related only remotely to standard Italian (Tuscan), but politicians see it as a mere dialect of Italian.

It is Corsican that is a dialect of Italian and not Venetian.
Venetian is a Galloromance language. 

(As for Corsican, Corsicans hate when foreigners try to learn or speak Corsican, they consider it an offence,
but speaking standard Tuscan Italian is widely and warmly accepted!).


----------



## Ben Jamin

Istriano said:


> But, de facto Luxemburgish is not a separate language since it lacks H forms.
> 
> Luxemburgish and Hochdeutsch are in diglossic situation in Luxemburg,
> where Luxemburgish is an L variant, and Hochdeutsch is an H variant.
> 
> Furthermore, there's also French, that serves as a buffer, which is preferred in semiformal situations (typical of a mesolect)
> 
> So, in Luxembourg there's diglossia (L for Luxemburgish, H for Hochdeutsch) with bilingualism (German and French).
> 
> Luxemburgish should be treated like Swiss German in Germany linguistically and sociolinguistically, no matter what politicians may say.
> 
> Were Luxemburgish a distinctive language of its own, it would be a language of university and scientific papers which is not true (unlike Dutch in Belgium or the Netherlands)
> 
> 
> One more paradoxal situation.
> 1. Corsican is linguistically a Tuscan dialect, but politicians say it's a separate language
> 2. Venetian is related only remotely to standard Italian (Tuscan), but politicians see it as a mere dialect of Italian.
> 
> It is Corsican that is a dialect of Italian and not Venetian.
> Venetian is a Galloromance language.
> 
> (As for Corsican, Corsicans hate when foreigners try to learn or speak Corsican, they consider it an offence,
> but speaking standard Tuscan Italian is widely and warmly accepted!).


 Yes, all this is true, but all this is politics and not linguistics. Those facts are of little importannce for pure linguistics (but of big importance for sociolinguistics). I propose that we from now on agree whether we shall discuss language politics, sociolinguistics or pure linguistics.


----------



## sokol

Istriano said:


> But, de facto Luxemburgish is not a separate language since it lacks H forms.
> 
> Luxemburgish and Hochdeutsch are in diglossic situation in Luxemburg,
> where Luxemburgish is an L variant, and Hochdeutsch is an H variant.
> 
> Furthermore, there's also French, that serves as a buffer, which is preferred in semiformal situations (typical of a mesolect)
> 
> So, in Luxembourg there's  diglossia (L for Luxemburgish, H for Hochdeutsch) with bilingualism (German and French).


Well, this involves the terms "diglossia" and "bilingualism" which are used inexactly even by linguists. I've written my diploma about it, so I should know. 
To cut the long story short: Ferguson's use of "diglossia" is only trying to explain that you need to learn more than one variety when you learn certain languages - like Arabic, or Greek, or Haiti English/Creole, or German if you'd like to use it in Swiss. Fishman's definition is a re-interpretation of Ferguson's term, he also was the one who introduced bilingualism.

And to use bilingualism at all in itself means that you need to have some concept of what _*"a *_language" is - but as there isn't really agreement here, as is shown especially in the case of Luxemburgish, the term "bilingualism" as such is not too well defined, which is never good from the point of a linguist but which seems just to be a fact. (Or one could say that bilingualism equals bidialectism - to create a new term -, and that it is arbitrary = irrelevant which term you use. I would agree with this statement but many wouldn't. )

So it all boils down, again, to what truly defines "a language".


----------



## Ben Jamin

sokol said:


> So it all boils down, again, to what truly defines "a language".


 
Well, let´s try again, but first you have to define better your question.
Do you mean 'language' as people use the word (a socio-politico-linguistic phenomenon), or 'language' as "a thing in itself" a Kantian/Platonian (Plato´s ideas) transcendental entity.
If you mean the first you have to quote a chosen representative text ('language' as exemplified in the following text ........). There is a trap, however, as in most texts the meaning is going to be fuzzy, and only a fuzzy answer can be given.

If you mean the latter, then the question is not longer linguistic but philosophical, and should rather be asked at a Philosophy forum..

If you do not give any context, then my aswer is: a *language* is any system of communication between living beings or between living beings and a machine, a system consisting of vocal, pictorial, electronic, manual, etc signals.


----------



## sokol

Well, if I'd like to discuss "language as a thing itself" then I wouldn't use a philosophical frame of reference but a linguistic one.  But that is not (and was not) my original intention; my question was from a linguist to a 'broader audience' - meaning, what language means to people, and how we possibly could come to a better understanding of the concept of language across cultural borders.

Because the definitions of language - as they are used in real life (in society as well as in socio-cultural contexts) - indeed vary according to cultural frame of reference (even within Europe there exist several distinct concepts of language as such).

And the reason I raised this question in the first place was that, obviously, these differences in 'cultural meanings' of the term continuously lead to misunderstandings here at WordReference (and especially here in EHL forum).
So my approach, as far as this thread is concerned, is very much a *practical* one: to try and find a common understanding of this term, acceptable for many or (ideally) most users here.

I tried to keep the linguistic discussion separate (and I failed catastrophically ), which as such could be an excellent topic for a new thread - but I really think that even though they're related topics, it would be beneficial to keep both separte.

So your very general definition of language given above - of being, basically, a means of communication - unfortunately is no solution for the communication problems arising due to different uses of the term. 

By the way, I would describe this definition of language you give above - "a language is any system of communication between living beings or between living beings and a machine, a system consisting of vocal, pictorial, electronic, manual, etc signals" - as a linguistic code = a clearly defined system of rules and set of vocabulary. Each and every dialect, by this definition, then would be a "language", as well as would be each and every standard language no matter how small differences were between them, or so I interpret this.

Which would give us an excellent definition in general linguistic or philosophic terms but which, however, unfortunately wouldn't help a great deal in 'real' life out there as by this definition German language only would be the standard language but none of its dialects, same of course would be the case for Italian, Slovene, etc.
So the _*real*_ problem - as far as communication (and miscommunication ) is concerned - is rather that people use "German" for language name and when using this they think of German and all its dialects, while Croats use "Croatian" as language name and think of it as Croatian standard language and all dialects spoken by Croatians but not those spoken of Serbs even though they're closer to their standard language than many Croatian dialects.

And many other paradoxic situations involved here. The latter, by the way - Croatian -, will indeed become a _*real*_ socio-political problem when after Croatia (which already applied for membership) also Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Montenegro will join EU: will then be four versions of EU law for them, four translators in sessions (and translations of law), etc? Not very cost-effective, but still possibly the way EU is headed.

So in a nutshell - that was why I began this thread in the first place, communication problems arising by different understandings of the term language as such.


----------



## Ben Jamin

sokol said:


> .....
> Because the definitions of language - as they are used in real life (in society as well as in socio-cultural contexts) - indeed vary according to cultural frame of reference (even within Europe there exist several distinct concepts of language as such).


 
The definitions of language vary, indeed, so it is confusing to use the word _language _without a reference to what definition we refer. I suggest that in our forum discussion we use more precise terms. 



> ....
> So my approach, as far as this thread is concerned, is very much a *practical* one: to try and find a common understanding of this term, acceptable for many or (ideally) most users here.


 
In order of achieving a common understanding it would be useful to use two parts terms, for example:
standard language, official language, and so on. Even more wordy definitions might be necessary as, for example "recognized separate language.



> ....
> So your very general definition of language given above - of being, basically, a means of communication - unfortunately is no solution for the communication problems arising due to different uses of the term.


Of course, it is not.



> ....
> Each and every dialect, by this definition, then would be a "language", as well as would be each and every standard language no matter how small differences were between them, or so I interpret this.


 
Yes, this was my intention. Every dialect IS basically a language. I believe that this should be the starting point in a purely linguistic approach. By the way, taking into consideration how the word _dialect_ is mostly used, this term is only justified to be used if we speak about relations between languages. 



> ....
> So the _*real*_ problem - as far as communication (and miscommunication ) is concerned - is rather that people use "German" for language name and when using this they think of German and all its dialects, while Croats use "Croatian" as language name and think of it as Croatian standard language and all dialects spoken by Croatians but not those spoken of Serbs even though they're closer to their standard language than many Croatian dialects.


Here, we cannot forbid people to think so. *This* concept of language is unaffected by how closely two languages are related to each other. That's wy *we* should improve our vocabulary if we want to be more precise. 
The situation of German is rather unique in many respects. Germany was politically divided, but there was a sense of cultural unity, which is not the case with the BCS countries. By the way: why is Dutch a "separate language", but Swiss is "a German dialect"?


----------



## Lars H

Ben Jamin said:


> Every dialect IS basically a language. I believe that this should be the starting point in a purely linguistic approach. By the way, taking into consideration how the word _dialect_ is mostly used, this term is only justified to be used if we speak about relations between languages.



With this approach, it would be better to ban the word "dialect" from any linguistic discussions, since it wouldn't add much. But then we would have to create a new word describing a "language" that has chosen to share spelling and grammar with other "languages".



Ben Jamin said:


> By the way: why is Dutch a "separate language", but Swiss is "a German dialect"?



Exactly my point. There is an important difference between Nederlands and Schwytzerdütsch (or rather two differencies). The former has developed a grammar and spelling quite different from Hochdeutsch, while the latter has chosen to maintain an (almost) identical grammar and spelling as Hochdeutsch. Regardless if you see Schwytzerdütsch as a language or a dialect, from a linguistic point of view there would be need of some terms defining these two smaller languages/dialects different relations with Hochdeutsch.


----------



## Orlin

Lars H said:


> Exactly my point. There is an important difference between Nederlands and Schwytzerdütsch (or rather two differencies). The former has developed a grammar and spelling quite different from Hochdeutsch, while the latter has chosen to maintain an (almost) identical grammar and spelling as Hochdeutsch. Regardless if you see Schwytzerdütsch as a language or a dialect, from a linguistic point of view there would be need of some terms defining these two smaller languages/dialects different relations with Hochdeutsch.


