ELL: Re: Dialects and languages

[Joan Smith/Kocamahhul]

Jonathan Bobaljik and Rob Pensalfini cited this saying (a language is a
dialect with an army and a navy) in their intro to Papers on language
endangerment and the maintenance of linguisitc diversity (MIT working
papers in Linguistics, 1996, pg 2), but they don't give a reference for
it.

Joan

Julia Sallabank wrote:

> 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
>
--
Joan Smith/Kocamahhul
Department of Linguistics
University of Canterbury
Private Bag 4800
Christchurch
NEW ZEALAND

e-mail: j.smithkocamahhul at ling.canterbury.ac.nz
tel: 00-64-3-3667-001 ext 8321
fax: 00-64-3-364-2969


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