Ket isn't a dialect, it's a language (fwd link)

[phil cash cash]

Ket isn't a dialect, it's a language

MARK ABLEY, Freelance
Published: Saturday, April 12

"Aboriginal languages linked to ancient Siberian dialect," ran a headline on
Page A2 of The Gazette last week. As the story explained, linguists appear to
have found conclusive evidence that the 45 or so Athabascan languages of
western North America are linked to Ket, spoken only by a few hundred people
near the Yenisei River in central Siberia.

I have no quarrel with the article, which was written by Randy Boswell of
Canwest News Service.

But I take issue with the headline.

Nearly all the headlines you read in newspapers and magazines are the work of
copy editors, the unsung heroes of any newsroom. For stylistic reasons, they
like to avoid repeating words. And because the second word in this headline was
"languages," a Gazette copy editor presumably decided to make the last word
"dialect."

Access full article link below:
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=d05af515-97c6-4cdb-86c1-dd8bcff51bb2