I think the situation with Macedonian is the same as with Dutch - Macedonians chose to adopt an orthography significantly different from Bulgarian, introduce many Serbian loans and probably some grammar changes (not completely sure because I have no active skills in Macedonian) in mid-20th century and that's why Macedonian is considered a separate language from Bulgarian though being highly mutually intelligible with Bulgarian (and Serbian). And it seems that Macedonia and Bulgaria have been culturally separated at least in 1944-91 and such an "invisible barrier" most probably still exists now - I was in Macedonia a little more than a month ago and it's still clear that Macedonians remain in the orbit of ex-Yougoslavia. So a form of cultural separation is necessary for formation of an independent language out of a local language variety.


----------



## Lars H

Orlin said:


> So a form of cultural separation is necessary for formation of an independent language out of a local language variety.



The actual will of the speakers is important. The German speakers of Austria, Switzerland and Südtirol have obviously not expressed a strong will to separate their dialects from High German, while the Luxemburgians, Dutch and Alsatians have.

I didn't know of the close bonds between Bulgarian and Macedonian, but I googleated a few texts between the two, and yes, the written languages seem to be very similar, much more similar than the Scandinavian languages.


----------



## Orlin

Lars H said:


> The actual will of the speakers is important. The German speakers of Austria, Switzerland and Südtirol have obviously not expressed a strong will to separate their dialects from High German, while the Luxemburgians, Dutch and Alsatians have.


Yes, I've already stated this in a previous of mine (in Serbian) and that's exactly the point: who had the will to separate linguistically, did separate (e. g. Macedonians, Luxemburgians, Dutch and Alsatians); who didn't want didn't.


----------



## phosphore

Orlin said:


> I think the situation with Macedonian is the same as with Dutch - Macedonians have chosen to adopt an orthography significantly different from Bulgarian, introduce many Serbian loans and probably some grammar changes (not completely sure because I have no active skills in Macedonian) in mid-20th century and that's why Macedonian is considered a separate language from Bulgarian though being highly mutually intelligible with Bulgarian and Serbian. And it seems that Macedonia and Bulgaria have been culturally separated at least in 1944-91 and such an "invisible barrier" most probably still exists now - I was in Macedonia a little more than a month ago and it's still clear that Macedonians remain in the orbit of ex-Yougoslavia. So a form of cultural separation is necessary for formation of an independent language out of a local language variety.


 
Orlin, I understand you must be influenced by some kind of language propaganda spread in Bulgaria, but the truth is Macedonian is not a dialect of Bulgarian with some influences from Serbian, it is a language in its own rights. You must be aware of the concept of dialect continuum and the fact that there was and probably still is a South Slavic dialect continuum which spreads from the Alps to the Black See. That dialect continuum was the only language reality back in the 19th century. The Serbian and Bulgarian national awakening that happened in the early 19th century and the Macedonian movement that arose in the late 19th century were political realities which created today's linguistic and political situation. The fact that the Serbian and Bulgarian national revival movements happened a few decades before the Macedonian nationalism arose don't give them any greater rights. It is clear that language borders were drawn arbitrarily, since there is no natural border in a continuum. Today's Western Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects may have been considered Serbian, just like today's Torlakian and again Macedonian dialects may have been considered Bulgarian, have the course of political history been different. But it wasn't. So we have to accept the political realities and the language realities are still somewhat the way they were before. Niš, Kumanovo and Sofia understand each other much better that Belgrade, Ohrid and Varna do.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Lars H said:


> Exactly my point. There is an important difference between Nederlands and Schwytzerdütsch (or rather two differencies). The former has developed a grammar and spelling quite different from Hochdeutsch, while the latter has chosen to maintain an (almost) identical grammar and spelling as Hochdeutsch. Regardless if you see Schwytzerdütsch as a language or a dialect, from a linguistic point of view there would be need of some terms defining these two smaller languages/dialects different relations with Hochdeutsch.


 
The Hochdeutsch spelling reflects in a very little degree the actual pronunciation of 'Schwytzer Dutsch'. If it did, then at least one of the resons you mention would disappear. 
I think however, that a political will of using Hochdeutsch as litterary and official language in Switzerland was more important than the linguistic facts. Maybe Switzerland's being a decentralized country played a large role here, while the Republic of Netherland had a better opportunity and a stronger need to have a national language of their own. If Netherland remained a Habsburg possession than the history could be different.


----------



## Orlin

phosphore said:


> Orlin, I understand you must be influenced by some kind of language propaganda spread in Bulgaria, but the truth is Macedonian is not a dialect of Bulgarian with some influences from Serbian, it is a language in its own rights. You must be aware of the concept of dialect continuum and the fact that there was and probably still is a South Slavic dialect continuum which spreads from the Alps to the Black See. That dialect continuum was the only language reality back in the 19th century. The Serbian and Bulgarian national awakening that happened in the early 19th century and the Macedonian movement that arose in the late 19th century were political realities which created today's linguistic and political situation. The fact that the Serbian and Bulgarian national revival movements happened a few decades before the Macedonian nationalism arose don't give them any greater rights. It is clear that language borders were drawn arbitrarily, since there is no natural border in a continuum. Today's Western Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects may, just like today's Torlakian and again Macedonian dialects may have been considered Bulgarian, have been considered Serbian have the course of political history been different. But it wasn't. So we have to accept the political realities and the language realities are still somewhat the way they were before. Niš, Kumanovo and Sofia understand each other much better that Belgrade, Ohrid and Varna do.


 
Ja se potpuno slažem, tako sam i rekao da su sami Makedonci želeli jezičku nezavisnost i naveo sam neke stvari kojima se ova volja izražava, a pre toga pisao sam da je samostalnost jezika stav samih govornika i sličnost s nekim drugim jezikom nije argument protiv samostalnosti jezika X.


----------



## phosphore

Yeah, but then you say that Macedonians drove their language away from Bulgarian on purpose. They didn't need to. They just had to choose between Central, Western, Nothern, Eastern, Southern dialects which ones are to become the basis of Standard Macedonian. And you seem to be forgetting that in 1945 they didn't break up with Bulgarian, they broke up with Serbian, because Macedonian dialects had been considered to be South Serbian dialects from 1918 to 1941. Children in Macedonia were taught Standard Serbian at school at that time. The war time from 1941 to 1945 when they were taught Bulgarian doesn't really count.


----------



## Ben Jamin

phosphore said:


> ... but the truth is Macedonian is not a dialect of Bulgarian with some influences from Serbian, it is a language in its own rights.


 
The truth is that the main reason for Macedonian being a " language in its own rights" is that the Macedonians have their own state and wish to have it this way. I do not believe that the results of a scientific examination of the degree of difference between Bulgarian and Macedonian were used before taking the decision of proclaiming the Macedonian language as a separate one.* There do not exist any criteria either, to decide if a language deserves the "rights of its own" or not. The criteria are purely political. 

It would be interesting though to assess the degree of similarity between Schwytzer Dutsch and Standard German on one side, and Bulgarian and Macedonian on the other.

* I do not know how big the difference actually is.


----------



## Lars H

There is an interesting example of how a dialect actually could "shift language", and its the dialects of the southern parts of Sweden. From being Danish heartland since the Viking age, the Danish provinces east of Sjælland (Skåne, Halland and Blekinge) became conquered by the Swedes in 1658. 

As it were, the degree of literacy was very high in Sweden - most people did learn to read - while common people in Denmark (as in most other countries) were analfabets. Right after the conquer, the Swedish administration started to educate the children in the new provinces in the same way as in the rest of the country. So, the first language common people in these provinces learned to read and write was Swedish. 

After less than twenty years, in 1676, Denmark tried to retake the provinces by force, and they received then a firm support by the inhabitants. However, the Danes failed so they made a new attempt in 1710. By then the identity of the population had become Swedish and the population remained loyal to the Swedish king. 

There is little evidence that the Swedish rule of the new provinces was particularly kind in any way. On the contrary the administration was quite harsh. But still the sentiment among common people changed from "Dane" to "Swede". Why? We don't know for sure but one should not underestimate the importance of the given written language, tying the former Danes to their new Fatherland.


----------



## phosphore

Ben Jamin said:


> The truth is that the main reason for Macedonian being a " language in its own rights" is that the Macedonians have their own state and wish to have it this way.


 
I may say that the main reason for Polish to be a "language in its own rights" is that the Poles have their own state and wish to have it this way.



Ben Jamin said:


> There do not exist any criteria either, to decide if a language deserves the "rights of its own" or not. The criteria are purely political.


 
No, there _is_ one single criterion and it _is_ a political one. Language is a political concept after all. Linguistics don't know languages, it only knows dialects.


----------



## Lars H

Ben Jamin said:


> I think however, that a political will of using Hochdeutsch as litterary and official language in Switzerland was more important than the linguistic facts. Maybe Switzerland's being a decentralized country played a large role here, while the Republic of Netherland had a better opportunity and a stronger need to have a national language of their own. If Netherland remained a Habsburg possession than the history could be different.



Agree. I think the drives to stick close to High German (Switzerland) or to widen the gap towards German (Netherlands) have been political/cultural, not linguistic in particular.
But with the political/cultural choice comes linguistic consequences. 

Should the linguistic world define Dutch and Schwytzerdütsch as identical or different in their relationship towards High German or not? Different, I think.


----------



## Lars H

phosphore said:


> No, there _is_ one single criterion and it _is_ a political one. Language is a political concept after all. Linguistics don't know languages, it only knows dialects.



If so. Exact how should the tongue of the _Sami_ people (also known as Laps) be defined? It is spoken by a few thousand members of a nomad culture in northern Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden. 
Their tongue is not Indo-European, but related to Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian. And the samis have no shared political entity. Is sami not a language? Is it a dialect? And if so, of what language?


