LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 29.NOV.2000 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 29.NOV.2000 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans, Ap=Appalachean, D=Dutch, E=English, F=Frisian, L=Limburgish
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From: James Krause [sodshanty at usa.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Language varieties" LOWLANDS-L, 22.NOV.2000 (06) [E]

> From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
> Subject: "Language varieties"
>
> > From: Stefan Israel [stefansfeder at yahoo.com]
> > Subject: "Language varieties"
> >
> > Ethan Barrett asked:
> > Language vs dialect
> >
> > > how do we
> > > distinguish seperate languages from seperate dialects of the
> > > same language?
> >
> > ouch- that's a question that's bedeviled this list repeatedly,
> > and as a trained linguist, I can tell you-  there is no reliable
> > criterion to determine whether related varietes should be
> > considered dialects or languages.  It's not like boiling water,
> > that has a clear and abrupt transition at 100 degrees C;
> > language varities won't have an abrupt transition (unless
>
> True enough, but we could compare the "dialect/language" question with
> another sort of question about temperature - the one where someone's about
> to go outside and asks someone who's just come in, "Is it cold outside?" The
> answer is partly subjective and partly objective - it depends on such things
> as the actual temperature outside, whether there's a wind, the person's
> tolerance to the cold, how well wrapped up the person was when he was
> outside, and so on. If you put such a question to a _group_ of people who
> have just come in, you can expect differences of opinion in the answers, but
> this doesn't mean the question is pointless - it can still help you to
> decide whether to put a coat on or not.
>
> It seems to me that whatever it might take to satisfy linguists on the
> question, people do have certain ways of judging to their own satisfaction
> whether a given dialect is a language in its own right or whether it's a
> dialect of a more prestigious language. The sort of heuristics people use
> seem to include such questions as:
>
> 1. Is it taught in school?
> 2. Is it taught as a subject at university?
> 3. Is there a literature written in it?
> 4. Is the language mutually unintelligable with the accepted lingua franca
> of the region?
> 5. Does it need a full dictionary of its own rather than the unique portion
> of its vocabulary being included in some other language's dictionary?
>
> And so on. To take the question on the British mainland, for example,
> English can answer such a resounding "yes" to the first three questions that
> it's taken as the lingua franca and the fourth question becomes irrelevant.
> So people judge English as a language. Welsh and Gaelic are strong on the
> first three and absolute on 4. and 5., so again, people judge these as
> languages. Some traditional English dialects such as Geordie and Wessexian
> do not too badly on 4. but fail miserably on the other four, and so are
> judged by many people to be dialects of English. Scots is somewhere in
> between - it would probably score about as highly as English on 5., score
> over 50% on 4. (reading it is difficult for English monoglots, hearing it
> even harder), it scores quite highly on 3. (there is lots of quality and
> popular literature, some of global significance), it is also well studied in
> universities, sometimes offered as a course option, although it's quite weak
> on 1.
>
> I think that people who have a good grasp of the position of Scots with
> respect to other languages could only conclude from this that Scots really
> needs to be treated as a separate language. The controversy arises due to
> ignorance of the answers to these questions - Scots speakers find Scots so
> easy to understand, they can't imagine it not being intelligable to the
> English (so misjudge question 4.), the larger dictionaries of the language
> are rarely seen in shops or public libraries, the literature is there but
> most of it molders in secondhand bookshops. All this "darkness" leads Scots
> speakers to misjudge these questions and conclude that they speak a mere
> dialect of English.
>
> You could of course extend this list of questions - people do sometimes take
> political considerations into account in reaching their conclusion, for
> example.
>
> Sandy
> http://scotstext.org
> A dinna dout him, for he says that he
> On nae accoont wad ever tell a lee.
>                           - C.W.Wade,
>                     'The Adventures o McNab'
>
> ----------
>
> From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
> Subject: Language varieties
>
> Sandy,
>
> I like your model list of test questions (above) a great deal and think it
> can
> be really helpful.
>
> The only one of the criteria I am not so sure about is the first.  The reason
> is that a language may for political reasons not be allowed to be taught or
> used in schools, even those that are clearly languages by most people's
> standards.  There are plenty of examples of this in the world.  Rather than
> give "exotic" ones, let me give two in the Lowlandic area.  Yes, Afrikaans
> and
> Low Saxon/Low German are now considered languages (though not yet in the
> minds
> of some).  However, there was a time when they were not *allowed* to be used
> in school, when children would in fact be punished for using them (Afrikaans
> for a period under British rule of South Africa).  Was this not so also in
> the
> case of Scots?  Would you then say that these three varieties scored lower
> before official recognition, that they where then closer to "dialect" due to
> administrative prohibition?  In other words, I am hesitant to accept this as
> a
> criterion because it seems to assume that the makers of linguistic and
> educational policies are unbiased or neutral or follow no political
> direction,
> or that the political direction they follow is benevolent.  All too often
> governments deliberately prohibit use and teaching of minority languages in
> order to make them go away, i.e., die out.  Does your criterion No. 1 not
> give
> them the power to influence the language-or-dialect status of a given
> variety?
>
> The second criterion can also be picked at a bit, because dialects can be
> subjects in research and teaching.  However, yes, this would probably be
> within the context of the languages to which they are regarded as belonging.
>
> Generally speaking, though, I think your analysis is going in the right
> direction.
>
> Regards,
> Reinhard/Ron

Ron & Stefan, Then perhaps using the above as a criterion for discerning
between language and dialect, that Appalachian ought to be considered a
dialect, since as a non speaker of Appalachian, I can understand a Kentuckian
or a Tennesseean quite well.  I live in the Midwest, and was raised on the
Pacific coast of the USA.  Gullah, on the other hand is quite indeciferable to
me.  Your thoughts?  Jim

----------

From: R. F. Hahn [sassisch at yahoo.com]
Subject: Language varieties

Jim,

As far as I understand, no one has really come forward and has adamantly
stated that Appalachian is a separate language.  We have included an
Appalachian welcoming page, but that in itself is not necessarily stating that
it is a language.  We also have welcomes in more than one dialect of Low Saxon
and Scots each, for instance.

However, if Appalachian is a dialect, is it a dialect of English or of Scots,
since it is a mixed variety?  If we assume that English and Scots are separate
languages (though very closely related ones), then this would beg the question
what a mixed English-Scots variety is: language or dialect, and if a dialect,
of which.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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