accusative cursing

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:53 PM -0400 4/12/07, Laurence Horn wrote:
>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.
>
OK, I checked some web sites, including this helpful one:
http://www.euractiv.com/en/culture/council-europe-calls-uk-minority-language-push/article-162529
It seems that Scots Gaelic, along with fellow Celtic languages Welsh,
Irish, Cornish, and Manx Gaelic (do the latter two have any living
speakers left?), are protected regional/minority languages, but so
are Scots and Ulster-Scots, two varieties of English.  Irish English
(or Hiberno-English) does not seem to be a recognized minority
language, although this article only covers minority languages within
the UK (but then Irish itself, the Celtic language, is listed).

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org