----------



## Orlin

phosphore said:


> Yeah, but then you say that Macedonians drove their language away from Bulgarian on purpose.


Naravno odvajanje može da bude samo *namerno *jer standardizacija nije spontani proces, a sasvim različita stvar je od i zbog čega. Po meni se Makedonci trudili da stvore sopstveni oblik svog nacionalnog jezika diferencirajući se i od bugarskog i od srpskog jezika (očigledno najbližiji jezici s kojima makedonski formira dijalektni kontinuum) i ne znam od kog jezika je bilo više potrebno se razgraničiti.
I, na kraju, mada sam se trudio da prikrijem stav većine Bugara kojeg podržam iz patriotskih razloga, izvinjavam se što nisam potpuno uspeo da to uradim.


----------



## phosphore

Lars H said:


> If so. Exact how should the tongue of the _Sami_ people (also known as Laps) be defined? It is spoken by a few thousand members of a nomad culture in northern Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden.
> Their tongue is not Indo-European, but related to Estonian, Finnish and Hungarian. And the samis have no shared political entity. Is sami not a language? Is it a dialect? And if so, of what language?


 
It is a dialect. Period. But since that doesn't cause any confusion we may and we do call it a language.

Dialect is not a subordinated term to the term language, so there is no answer to your last question.


----------



## phosphore

Orlin said:


> Naravno odvajanje može da bude samo *namerno *jer standardizacija nije spontani proces, a sasvim različita stvar je od i zbog čega. Po meni se Makedonci trudili da stvore sopstveni oblik svog nacionalnog jezika diferencirajući se i od bugarskog i od srpskog jezika (očigledno najbližiji jezici s kojima makedonski formira dijalektni kontinuum) i ne znam od kog jezika je bilo više potrebno se razgraničiti.
> I, na kraju, mada sam se trudio da prikrijem stav većine Bugara kojeg podržam iz patriotskih razloga, izvinjavam se što nisam potpuno uspeo da to uradim.


 
You seem to have overlooked the following sentence. I said 



phosphore said:


> Yeah, but then you say that Macedonians drove their language away from Bulgarian on purpose. They didn't need to.


 

by which I meant that their dialects were already different from both Bulgarian and Serbian, so they just had to pick one to be the basis of their standard language. (Those dialects are probably closer to Standard Bulgarian that to Standard Serbian, because Serbian was standardised on the basis of Neo-Shtokavian dialects which are quite distant and innovative, but I believe they are equally close to the non-standard dialects of Southern Serbia and Western Bulgaria.) 

I recognised your patriotic sentiment, that's why I posted. You may be surprised by the number of people in Serbia who still believe Macedonian is a South Serbian dialect. But I'm not influenced by that kind of thinking and you shouldn't be either.


----------



## Orlin

phosphore said:


> I recognised your patriotic sentiment, that's why I posted. You may be surprised by the number of people in Serbia who still believe Macedonian is a South Serbian dialect. But I'm not influenced by that kind of thinking and you shouldn't be either.


Trudim se ali ne mogu da potpuno izbegnem patriotske sentimente.


----------



## Lars H

phosphore said:


> Dialect is not a subordinated term to the term language, so there is no answer to your last question.



I am not entirely convinced. First I must admit that I don't have the knowledge to define English _dialect_, or Serbian _дијалект_. 
But the Swedish word _dialekt_ means a variety of a language, connected to a certain geographic area, as opposed to _sociolekt_, connected to social class. 
In Swedish this definition is supported by any online or offline dictionary, as well as the by the governments _Language Council of Sweden_. I have heard of no debate over this, whatsoever.

So to me and to other Swedes, where there is a _dialekt_, it has to be a language "above" it. Is this really defined otherwise in other countries?


----------



## phosphore

The popular usage of the term is probably the same in all countries. The meaning is, however, different in linguistics.



> The term ‘language’, then, if from a linguistic point of view a relatively nontechnical term. If therefore we wish to be more rigorous in our use of descriptive labels we have to employ other terminology. One term we shall be using in this book is VARIETY. We shall use ‘variety’ as a neutral term to apply to any particular kind of language which we wish, for some purpose, to consider as a single entity. (...) More particular terms will be ACCENT and DIALECT. ‘Accent’ refers to the way in which a speaker pronounces, and therefore refers to a variety which is phonetically and/or phonologically different from other varieties. ‘Dialect’, on the other hand, refers to varieties which are grammatically (and perhaps lexically) as well as phonologically different from other varieties. (J.K. Chambers & Peter Trudgill, _Dialectology_, page 5)


----------



## Lars H

Thankyu for the link on Chambers & Trudgill. It seems to be interesting reading.

But I have a feeling that they create an unnecessary problem by meaning that if two or more tongues are mutually intelligible (as Scandinavian, BHS, Dutch/Afrikaans, etc) it could be debated whether they are to be seen as separate languages. As I see it, mutual understanding with other languages does not rule out the status of language.

And, linguistics is said to be the science og human language. Isn't there a certain amount of irony in saying that "language" is a rather non technical term in linguistics?


----------



## sokol

Ben Jamin said:


> Yes, this was my intention. Every dialect IS basically a language. I believe that this should be the starting point in a purely linguistic approach. By the way, taking into consideration how the word _dialect_ is mostly used, this term is only justified to be used if we speak about relations between languages.


That's also my preferred definition of "language = dialect" (each linguistic code in its own right is a language = dialect, which is also why I think that both terms equal each other and it doesn't matter which one you use, as long as it is clear what is meant by it - which however, unfortunately, rarely is the case).



Ben Jamin said:


> Germany was politically divided, but there was a sense of cultural unity, which is not the case with the BCS countries. By the way: why is Dutch a "separate language", but Swiss is "a German dialect"?


The reason are solely socio-culturally. And you needn't mention "just" Swiss dialects, you could as well name here all other German dialects.
The definition of "language" and "dialect" here, in the case of Dutch and German (and Luxemburgish too for that matter), is arbitrary and came by through different historical and socio-political developments.
Nevertheless, this difference is also mirrored by different use of varieties (there's a clearly defined Dutch standard language while there's only a very loosely defined Swiss and Austrian variety of standard language which also still is very close to the standard language variety of Germany).

But in Switzerland the "dialect standardisation process" has gone so far already that they'd only have to take a small step to define their "dialects" as "languages" - only obstacle in the way is, no better, are:
- different regional dialects (Kanton-Dialekte); e. g. for Berne Swiss people Zurich dialect would not be acceptable at all;
- cultural ties - Switzerland has some very famous authors who wrote in German (standard language of course: Max Frisch, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Martin Suter and many more), they're reluctant to break cultural links;
- and last but certainly not least, economical reasons: to convert everything into "Swiss standard dialect" might affect business.

So basically the Swiss are not prepared to think of their languages/dialects as a language in its own right yet (or at least, a majority isn't). And the same by the way is the case for Austrians and their respective linguistic varieties.




Lars H said:


> The actual will of the speakers is important. The German speakers of Austria, Switzerland and Südtirol have obviously not expressed a strong will to separate their dialects from High German, while the Luxemburgians, Dutch and Alsatians have.


Well, it isn't as if they'd really "expressed a will", not like you would at an "election". The process of "drifting apart" in your mind (socio-culturally, as was the case with them) is a slow one and takes generations, centuries even in some cases. Concerning Luxembourg it is documented by history that the process, very slowly, began in the late 19th century, and only was completed in mid/late 20th century: it took Luxembourg a full century to establish Letzebuergisch as national language of their state. I don't know the Dutch history in so much detail but it could have taken them even longer.
Concerning Switzerland: the big shift there began in the early 20th century but got very strong impulses before and during World War II: to "defend their dialect" was a kind of "national defence" against Hitler lusting for yet another (partially) German speaking country. So Switzerland only had a good half century yet to try and find an identity which is based on their local dialects; obviously not enough for the Swiss to think of them as a "language in its own right" yet.
Similar developments were set in motion in Austria too, but even later - only beginning in the 1950ies, getting stronger in the 1960ies (with cultural heros like famous "Herr Karl" performed by Helmut Qualtinger, or authors like H. C. Artmann), and continued in the 1970ies and afterwards by pop culture (pop songs in dialect and the like).

Still, it remains to be seen if a similar development as took place in Luxembourg ever will happen in Switzerland - Luxembourg had the advantage that, basically, only one dialect is spoken there (varying rather little over the whole - tiny - country) while Switzerland is very diverse concerning their dialects, and Austria even more so.

And Lars - as phosphore already said, use of the term of "dialect" differs, linguists are supposed to use the term neutral (not all do, mind ); but in everyday life you will find the word "dialect" used in all kinds of shades of a variety considered being "just sub-ordinated to standard language" or even "less cultivated" to even "barbarian".


----------



## Istriano

> Originally Posted by *Lars H*
> 
> 
> The actual will of the speakers is important. The German  speakers of Austria, Switzerland and Südtirol have obviously not  expressed a strong will to separate their dialects from High German,  while the Luxemburgians, Dutch and Alsatians have.


Dutch is not a dialect of High German. 
Dutch and low German had the same origin. 

Low German is to High German what GaloRomance languages (like Venetian) are to Tuscan (normative Italian).
Venetian is closer to Spanish than to Tuscan, Low German is closer to Dutch than to Hochdeutsch.
In Hannover people gave up on Low German and embraced Hochdeutsch which they learned as a foreign language,
like in Brussels where people gave up on Dutch and embraced French which they learned as a foreign language. 
That's why Hannover German is closer to ''newscasters'' accent than München German, and why
Brussels French is closer to Parisian French than the French of Marseilles or Nizza. 

I would be sad if we Venetians replaced the Venetian language with Tuscan.
Tuscan is used only with people from other regions, in all other situations, even in formal meetings Venetian is spoken here, not Tuscan.


