LL-L "Language varieties" 2001.10.31 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 31.OCT.2001 (03) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian L=Limburgish
 LS=Low Saxon (Low German) S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)
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From: Robert Thiel <gavilan at nbnet.nb.ca>
Subject: Language Variety

After reading Ron Hahn's interesting posting on 'language variety', I
forwarded it to a linguist friend of mine, Dr. William Bright. He answered
with another posting which I thought might be of interest to the general
list membership. Dr. Bright has given permission to post it here.

"this description of low german varieties seems very good to me; the
complex, variable, and actually indeterminate situation it describes holds
for languages all over the world. you might as well being talking about
spanish, portuguese, gallego, asturian, and catalan; or about hindi,
punjabi, lahnda, rajasthani, and bihari.

the entire antiquated "stammbaum" model for relationships among
dialects/languages, and the whole idea that "dialects are mutually
intellible, while languages are not", have long ago been totally
discredited by all the findings of dialectology and sociolinguistics; yet
many, perhaps most linguists continue to take them for granted. at a
meeting of the ling soc a few years ago, there was a debate about "ebonics"
or black english vis-à-vis standard english, and it got onto national
television. i was amazed to hear some of my
esteemed colleagues say that, since black english and standard english are
"mutually intelligible", they are dialects of the same language. i was so
flabbergasted that i couldn't open my mouth to disagree.

"mutual intelligibility" is of course not a black/white matter (no pun
intended re ebonics); it's a multidimensional continuum. no two people in
the world speak exactly the same variety; no single person in the world
speaks a single uniform variety all the time; every person in the world is
to some variable degree multidialectal/multilingual. notions like "the
english language" or "the québec dialect of french" are IDEOLOGICAL and
POLITICAL constructs, not linguistic realities."

William Bright
Professor Emeritus of Linguistics & Anthropology, UCLA
Professor Adjoint of Linguistics, University of Colorado, Boulder
Editor, Written Language and Literacy
Editor, Native American Placenames of the United States

Bob Thiel
Moncton, NB, Canada

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