accusative cursing

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:20 PM -0400 4/12/07, James C Stalker wrote:
>The dialect/language question is indeed a thorny one: do we define
>languages/dialects linguistically, sociolinguistically, or politically?
>Presumably Scots and Irish are now languages. not variations of English,
>because the EU said they are. I can live with that.

I believe the EU is referring to Scots Gaelic and Irish (= Gaelic),
which are not now and never have been dialects or variations of
English, but Celtic languages.  Or are you asserting that the EU
recognizes Scots (Scots English) and Irish English (Hiberno-English)
as distinct languages from English?  Granted, this might help explain
why we need subtitles for "Trainspotting", but I'm not aware that
this determination has actually been made.

LH

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