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<DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2> I have been
mainly silent on this list preferring to read what far more competent people
have to say in the field of EL-s, which is very close to my heart &I intend
to maintain this silence, as I am just an amateur linguist. But I thought I
might contribute something to the language/dialect discussion.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2> I have no personal
opinion in this matter;however, I remember that when I was studying general
linguistics at the university (Romania, late '80-s) the Conventional Wisdom was
that the ultimate criterium for defining an idiom as a language was the
consciousness/feeling of the speakers that they form a separate nation. This
would account for speaking about Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian;Dutch and
Flemish; Farsi and Dari;Portuguese and Galician;Turkish, Azeri and Gagauz;
Kirundi and Kinyarwanda and the examples may continue, whereas on the other hand
we have Mandarine, Cantonese, Hakka etc. as dialects of Chinese, Piemontese
and Neapolitan as dialects of Italian (they are certainly far more divergent
than, say, Croatian and Bosnian), and so on.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2> As
to Patrick's example, of course, according to this principle, Ladino would
qualify as a language in its own right. But even beyond that, one cannot
say Ladino is merely Spanish written in Hebrew characters. The number of
non-Romance lexical items (from Hebrew, Balkan languages, Arabic) is quite
significant.I had the opportunity to read Sefardi texts from Istanbul, Salonica
and Pazardjik (Bulgaria) and my arguably good, knowledge of Spanish
(incidentally, I am a certified translator of Spanish) was not enough to
understand them.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
But as I said, this point of view is not mine-I'm a bit puzzled myself-and I
just wanted to throw it in the discussion. BTW, I'd like to ask the Celtists on
this list, what are we to think about Irish vs. Scottish Gaelic. I know Gaelge
speaking Irish people acknowledge Scottish Gaelic as Gaelic (Gaeilge Albanach).
Do Gaelic speakers in both countries regard themselves as part of the same
nation?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2>
Regards to all,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial
size=2>
Cristian</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>