----------



## Alxmrphi

Lars H said:


> And, linguistics is said to be the science og human language. Isn't there a certain amount of irony in saying that "language" is a rather non technical term in linguistics?



It is quite a non-technical term, it has to be thoroughly explained and completely re-described when introducing people to how linguists '_view_' the term language. It's precisely because of a lay-perception that has meant it has connotations held from popular public view that aren't consistent with what those same ideas mean in Linguistics.

I'm doing a degree in Linguistics, and when I was planning to move, and people would ask me what I was going to study, I'd say '_Linguistics_', and they'd respond '_What's that?_'. I'd then reply '_the study of language_', and get the answer 'Oh, *what language*?', not understanding that the term 'language' is a system of communication and this is always addressed pretty heavily at the start of the year in these types of courses.

So in answer to your question, without heavy reconditioning to what the term actually means in linguistcis, it is a pretty non-technical term.


----------



## phosphore

Istriano said:


> Brussels French is closer to Parisian French than the French of Marseilles or Nizza.


 
I can see your logic but this is actually not qute true. Nice French is much more like Parisian French than that of Brussels.


----------



## Istriano

But not in the mind of Parisians.  They like Brussels French better than the one from Midi


----------



## phosphore

They probably haven't heard much French from Nice. Marseille or Toulouse are a whole other matter, but Nice French is pretty standard.


----------



## Ben Jamin

phosphore said:


> They probably haven't heard much French from Nice. Marseille or Toulouse are a whole other matter, but Nice French is pretty standard.


 Because it is not their vernacular, which is (was?) Provencal/Savoyard.  It is the same way in Barcelona, people speak there a rather Madridian Castillian if they do not speak Catalan between themselves.


----------



## Orlin

Ben Jamin said:


> Because it is not their vernacular, which is (was?) Provencal/Savoyard. It is the same way in Barcelona, people speak there a rather Madridian Castillian if they do not speak Catalan between themselves.


I think that the majority of people in Barcelona speak Castillian as a _foreign_ language because their mother tongue is Catalan and that's why they stick to the standard as much as possible (the standard is quite close to what is spoken in Madrid, isn't it?).


----------



## jmx

Orlin said:


> I think that the majority of people in Barcelona speak Castillian as a _foreign_ language because their mother tongue is Catalan and that's why they stick to the standard as much as possible (the standard is quite close to what is spoken in Madrid, isn't it?).


In fact most people in the Barcelona metropolitan area have Spanish as their mother tongue, because they (we) are immigrants, or children or grandchildren of immigrants from elsewhere in Spain.

The relationship between Madrid Spanish and "Standard Spanish" is also quite debatable.


----------



## Orlin

jmartins said:


> In fact most people in the Barcelona metropolitan area have Spanish as their mother tongue, because they (we) are immigrants, or children or grandchildren of immigrants from elsewhere in Spain.
> 
> The relationship between Madrid Spanish and "Standard Spanish" is also quite debatable.


I haven't been in Barcelona and don't speak Spanish or Catalan either and my guess was very wrong.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Orlin said:


> I think that the majority of people in Barcelona speak Castillian as a _foreign_ language because their mother tongue is Catalan and that's why they stick to the standard as much as possible (the standard is quite close to what is spoken in Madrid, isn't it?).


 It was exctly my meaning concerning Catalonia. In Nice, Parisian French taught at schools is also an imported "foreign" language, but most of the people have supposedly already switched to it, that's why their speech is so close to Parisian French.


----------



## berndf

phosphore said:


> They probably haven't heard much French from Nice. Marseille or Toulouse are a whole other matter, but Nice French is pretty standard.


 


Ben Jamin said:


> Because it is not their vernacular, which is (was?) Provencal/Savoyard...


 


Ben Jamin said:


> ... In Nice, Parisian French taught at schools is also an imported "foreign" language, but most of the people have supposedly already switched to it, that's why their speech is so close to Parisian French.


I don't think that is the reason. All three cities were historically Occitan speaking (Savoyard was never spoken in the region. Its inflence never reached further South then Grenoble). The only peculiarity was that Standard Italian played an important role in the city of Nizza until the annexation by France in 1860.

The modern tendence in the cities of the Midi to speak a fairly neutral French (you still frequently hear people pronounce _à gauche_ like _à goche_ with an _o ouvert_; but that's about it) is a relatively recent phenomenon. Today also Marseille isn't too different any more. You should think people in the street still speak like Fernandel. I've been living in France and French speaking Switzerland now for a bit more than 20 years and I noticed in these 20 years a decline in the frequency with which you hear speakers use heavy local accents in various parts of France (and in all these years I never met a person from the region I live in who was able to speak proper Patois, i.e. Savoyard/Romand/Arpitan or however you call the language).

The reasons for this are probably media and, most importantly, internal migration. It is the same reason why you have to hunt for Bavarian speakers in Munich, e.g., because the city is dominated by internal migrants from all over Germany. And the same applies to French cities.


----------



## Lars H

Istriano said:


> Dutch is not a dialect of High German.
> Dutch and low German had the same origin.



Well, a lot of different Germanic varieties to speak, all the way from Asagio up to southern Jutland, do share the same name, may it be written Tautsch, Duits, Deutsch, Dütsch usw. I would guess that not only Dutch and Low German share origin, they all do. 

What interests me is why most speakers of these varieties share the same grammar and spelling (Standard High German), but not all. 

The name of this thread of Sokol's is a question - What defines a "language"? 
After reading the latest posts, I realize that we are trying to define a non technical term - a truely doomed mission 

But if we anyway should try to define the indefinable, perhaps Low German makes a good illustration.
The Low German speakers of Germany have over the centuries (I know Sokol , it's not an electional issue, its a process) remained loyal to the Standard High German as it evolved, while the Dutch gradually developed their own grammar and spelling.

These different paths of development have led to the consequences that Dutch is more "visible" than Low German spoken in Germany, from a linguistic point of view.

Dutch is thereby something that Low German cannot be said to be.


----------



## Istriano

Dutch separated very early from other Low German dialects.
Hochdeutsch was not really embraced in cities like Hannover until 250 years ago because there was no standard pronunciation at all before Theodor Siebs codified it.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Lars H said:


> What interests me is why most speakers of these varieties share the same grammar and spelling (Standard High German), but not all.


Here is a sample of Low German spelled as it according to the speakers reflects the actual pronunciation:

"De officiële name _Vri'je en Hanzestad Hambörg_ (_Free un Hansestadt Hamborg_) verwiest naor Hambörg zien lidmaotschop in 't middelieuwse koopludenverbond van de Hanze, en naor Hambörg zien staotus as stadstaot en ien van de zestien bondslaanen van Duutslaand." (source Wikipedia)

The Lower Saxon speakers speak also Hochdeutsch and write it, they are diglossic.

It would be interested to have the text translated into Dutch.


----------



## Lars H

Thank you, Ben Jamin.

Very interesting. It looks to be a bit closer to Dutch than German. 

I'd guess that any speaker of any tongue close to a larger Standard Language (like German, Italian och French), benefit from keeping their tongue within the Standard language spelling and grammar. By doing so you remain or become member of a larger group.
If, for example, the German speakers of Südtirol/Alto Adige started to drift away from Standard German spelling and grammar, that would probably be nice in some ways, but it would lead to isolation. Who - outside their region - would ever bother to speak with them?


----------



## phosphore

Lars H said:


> And, linguistics is said to be the science og human language. Isn't there a certain amount of irony in saying that "language" is a rather non technical term in linguistics?


 
Yes, but structural linguistics understands the term _language_ in a more abstract sense. When talking about specific languages and their denomination, we are rather in the field of sociolinguistics, which doesn't find the term _language_ in this other sense particularly useful.


----------



## berndf

Istriano said:


> Dutch separated very early from other Low German dialects.





Istriano said:


> Hochdeutsch was not really embraced in cities like Hannover until 250 years ago because there was no standard pronunciation at all before Theodor Siebs codified it.


At least 1500 years ago there was already a split into High and Low German dialects created by the High German consonant shift which did not affect Northern dialects. The process of the creation of standard languages in within the West-Germanic dialect continuum started already about 1000 years ago, maybe even a bit earlier. In the early 16th century, you had four standards:

Dutch (to make the confusion complete, it was called _Nederduits, Low German_, at the time and, as you rightly said, was already separated from the other West Germanic dialects of the Empire).
Low German (defined by its _Lübeck_ dialect and called _Düdesch_ or _Sassisch_ at the time),
Middle German (defined by _Sächsisches Kanzleideutsch_) and
Upper German (defined by _Maximilianisches Kanzleideutsch_)
where Middle and Upper German are collectively known as High German.

These standards exerted a certain "gravitational pull" on the respective regional dialects and lead to clearer divisions of dialects.

At this time, with the disintegration of the Hanseatic League, Low German seized to be used as a standard langue and remained only as a loose continuum of vernaculars. Most cities of the Low German language area switched to Middle German as the language of commerce and administration (for a brief period of time also Dutch was also used as administrative language in some Northern German areas close to the modern Dutch border) and soon replaced Low German as the language of daily life, whereas Low German stayed in current use as the language of the common people in rural areas. An example of this is the accent of the city Münster which is strongly influenced by the Middle German Ripuarian dialect whereas the accent or dialect of the rural areas of Münsterland is clearly Low German or Low German influenced. A similar effect could be observed until the late 19th century in the Berlin area: The historical Low/High German dialect border ran south of Berlin. But while Berlin was dominated by the Middle German South-Brandenburg dialect, all surrounding villages and towns except in the South and South-West were speaking Low German (like documented in this famous 19th century poem "He is dod nu. Wer giwt uns nu 'ne Beer?"). Today, the influence of Berlin has pushed the Low/High German dialect border much further North.

