language/dialect again

[Laurence Horn]

There's a reference I have handy (in a volume under review by distinguished
scholars who will have to remain nameless here) to the dictum in the form

"A language is a dialect that has an army and a navy"

attributed to Max Weinreich in his 1973 book History of the Yiddish
Language.  No page reference, and no context to make it clear whether this
was his own resigned commentary (ultimately reflecting on the arbitrariness
of the language/dialect distinction, which is how I've always thought of
it) or the aperçu of someone else.

larry

At 8:55 AM -0800 3/22/00, A. Maberry wrote:

>The question of the origin of the saying "A language is a dialect with an
>army/navy" seems to come up with some regularlity. It is usually
>attributed to the Yiddishist Max Weinreich, but I haven't seen a reference
>to the exact source. I think I might have found it in a speech Weinreich
>gave in honor of the 20th anniversary of YIVO (Yidisher visnshaftlekher
>institut), titled "Der Yivo un di problemen fun undzer tsayt" ("YIVO and
>the problems of our time") published in Yivo Bleter, bd. 25, num. 1
>(Yanuar-Februar, 1945) p. 13. Weinreich is telling an anecdote about a course
>of lectures he was giving at YIVO in 1944 and:
>
>"Eyn mol nokh a lektsye geyt er [a student] tsu tsu mir un fregt: 'Vos iz
>der khilek fun a dialekt biz a shprakh?'  Ikh hob gemeynt, az es ruft zikh
>op in im der maskilisher bitul, un ikh hob im gepruvt aroyffirn oyfn
>rikhtikn veg, nor er hot mikh ibergerisn: 'Dos veyst ikh, ober ikh vel
>aykh gebn a besere definitsye: A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un
>flot".
>
>roughly translated; Once after a lecture he came up to me and asked: "What
>is the difference between a dialect and a language?" I thought that a bit
>of the contempt which characterized the Haskalah period had affected him,
>[im not sure how to convey the phrase "az es ruft zikh op in im der
>maskilisher bitul" but I think this is pretty much the sense of it--adm]
>so I tried to lead him to the right way, but he interrupted me: "I know
>that, but I'll give you a better definition: A language is a dialect with
>an army and navy."
>
>My apologies if this has been reported before and escaped my notice!
>
>Allen
>maberry at u.washington.edu
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 2294 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/attachments/20000322/89321413/attachment-0001.bin>