ELL: Re: Dialects and languages

[Doug Marmion]

Here are some links with discussions of this question:

http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Linguistics/armynavy.html -- a discussion
of the possible origins of the saying.


http://www.olestig.dk/scotland/weinreich.html -- discusses the
dialect/language question as well as the 'dialect with an army'
saying.

Cheers,
Doug




>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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