In the second half of the 19th century the _Maximilian _standard was abolished for use in Austrian schools (at the time by far the most important political entity in the Upper German language area) which secured the domination of the Middle German standard as the German standard language.

In my mind, all this is a good example that the interplay of standard language(s) and vernaculars and also from a perspective of historical linguistics and not only from a sociological perspective, a standard language is more that just a _singled-out dialect_. But this distinction should better be called _standard _vs. _vernacular language_ rather than _language_ vs. _dialect_. The latter distinction is indeed futile in linguistics.


----------



## Ben Jamin

berndf said:


> At least 1500 years ago there was already a split into High and Low German dialects created by the High German consonant shift which did not affect Northern dialects. The process of the creation of standard languages in within the West-Germanic dialect continuum started already about 1000 years ago, maybe even a bit earlier. In the early 16th century, you had four standards:
> 
> Dutch (to make the confusion complete, it was called _Nederduits, Low German_, at the time and, as you rightly said, was already separated from the other West Germanic dialects of the Empire).
> Low German (defined by its _Lübeck_ dialect and called _Düdesch_ or _Sassisch_ at the time),
> Middle German (defined by _Sächsisches Kanzleideutsch_) and
> Upper German (defined by _Maximilianisches Kanzleideutsch_)
> where Middle and Upper German are collectively known as High German.
> 
> These standards exerted a certain "gravitational pull" on the respective regional dialects and lead to clearer divisions of dialects.
> 
> At this time, with the disintegration of the Hanseatic League, Low German seized to be used as a standard langue and remained only as a loose continuum of vernaculars. Most cities of the Low German language area switched to Middle German as the language of commerce and administration (for a brief period of time also Dutch was also used as administrative language in some Northern German areas close to the modern Dutch border) and soon replaced Low German as the language of daily life, whereas Low German stayed in current use as the language of the common people in rural areas. An example of this is the accent of the city Münster which is strongly influenced by the Middle German Ripuarian dialect whereas the accent or dialect of the rural areas of Münsterland is clearly Low German or Low German influenced. A similar effect could be observed until the late 19th century in the Berlin area: The historical Low/High German dialect border ran south of Berlin. But while Berlin was dominated by the Middle German South-Brandenburg dialect, all surrounding villages and towns except in the South and South-West were speaking Low German (like documented in this famous 19th century poem "He is dod nu. Wer giwt uns nu 'ne Beer?"). Today, the influence of Berlin has pushed the Low/High German dialect border much further North.
> 
> In the second half of the 19th century the _Maximilian _standard was abolished for use in Austrian schools (at the time by far the most important political entity in the Upper German language area) which secured the domination of the Middle German standard as the German standard language.
> 
> In my mind, all this is a good example that the interplay of standard language(s) and vernaculars and also from a perspective of historical linguistics and not only from a sociological perspective, a standard language is more that just a _singled-out dialect_. But this distinction should better be called _standard _vs. _vernacular language_ rather than _language_ vs. _dialect_. The latter distinction is indeed futile in linguistics.


Very interesting information presented at a high scholarly standard. But what would the official standard language be in the Netherlands if the country did not create an independent entity but remained a Habsburg domain?


----------



## iobyo

Orlin said:
			
		

> Macedonians chose to adopt an orthography significantly different from Bulgarian



<rant>But what if the commission had adopted an orthography closer to Bulgarian? Couldn't it have then been criticized for abandoning a fairly well-established literary tradition, not to mention accusations of Bulgarophilia? We Macedonians will always be classed and analyzed in the context of our relationship to Bulgarians and Serb(ian)s. Nothing can ever just be Macedonian, but only Serbophilic, Bulgarophilic or Macedonistic.</rant>

Anyway, back to your point. The differences are certainly not significant. 

Macedonian and Bulgarian both have typical phonemic orthographies. The difference is that the Macedonian orthography is much "shallower" than the Bulgarian in that we also represent certain phonological processes in spelling (assimilation, etc.), again, a tradition that predates standardization by some time. This is totally superficial because even though you (Bulgarians) write <сръбски>, you pronounce it /сръпски/.

As far as the individual letterforms are concerned, <ѓ, ѕ, љ, ќ, џ> are absolutely necessary and all other historical digraphs and whatnot are comparatively inferior.



			
				Orlin said:
			
		

> introduce many Serbian loans and probably some grammar changes (not completely sure because I have no active skills in Macedonian)



Firstly, in relation to the lexicon, the vast majority of instances of Serbian-Macedonian similarities are natural (i.e. they were present in the vernacular prior to being prescribed in the Standard), and indeed, most Bulgarian-Macedonian differences are native but do spill over borders (dialect continuum). Comparing pre-standardization lexical material with modern texts (a common practice among Bulgarian academics), for example, to determine what is "native" and what is "foreign" is totally pointless and unnecessary because those writers, often deliberately, used archaisms (words from Old Church Slavonic which, for the most part, have been kept in Bulgarian) or coined new words according to archaic methods of derivation. Very misleading. 

There are, however, many true Serbian borrowings: _сообраќај, младич_, etc. Most entered 'on their own accord', others were designedly calqued from Serbian (but coincidently also present in many other Slavic languages) by our linguistics.

Secondly, grammar. Whether Macedonian grammatical categories not present in Bulgarian are _historically_ a result of Serbian influence or not is irrelevant (in the context of this discussion) because Koneski does a marvelous job of attesting their use in pre-standardization texts in _Историја на македонскиот јазик _and _Граматика на македонскиот јазик_.



			
				Orlin said:
			
		

> And it seems that Macedonia and Bulgaria have been culturally separated at least in 1944-91



"Cultural separation [...] in 1944-91" would assume a relatively recent prior unification (the majority of my countrymen would, however, call it subjugation). The Macedonian Awakening predates the events surrounding and following WWII and we know that even those Slavic-speakers from the region of Macedonia never had an ethnic Bulgarian consciousness in the same sense as the Slavic-speakers from Bulgaria did.

But let's leave that topic for other forums and websites! 



			
				Orlin said:
			
		

> So a form of cultural separation is necessary for formation of an independent language out of a local language variety.



Technically, no. The formation of an independent _standard _language comes about from an agreed structure (lexicon, grammar, etc.) which is usually based on cultural, political and/or social motivations, as we can observe from modern standard languages. Take Prekmurian as an example; its speakers invariably identify as Slovenes. So it's actually the extent and interpretation of an apparent cultural, political and/or social separation (i.e. does it/can it represent an independent identity and therefore, do we elevate this variety to the status of a standard language for whatever reason?) which is much more important. 

Even Moldovan which is identical to Romanian, its speakers culturally Romanian but politically separated from Romania/n(s). Now many people identify as ethnically Moldovan, should they not have their own standard language (be it identical to any other language)? The same scenario is paralleled in Montenegro.


----------



## Hulalessar

iobyo said:


> Now many people identify as ethnically Moldovan, should they not have their own standard language (be it identical to any other language)?



I may have said it before, but a cynic may observe how it is odd that since the Balkanisation of the former Soviet Union and its satellites the number of European languages has grown.

If Moldavians wish to insist that Moldavian is something distinct from Romanian it can surely only be as a tool to resist coming under the hegemony (of whatever sort) of Bucharest.

In the 20th and 21st centuries language and nationalism often go hand in hand and it is often the case that the nationalist cause is predicated on language and little else. This has led to the belief that every nation (or at least a new one) must have its own distinct language. It is I suppose understandable, but is nevertheless a lot of silly nonsense.


----------



## sokol

Well, even though Moldovan indeed is the official name of the national language of Moldova Republic it is still not comparable to Macedonian.

Moldovan basically is identical to Romanian, with a very few differences. It is more like with the Austrian version of German standard language and the German version of German standard language (one could add the Swiss one too, of course); or like British and American English.

I have absolutely no idea if there are tendencies to develop a more "removed", more different Moldovan standard language - but currently at least Moldovan and Romanian surely are one language in two varieties.

Macedonian and Bulgarian, on the other hand, definitely are two different standard languages; of course there's a still existing dialect continuum, and some features of both languages cross borders (also with Serbian), but this already has been explained excellently by ioboyo.

And yes, Hulalessar, there have indeed been "new languages" emerging lately, but this process of new languages developing actually dates further back than the 1990ies - it is only then that we "Westerners" noticed them, but their standardisation began decades if not centuries ago.

Moldovan language actually is one of the few language names which was only introduced by a Communist regime, in 1940 (well - actually I am not a 100% sure if it was used as name for the local language before that).
Macedonian however is not such a case, the name of "Macedonian" for the language was used before it was made official by the regime, and Macedonian Communists were part of Tito's army in World War II, during German occupation.

Also, interestingly, one of the "newest" languages in Europe is a "Western" language, as by self-definition Luxembourg state has made their (previous) dialect an official national language.


----------



## Caktus

sokol said:


> Moldovan basically is identical to Romanian, with a very few differences...
> 
> ... but currently at least Moldovan and Romanian surely are one language in two varieties.



Could you please mention some of these differences.


----------



## iobyo

sokol said:


> Well, even though Moldovan indeed is the official name of the national language of Moldova Republic it is still not comparable to Macedonian.



You're right, of course. I didn't mean to sound like I was making a comparison between the two.


----------



## sokol

Caktus said:


> Could you please mention some of these differences.


Almost exclusively vocabulary, as far as I know.
Once there was also difference in script, but as Moldovan has switched back to Latin script again that's no longer the case.


----------



## tonyspeed

a language is a form of social control. The term is always used as such under normal cases. Languages don't exist, only various dialects. A language is a method of social control used by people who want to bind a set of people together mentally. It is used as a form of unification even though true unity is not possible. Languages can also be used to crush a group's unity. This is often the case of minority groups whose tongue should or could be considered a language. When those of the controlling class want to crush those with lesser prestige's unity, then their language is just a "dialect" or a "patois" or a "slang", not really a language. Therefore the term language always has some form of political slant to it. 

