ELL: Re: Dialects and languages

[Julia Sallabank]

There's a saying 'a language is a dialect with an army'. Does anyone know where it originated?

Best wishes

Julia
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Nakerite at aol.com 
  To: endangered-languages-l at cleo.murdoch.edu.au 
  Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 2:44 PM
  Subject: ELL: Question and Announcement


  Hello. 

        I am not a trained linguist, but I am inerested in knowing if there are criteria for dertermining when changes in a language consitute a dialect, and when a dialect becomes a new language. My interest is mostly in Spanish dialects. For example, is Ladino a different language? or is just Spanish written in Hebrew script? Are the Spanglish dialects real dialects or just street jargons. Does translating from the standard version of a language into a dialect of that language consititutes a real translations. And should endangered dialects be saved? 
        A new list called Language Rights has been created. The purpose of the Language Rights list is to discuss such topics as Language Rights, the politics of language, the presecution and demise of minority languages, and general lingusitics. Language Rights is the concept that individuals and communities have certain fundamental rights in relation to the language(s) that they use or wish to use. 

  Language_Rights-subscribe at yahoogroups.com 

  Patrick R. Saucer 

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