Respect goes both ways!

Larry Trask larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk
Thu Oct 7 18:09:29 UTC 1999


[ moderator re-formatted ]

ECOLING at aol.com writes:

>  [LA]

>>> I use here the definition of distinctness of "languages" preferred by
>>> most linguists, including the experts on this list, that is, fuzzily,
>>> "forms of speech which are mutually unintelligible".

[LT]

>> Sorry, but I don't think this is the definition of `languages' used by
>> most linguists.  If anything, it's closer to the man-in-the-street's
>> perception.  Linguists are aware that mutual intelligibility or the lack
>> of it is only one of many factors which may help to determine whether
>> varieties are best regarded as two languages or as a single language.
>> I could cite examples for hours -- Chinese, Italian, Dyirbal -- but I'll
>> leave that now.

> The above seems to be EXACTLY THE REVERSE of the bulk of the
> recent discussion which said that political and cultural reasons may lead
> people to call very different languages by the same name,
> as if they were the same language.  (Note the counterfactual.)
> Folks-in-the-street are perhaps even MORE aware than linguists
> of many of the other factors other than mutual intelligibility,
> which they normally do not think of at all.

This is astonishing.  Folks in the street, in my experience, tend to believe
that there must be language called 'Belgian', because there's a country called
Belgium.

Anyway, the point just made is not "exactly the reverse" of my point, but
merely another facet of it.  For their own historical, cultural and political
reasons, the Chinese refer to the seven or so Chinese languages as "dialects"
of Chinese.  Most linguists dissent, on the ground that the purely linguistic
differences are too great, and the boundaries between the varieties sometimes
too sharp, to allow us to regard the varieties as a single language.

And the assertion that linguists do not normally think at all of any factors
beyond mutual intelligibility is beyond belief.  This is not remotely true.
I'm a linguist, and I've just given our first-years a lecture on the numerous
factors involved in deciding where language boundaries should be placed.
Nor am I in any way unusual here.

> Unless of course the writer literally means as he writes
> that mutual intelligibility is "one of many factors which may help to
> determine whether varieties are best regarded as two languages
> or as a single language".  Note the "one of", in which case the
> response should have been not "NO, WRONG", but
> "YES, WITH ADDITIONAL SPECIFICATIONS".

Eh?  I say it's one of many factors, and you complain that I am overlooking
other factors?  What does this mean?

> I was not discussing other possible definitions,
> I was discussing a common highly technical definition,
> mutual intelligibility, about which I was completely explicit.

With respect, I do not regard mutual intelligibility as a "highly technical
definition".  It's a single very rough criterion, no more.

Whether two related varieties are, or are not, mutually comprehensible is not
an absolute yes/no question.  Mutual intelligibility can take any value from
zero to 100%.  It is perfectly possible for two varieties to be, say, 70%
mutually comprehensible, and such estimates are often reported in the
literature.

It is also possible for comprehensibility to be strongly one-way.  In my
experience, the Portuguese understand the Spaniards a lot more readily than the
Spaniards understand the Portuguese.  The Danes understand the Swedes a lot
better than the Swedes understand the Danes.  And I've met plenty of
English-speakers who understood me a hell of a lot better than I understood
them.

Mutual comprehensibility is also not independent of time.  The first time I met
an English-speaker from Newcastle, I could not understand *a single word* he
was saying -- even though he could understand me perfectly well.  However,
after a few days of exposure, my ear got attuned, and I could understand almost
everything he said.  This sort of thing happens all the time.

Almost anything you can think of can happen.  At the street level, Hindi and
Urdu are the same language, and speakers of the two can chatter happily about
everyday matters.  But, as soon as the conversation turns to elevated or
technical topics, they can't understand each other any more, because their
abstract and technical words are different.

So, let me ask this: are Hindi and Urdu "the same language" or not?
And on what basis should the question be answered?

Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk



More information about the Indo-european mailing list