There is also a pragmatic aspect to language that serves to unify an group of people. They can all communicate easily using a common form of communication. But even then the essence of the concept is still a tool for unity or forced exclusion.


----------



## Ben Jamin

tonyspeed said:


> a language is a form of social control. The term is always used as such under normal cases. Languages don't exist, only various dialects. A language is a method of social control used by people who want to bind a set of people together mentally. It is used as a form of unification even though true unity is not possible. Languages can also be used to crush a group's unity. This is often the case of minority groups whose tongue should or could be considered a language. When those of the controlling class want to crush those with lesser prestige's unity, then their language is just a "dialect" or a "patois" or a "slang", not really a language. Therefore the term language always has some form of political slant to it.
> 
> There is also a pragmatic aspect to language that serves to unify an group of people. They can all communicate easily using a common form of communication. But even then the essence of the concept is still a tool for unity or forced exclusion.


 This is a forum for discussing practical and theoretical questions concerning languages, not for ideological propaganda. 
From a linguistic point of view dialect is a useless concept, only languages can be discussed. Be so kind and read this thread from the beginning.


----------



## Outsider

tonyspeed said:


> a language is a form of social control. The term is always used as such under normal cases. Languages don't exist, only various dialects.


I agree with the spirit of your post, but would go one step farther: dialects are also social abstractions. What exists in an objective sense are only individual idiolects... or better yet, individual utterances, which vary according to the occasion, even for the same individual.

No doubt you realise that this perspective leads us down a slippery slope. If we insist on being totally 'objective' about language, then linguistics itself becomes impossible. No useful science could be built from the study of individual, particular utterances. It only makes sense to 'study language' in some kind of communication context where utterances come with a meaning that _multiple individuals_ can agree on. In my view, the inescapable conclusion is that language (and/or dialect) are irreducibly _social_ phenomena. They're not 'objective' in the way that the planets are objective realities.

So any notions of 'language' and 'dialect' will always be contaminated with social contingencies -- such as ethnicity, nationality, political power, economic wealth, and so on. Which makes them hopelessly impure concepts, but I dare say all the more interesting to study.


----------



## tonyspeed

Outsider said:


> What exists in an objective sense are only individual idiolects... or better yet, individual utterances, which vary according to the occasion, even for the same individual.
> 
> No doubt you realise that this perspective leads us down a slippery slope. If we insist on being totally 'objective' about language, then linguistics itself becomes impossible. No useful science could be built from the study of individual, particular utterances.




I like your train of thought. Seen from this perspective, the term language is really a broad grouping that attempts to tame the chaos of individual idiolects and group them within some form of ideological construct for the purpose of study. While this is nice for generally speaking about a range of ideolects ( specifically in an idealized form usually constructed by some form of government or some group of the literate elite ), I still feel that the most interesting aspect of linguistics is in analysing the complete dis-harmony of what happens within the broader framework of the term "language." The term language then is really a tool that man uses to make sense of what is happening on a broad social level. It is a tool used to cope with the limitations of our mind that needs some form of order so that one can make sense of the ultimate truth. It is a tool to dumb down the reality so that our brains can process what is happening in an organized manner because at the basic level, communication has too many variables for the human brain to process reason through; although, our brain inherently processes all such idiosyncrasies during communication with ease.


----------



## jmx

Ben Jamin said:


> From a linguistic point of view dialect is a useless concept, only languages can be discussed.


Is it not the other way around?


----------



## sokol

jmartins said:


> Is it not the other way around?



I agree with you, jmartins, and I've argued so before; but then we also found out in this thread that some people define "language" the way it seems you and I define "dialect" - as a concrete realisation of speech, which can be described by a linguist as a code of communication.
If one does so it doesn't matter whether you use the term "language" or "dialect". The problem of defining a "language" only ever occurs if one tries to define "language" and "dialect" as concepts which are different at some deeper level, which usually also comes with suggesting a hierarchy (where usually "language" would be put at the top and "dialect" at the bottom, or vice versa in case of anarchistic language theories).


----------



## Frank06

tonyspeed said:


> I like your train of thought. Seen from this perspective, the term language is really a broad grouping that attempts to tame the chaos of individual idiolects and group them within some form of ideological construct for the purpose of study. While this is nice for generally speaking about a range of ideolects ( specifically in an idealized form usually constructed by some form of government or some group of the literate elite ), I still feel that the most interesting aspect of linguistics is in analysing the complete dis-harmony of what happens within the broader framework of the term "language." The term language then is really a tool that man uses to make sense of what is happening on a broad social level. It is a tool used to cope with the limitations of our mind that needs some form of order so that one can make sense of the ultimate truth. It is a tool to dumb down the reality so that our brains can process what is happening in an organized manner because at the basic level, communication has too many variables for the human brain to process reason through; although, our brain inherently processes all such idiosyncrasies during communication with ease.


Meaning?


----------



## Ben Jamin

sokol said:


> I agree with you, jmartins, and I've argued so before; but then we also found out in this thread that some people define "language" the way it seems you and I define "dialect" - as a concrete realisation of speech, which can be described by a linguist as a code of communication.
> If one does so it doesn't matter whether you use the term "language" or "dialect". The problem of defining a "language" only ever occurs if one tries to define "language" and "dialect" as concepts which are different at some deeper level, which usually also comes with suggesting a hierarchy (where usually "language" would be put at the top and "dialect" at the bottom, or vice versa in case of anarchistic language theories).


Why do I find the term "dialect" not very well suited for linguistic analysis?
1. It is a relative term. When we speak about dialects, we always relate it to another linguistic entity (standard language, "roof language", ancestor language) and we are very concerned with mutual intelligibility, mutual status, etc.
2. The term is strongly loaded with political connotations, much stronger than the term "language".


----------



## Outsider

Both terms have strong political connotations. Calling Portuguese a dialect will offend some people, while calling Moldovan a language may be provocative to others.


----------



## Alxmrphi

I think when looking at descriptive linguistics it's quite useless to say "_the language they speak in the UK_", especially if everyone is speaking informally around their local peers. It implies there is unity in what people say and how they say it, which is not the case. Saying dialect, it specifies to a much greater degree a sense of unity so you can talk about how they speak in parts of Scotland, Devon, Ireland, Manchester and Newcastle. It encompasses accents and regional speech to a much higher degree of descriptive linguistics.

However from an academic prescriptive linguistics POV, language might make more sense as it's the goal that all speakers are aware of the standard so they can read newspapers / watch national TV. In this sense the term language is not a representation of how people speak, but how they ought to speak (or to be aware of). So in this sense "language" is not talking about speech on the ground, as that's something descriptive linguistics deals with.

So, still, to me "_language_" is a pretty bad term to use (the way it's understood by non-linguists) because it isn't reflective of the true situation.


----------



## sokol

Ben Jamin said:


> Why do I find the term "dialect" not very well suited for linguistic analysis?
> 1. It is a relative term. When we speak about dialects, we always relate it to another linguistic entity (standard language, "roof language", ancestor language) and we are very concerned with mutual intelligibility, mutual status, etc.


The concept of "roof language" is one of domination; it is a concept which is capable of explaining the role of language in society (which is one of dominance and submission - in many Western societies the kind of language you speak, the kind of language you are socialised with says something about your social status: in some societies this is more evident, in others less; some Swiss e. g. claim that no such social difference exists in German speaking Switzerland - but personally I doubt that this is the case, even though it is obvious that social differentiation through language plays a rather marginal role there, as opposed to other regions even within Switzerland or other countries).

So anyway, I cannot follow this point of yours; nor your second one:



Ben Jamin said:


> 2. The term is strongly loaded with political connotations, much stronger than the term "language".


So is the term "language", as Outsider pointed out - loaded in the sense that even linguists (who should know better, by my understanding) think that "language proper" is something like "standard language" is better and more valuable and more systematic and more expressive and whatever than dialects of any kind.

For which there is absolutely no linguistic evidence.

"Language" in this sense, in my understanding, is a socio-economical "variable", a thing by which our society is organised; but it is - in this meaning, and in this perspective - not at all a scientific term.
Which is why I started this thread in the first place; in my opinion the term "language" should be either avoided by linguists altogether, or else should be re-defined in any way which is useful from a scientific point of view.


This just as explanation for my reasoning. I'm perfectly aware that your point of view is incompatible with mine, and I'm not trying to win an argument here; I'm only saying that I don't find your points convincing at all. 

Alex, using "language" for all the varieties actually spoken in a linguistic community indeed would make sense, in my opinion.
Personally, I think it would be useful to differentiate between:

- language = all varieties spoken in a linguistic community (from standard language to regional dialects to sociolects to technical registers), and
- dialect = a particular variety (be it the standard language as spoken in the news or a regional dialect), a linguistic code = a set of clearly defined linguistic rules.

But it would be futile to try and use "language" and "dialect" like this, because hardly anybody would accept these definitions.


----------



## Istriano

sokol said:


> But it would be futile to try and use "language" and "dialect" like this, because hardly anybody would accept these definitions.



Is Nynorsk a dialect or a language? 
Saying Čakavian is a dialect of Serbo-Croatian (SC means Štokavian) is like saying Nyorsk is a dialect od Dano-Norwegian. 
Čakavian and Kajkavian are closer to Slovenian than to Štokavian.
I find it easier to understand someone from Slovenian Istria than someone from Sarajevo or Podgorica.

The differences in pronunciation/phonetics between the standard Danish and Bokmål are comparable to those between Brazilian Portuguese and Lisbon Portuguese.


----------



## tonyspeed

sokol said:


> - language = all varieties spoken in a linguistic community (from standard language to regional dialects to sociolects to technical registers), and
> - dialect = a particular variety (be it the standard language as spoken in the news or a regional dialect), a linguistic code = a set of clearly defined linguistic rules.
> .



