a family of languages

[Anthea Fraser Gupta]

Aurolyn said: "eference to a single standard strikes me as a useful
one for grouping dialects into the same language
category (note that that doesn't mean SPEAKING the
standard). And it certainly doesn't hold for English."

I agree that this is a useful criterion and I think it DOES hold for English. If you look at Standard English texts from all over the world (Baltimore, Leeds, Lagos, Karachi, Calcutta. Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Melbourne.....) what is really striking is that they are written in the same (except for a handful of words, amounting to perhaps 1 in 500 words) spelling, and with the same grammar and a largely shared vocabulary. Are we in this list not all writing in the same language?

Anthea