This still contains the problem: who gets to be defined as a separate language and who does not? Where do we draw the line?


----------



## sokol

tonyspeed said:


> This still contains the problem: who gets to be defined as a separate language and who does not? Where do we draw the line?



I don't think so, not if the definition would be applied strictly like that - which, however, will be the problem.

A linguistic community surely is not so very easy to define in our modern times, with internet and all even I seem to be part of the "English linguistic community", but the English community I'm part of one could define as the "internet-English community", and that would be that - patchwork language definition! 

On a level of social interaction, it is easier to define a linguistic community: your given native language, Jamaican Creole and English, easily is defined as a "Jamaican" linguistic community (separate from other English communities despite the fact that, of course, they interact with them, and may be influenced with them - or some of them, like in this case the US-English community, or so I would expect).
The way you use language, the way you switch between Creole and English, the kind of attitudes you've got towards your spoken and written varieties of language, are typically Jamaican and could be defined easily as "Jamaican English-Creole community" or whatever term you prefer.

Only difficulty here is that most people would find it difficult to "grasp" the concept of a "separate" Jamaican community (especially as it is not nearly as sharply separated from other English ones than from, say, the Haitian French-Creole one). I do not find this difficult, but I know that most people do.

And for this reason I claim that, in theory, it would be *easy* to make this distinction (and me, I'm making it without any "inner doubts" about it whatsoever - also concerning my native linguistic community, Austrian German, versus German of Germany, which is not so very much different from Jamaica as most people would think ).
But in _*real*_ life, it is definitely difficult for most people on the street (and here in the forums too, for that matter), to use such a definition without troubles and doubts.

You might want to read Charles A. Ferguson and _*his*_ diglossia-definition, if you don't know him already, and please note how very different Ferguson's diglossia-term is from the one used by Fishman and modern authors.


----------



## Istriano

Fishman's definition of diglossia is not really good, because it mixes diglossia with bilinguism. 

Fishman's definition of diglossia is only suitable for Creoles, so we can say:
_Cape Verdean Creole is in a diglossic relationship with Portuguese._

It's weird to speak of diglossia in Galicia, because Galician is not a variety of Spanish.
It's better to speak of bilingualism, and the prestige of one language over another is relative: Spanish may be more prestigious in Vigo or A Coruña, while Galician is more prestigious in Lugo and Santiago. But since for most good jobs, one has to be able to speak both languages, we speak of bilingualism.


Furthermore, it would be better to expand the Ferguson's definition of diglossia:


1. _extreme diglossia _(acrolect vs basilect; with hardly any mesolect):
   Swiss German, Tamil, WestFlemish

2. _mediatic diglossia _(acrolect vs basilect, but with most people speaking mesolect):
   Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Finish, Belgian Dutch (except for the far West of Flanders), Bengali, Telugu

3.  _very mild diglossia_ (normal variation between formal and informal style):
   most languages, not normally classified as diglossia, because there is no basilect; only mesolect (informal style) and acrolect (formal style)...


I can still understand the Fishman definition of diglossia:

1. Corsican was in L-relationship to standard Italian (H);
   when Corsica became French, H reality was replaced, so now you have: Corsican (L) and French (H).

2. Flemish was in L-relationship to French (H);
   From early 1900ies the situation changed, so the standard language is Netherland's Dutch (H), except for differences in pronunciation and lexicon.


But, in fact, in the 1st case it was a change from diglossia to subordinate bilinguism,
in the 2nd case it was a change from subordinate bilingualism to mediatic diglossia.

The best case for Brazil and Flanders would be to have two standards, the current one based on the ''imported'' grammatical norms (from Portugal/the Netherlands),
and another one (based on the local mesolect), but it would not be feasable, although it would be a very democratic thing to do, for example:

Norwegian has two norms, one based on the former Dano-Norwegian, and Nynorsk (the standard language based on local basilects/dialects).


Macedonian and Bulgarian are not dissimilar to Dutch and German. Different dialect groups have been chosen for the standard language.
Had Hamburg Plaat been chosen for the standard of the German language, Dutch and German would be considered the same language now.

Eastern Macedonian dialects and Western Bulgarian dialects are almost the same, just in the case of northwestern German dialects and eastern Dutch dialects.


----------



## Copperknickers

There is no true definition of a language. Take my native Scots for instance: I can say for absolute certainty that noone on this forum except Scottish people, not even English or Irish people, would understand a word I was saying, if I deliberately tried to speak a variety of Scots that would be incomprehensible to an English speaker, but the problem is, there is no clear definition of what Scots means. In reality, Scottish people just speak English, except with a Scottish accent and a greater vocabulary (and indeed in the case of certain places, not much greater, since regional dialects can be very rich), and our accent varies from extremely broad in working class areas in the West, to very posh in middle class areas in the East, and even individual people's accents vary widly. I can speak Scots to my Scottish friends, and then speak English to my English ones, complete with native accent, without thinking. 

Although Scots has as much right to be considered its own language as Nordic languages, Iberian languages or North Indian languages, many people simple do not beleive it is one.


----------



## Alxmrphi

Hi Copperknickers,

I can totally understand what you meant, we've covered (on my course) the linguistic diversity (and complications) present in Scotland and the trilingual nature of some areas, along with the changes over the last 50 years. As an English person I bet most people aren't even aware there is a separate language (by which I mean Scots Gaelic), that is linked to Irish and (more distantly) Welsh, let alone there is a West Germanic variant called Scots.

Scots, however, is quite well off in comparison to other dialect areas, because for a significant period of time there has been an _established literary tradition_, which is lacking in most (nearly all?) other (typical) dialect areas, so this really really has a good basis for people to consider it a separate language.

There are dictionaries of Scots and champions of the language like Robert Burns, and people writing into newspapers in the language, once a language goes literary, it gets its "_foot in the door_" of recognition so-to-speak, it's much more difficult for people to deny, whereas it's easier to brush off a "different way of speaking".

I am a champion of linguistic diversity and even reading your post and seeing someone else who speaks and uses it natively being present on the forum makes me happy  If someone can stand next to someone else and not understand a word, then that's obviously the first instance that something is up, and this might be a different language, but I suppose people could still argue it was an accent, but those people without such strong accents speaking the same words being equally unintelligble to the person standing next to the Scots speaker, would have a hard time denying the existance of another language.

I'm from Merseyside and have lived there all my life, and that is RIGHT NEXT to Wales, and honestly there are so many people here that don't even understand that "Welsh" exists as a language, I must admit I only realised when I was about 17, but I hadn't really been to Wales before that point (besides when I was a child and too young to remember), but it is quite shocking, and that's by far the most succesful Celtic language spoken in Britain, so your post makes complete sense that many people are so ignorant of diverting linguistic practices in our country(ies). I enjoy walking down streets and in shops now and hearing Welsh all around me spoken by all the locals, it's great! A lot of the students that arrive though have some horrible things to say though, it annoys the hell out of me, how could you not appreciate a local language being spoken? Then again, a student of languages would probably think differently about that topic than the typical student.


----------



## Hulalessar

Copperknickers said:


> Take my native Scots for instance...



You make some telling points. What we really have is a language - we can conveniently use the word Anglic - of which the varieties of Scots and English English, and somewhere in between Scottish English, are dialects. All these varieties exist on a continuum and, even though varieties at opposite ends of the continuum may not be mutually intelligible, it is the fact that they are on a continuum that justifies them being grouped together and given a label "Anglic". You cannot can actually speak Anglic, only a dialect of it. The group of dialects closest to Anglic is Frisian. There is no dialect continuum between Anglic and Frisian and so we are justified in regarding them as separate languages. If we look at Frisian we are justified in calling it a language because there is no dialect continuum between it and any other West Germanic language. However, there is a dialect continuum between what are referred to as Dutch and German and so there is no justification for treating them as separate languages.

If you proceed in this way ignoring socio-political factors and all the other things linguists would like to ignore but cannot, although I am not suggesting it would necessarily be entirely straightforward, would it be that difficult to neatly classify dialects into languages leaving us with the definition of a language as a group of dialects which exist on a continuum? The only problem is deciding what the criteria are for a continuum and that perhaps will have to come down to intuition.


----------



## DenisBiH

Hulalessar said:


> If you proceed in this way ignoring socio-political factors and all the  other things linguists would like to ignore but cannot, although I am  not suggesting it would necessarily be entirely straightforward, would  it be that difficult to neatly classify dialects into languages leaving  us with the definition of a language as a group of dialects which exist  on a continuum? The only problem is deciding what the criteria are for a  continuum and that perhaps will have to come down to intuition.




So instead of socio-political factors you would have linguists' intuition as the deciding factor? There was much of that 'intuition' in the 19th century, except somehow linguists of different nations and political views had different 'intuitions'.

But let us see, theoretically: a Dutch linguist may decide his intuition tells him that the border between Dutch and German is 100km to the east of the present border between Netherlands and Germany; and a German linguist may have his intuition telling him there is no Dutch language at all.

That's pretty much having personal feelings of many replaced by personal feelings of a few (only linguists).


----------



## Hulalessar

DenisBiH said:


> So instead of socio-political factors you would have linguists' intuition as the deciding factor? etc



You have a good point.

The problem with the social sciences is that they aim to be "scientific", by which I mean something like "rigorous". They do that partly to avoid charges of being called pseudo-sciences and partly because of the need to at least operate within a framework. The need for rigour has, in my view, led to the social sciences becoming over-obsessed with methodology. If you concentrate on methodology - and I sometimes get the impression that some social sciences consist of nothing but methodology - you end up learning or confirming nothing. Objectivity should be the aim of the social sciences, but they need to accept that it is in fact unattainable. Nietzsche said that there are no facts, only opinion. Whilst that may be true, it does not reflect the way we perceive things in our everyday dealings, is unhelpful and leads us nowhere. Value judgements cannot be ruled out of the social sciences, but  a scientific approach is needed to ensure that such judgements are as free as possible from the prejudices of the person making the judgement. The "scientific approach" is of course the same whether you are in a hard or social science. The difference is one of emphasis and the extent to which value judgements are needed. In both cases whilst it is hoped that conclusions have been reached objectively they are considered provisional and, generalising, the conclusions of the hard sciences are susceptible to be disproved by experiment, whilst those of the social sciences are not.

A rigorous academic training has its benefits, but one of its downsides is that it can promote tramline thinking. Something the West can learn from the East is the notion that truth is as likely to be arrived at by intuition as intellection. Social scientists should not rule out an intuitive approach. I do not think there is necessarily a hard and fast distinction between intuition and intellection – the two may ultimately arise from the same brain activity – and social scientists should not be afraid to engage in a little of what may be termed “informed intuition”. In fact I suspect many of the great scientific breakthroughs have been achieved by thinking without thinking. If like Archimedes you relax in the bath and stop thinking you will have your eureka moment.

I think it is useful to consider the difference between phonetics and phonology. Articulatory phonetics is a hard science. It does not involve value judgements. You are just looking at the ways speech is produced. If you are making judgements at all it is just to decide what differences between sounds you describe which are useful for a particular purpose; in any event, the number of possible sounds is infinite and you cannot give names to them all. Phonology is different because it involves the concept of the phoneme. Semantics comes into it and that involves value judgements. In some languages you cannot always find minimal pairs for sounds that it would be highly questionable not to consider distinct phonemes. Your intuition in its guise of common sense comes into play and you do not hesitate to assert that in the language you are looking at /f/ and /k/ are distinct phonemes.

It seems to me that sorting a given number of  dialects into separate languages is no different from sorting the sounds of a language into phonemes. You may need to make value judgements, but the sort of value judgements based on socio-political factors are surely not that difficult to exclude.

In deciding whether the differences between any two speech varieties are sufficiently great that we can consider the continuum to be broken, I think mutual intelligibility has to come into it. If we have speech varieties A, B and C where A and C are mutually unintelligible but each is mutually intelligible with B, then we are justified in considering A, B and C as dialects of the same language. However, where A and C are mutually unintelligible and we cannot find a B which is mutually intelligible with both, we are justified in considering A and C separate languages.

In the end I suppose we have to accept that words are slippery customers and concepts apt to be fluid. A Humpty Dumpty approach is all very well so long as you make yourself clear, but not always appropriate.


----------



## Copperknickers

Frankly I think a literature is the most important thing in a language. Obviously there can be language without literature, but its the literature which really defines it, separates it from anything else imo. Certainly, Scots has a monumental body of literature. I think the internet is actually a very good tool for keeping dialects alive: you will usually find that when people from the same area chat with each other on MSN and the like, they quickly abandon any pretence of standard English and switch to a written version of how they speak.


----------



## mataripis

Ang Wika ay paraan ng pakikipagtalastasan na maaring pasalita,pakilos o sa tingin lamang.Ang pangunawa ay ginagamit upang makatugon subali't ang may mataas na kamalayan ay may karunungan at kakayahang unawain kahit ang pinapahayag ay sa isip at damdamin .(Language is form of communication and it is possible that words/gestures/and by looking, expressions or messages can be relayed.Understanding is needed in order to give reply or answer but to those who have higher intuitions,they have the wisdom and ability to understand/to answer even communications are through the use of gestures and telepathy .)


----------



## Frank06

mataripis said:


> they have the wisdom and ability to understand/to answer even communications are through the use of gestures and telepathy .)


Next time you reply, wave and sign (but please use grand gestures, since I wear glasses) or use your thoughts. I can receive messages telepathically, no doubt about that, but I still have to come across the first person who can send them. 

Now, back to reality, back to this thread?

Frank


----------



## bendanish

*Moderator note: Threads with same topic merged.*

Hi people,
I have been working on a problem on comparing two languages and decicing whether or not they are the same language, sister dialects or two separate languages. Without going into what languages I am comparing, the most basic problem I am faced with is defining what a language is.

I would like your opinion on the basic question: What is a language (and I don't mean sign language, computer language, etc.)?

Danish


----------



## Kartof

Although I don't agree with this definition, I think that what we commonly refer to a language is either a set of dialects that are mutually unintelligible to other languages/sets of dialects or the standardized language codified by a state.  This definition covers the fact that often closely related dialects are regarded as separate languages because they are standardized and the small unstandardized languages that are not closely related to other languages covers most of our commonly accepted language.

In my personal opinion, it's useless to try to discriminate between dialects and languages and that instead we should ask about the mutual intelligibility of a language.  When the mutual intelligibility is less than 50%, I think it's safe to say that the two languages are not dialects of each other while if it's more than 50%, you could begin to argue the opposite.


----------



## aparis2

I agree with Kartof. I think it all comes down to mutual intelligibility. I think often languages are "created" out of nationalistic or religious reasons. I am by no means an expert, but I would agree with those individuals who say Urdu and Hindi; Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin; Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian; Czech and Slovak; Bulgarian and Macedonian; Indonesian and Malaysian; etc are the same languages. Sometimes they're written in different alphabets, and of course they have their own regional flare, but overall, I'd say they're the same. Sometimes it's more black and white than in other cases. Of all the ones I listed above, I'd say the Czech/Slovak argument for being one language is the most obvious. The other problem is that many of the speakers of these languages don't want to be lumped with the other(s). But I don't know how they can honestly believe their language is different if, when it comes right down to it, they can understand what someone else is saying in their "other" language. I don't see why you can't have one's dialect be just as nationalistic as having it be a language. I think a good example of this is Portuguese. I think it's fairly apparent that Brazilian Portuguese is very different than European Portuguese, yet they don't claim to be separate languages.


----------



## iobyo

The definition of what constitutes a language has always been an arbitrary one, especially with regard to thosr languages belonging to a broader continuum. So it's equally arbitrary to use a criterion of '_x_%', etc.

The Croatian and Serbian standards are both codified varieties of the very same dialect, and the slight differences between them are due to their independent literary traditions and the influence from their respective regional varieties. Bulgarian and Macedonian are codified varieties of two divergent dialects, but also have independent literary traditions. Nationalism aside, Croatian, for example, could replace Serbian in Serbia almost seamlessly. The same could be said for Indonesian in Malaysia. It would be harder to make the same argument for Macedonian in Bulgaria or Slovak in the Czech Republic.

A case-by-case approach is the only way about it and not any all-inclusive criterion.


----------



## osemnais

afaik there is no definition what is a language and what is a dialect continuum and what are two sepperate languages as of yet. The problem is that these three 'stages' have no sharp border between them - infact they have none at all, they gradually blend one into another.


----------



## LilianaB

Hi, Aparis. I would absolutely disagree that the Scandinavian languages could be considered as one language. The written versions are quite intelligible, but spoken Norwegian, especially from some parts of Norway, or Danish are almost unintelligible to somebody who speaks Swedish. Even the differences in writing are too significant, I think, for someone to be able to call those languages dialects of one language. I don't know Slovak and Czech that well to make that kind of judgement, but I think the same is true about Slovak and Czech. Slovak may even be more similar to Polish in some respects. I am not an expert on the latter two, but this has been my feeling.


----------



## bendanish

Thanks for all the replies. Here are some of my thoughts:

- Mutual intelligibility is probably a necessary condition but its not sufficient. For example, I have seen Italians speaking to Spanish people in Italian and Spaniards replying in Spanish and they understand each other rather well. I don't speak either so I really can't say if it was just those people I met or is it true in general. Can anybody confirm this?

- There have been numerous languages (and there are many still) that do not have a written form/script. Another case is when the script is changed, a good example being Turkish. The script was changed in 1932 but that doesn't mean that the language itself changed (though a number of words were removed and others installed in their place). So when trying to define a language is it reasonable to assume that the script is not part of the definition of a language?

- Do you all think that Jamaican English and Cockney English are the same language?


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

bendanish said:


> Hi people,
> I have been working on a problem on comparing two languages and decicing whether or not they are the same language, sister dialects or two separate languages. Without going into what languages I am comparing, the most basic problem I am faced with is defining what a language is.
> 
> I would like your opinion on the basic question: What is a language (and I don't mean sign language, computer language, etc.)?
> 
> Danish



A language is first of all a communication system consisting of signs.
Human languages are defined by the fact that the signs are based on sounds which are produced using the organs of speech (phonatory system), where meanings are arbitrarily attached to single sounds or groups of sounds.
Philip Pullman in "His Dark Materials" gives another concept: that the phantasy creatures on some planet (sorry, forgot the names) in their language use not only sounds, but also include body movements that differentiate the meaning of some sounds.

Now, whether different (closely or distantly related) languages are mutually intelligible is another matter.


----------



## bendanish

Angelo, you are right that there are other types of languages. I am basically trying to find a definition for human languages such as Urdu, English, Serbian, etc. and not body language, or sign, computer, mathematical language. Later I would like to use this definition to try to evaluate whether or not two languages are the same or sister dialects or distantly related or completely separate.


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

Well, I think I've given you a definition of human language...

To define language as such you don't need to know whether it is mutually understandable with other languages/dialects.
This criterion of mutual intelligibility (or, maybe, compatibility) becomes important only if you want to distinguish a language from another or to establish the difference between language and dialect.


----------



## LilianaB

In linguistics everything is more complex, unfortunately, or fortunately. There are no sharp-edge definitions and often it is hard to determine what is a language and what is a dialect. A dialect is always a language in some sense.


----------



## Ben Jamin

LilianaB said:


> In linguistics everything is more complex, unfortunately, or fortunately. There are no sharp-edge definitions and often it is hard to determine what is a language and what is a dialect. A dialect is always a language in some sense.



These questions have already been addressed in this long thread. Try to read it from the beginning.


----------

