6.1277, Disc: Dialect
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Tue Sep 19 23:37:37 UTC 1995
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LINGUIST List: Vol-6-1277. Tue Sep 19 1995. ISSN: 1068-4875. Lines: 291
Subject: 6.1277, Disc: Dialect
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1)
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 1995 09:03:11 EDT
From: amr at CS.Wayne.EDU (Alexis Manaster Ramer)
Subject: Re: 6.1262, Disc: Dialect
2)
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 1995 10:06:25 EDT
From: MLEWELLEN at guvax.acc.georgetown.edu
Subject: Languages and Dialects
3)
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 1995 15:04:00 PDT
From: IBENAWJ at MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (benji wald )
Subject: Re: 6.1262, Disc: Dialect
4)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 08:58:32 +0800
From: ellgupta at leonis.nus.sg ("Anthea F Gupta")
Subject: Re: 6.1262, Disc: Dialect
5)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 10:07:03 EDT
From: kvt at husc.harvard.edu (Karl Teeter)
Subject: Re: 6.1262, Disc: Dialect
6)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 10:56:13 EDT
From: AROUCHD at CMS.CC.WAYNE.EDU (aleya rouchdy)
Subject: Re: 6.1262, Disc: Dialect
7)
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 1995 09:55:08 -0400
From: ROGER at beattie.uct.ac.za ("Lass, RG, Roger, Prof")
Subject: 6.1262 Dialect
---------------------------------Messages------------------------------------
1)
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 1995 09:03:11 EDT
From: amr at CS.Wayne.EDU (Alexis Manaster Ramer)
Subject: Re: 6.1262, Disc: Dialect
The term _Mundart_ in contrast to _Sprache_ surely does not
prove that the former is spoken (< _Mund_ 'mouth') and the
latter written, since the latter term is from _sprechen_ 'speech'.
At the same time, in the many descriptions of, for example, Samoyedic
and Tungusic languages written in German in the early and mid-19th
century, I find that they are referred to as _Sprachen_, i.e.,
'languages' (and similarly in works written in French and English).
Yet all these were unwritten languages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 1995 10:06:25 EDT
From: MLEWELLEN at guvax.acc.georgetown.edu
Subject: Languages and Dialects
In reference to Linuist subject: 6.1262, Disc: Dialect, I would
like to submit the following comments:
> A language is a dialect with a bureaucracy. Any
> counterexamples?
Yes, going back to some earlier discussions on the matter by
Bloomfield and Hockett. Although sociopolitical concerns (what
is referred to by "bureaucracy", I suppose) certainly play a
large role in what is considered a language or a dialect,
another factor is the complex interrelations among gradually-
changing dialects. For example, even though Danish and Swiss
German are equally distant from the standard high German,
Danish is viewed as a separate language while Swiss German is
considered a German dialect, due to sociopolitical
considerations and being "linked" by a greater number of
intermediate gradations of dialects (Bloomfield 1933:42-56,
Hockett 1958:321-330).
Another interesting factor in language-dialect debates exists in
Chinese: the Chinese writing system. Functionally, the Chinese
script is independent of phonetic influences, and so may be
associated with disparate spoken forms of words in different
languages, much as the Arabic numeric system represents widely
variant pronunciations from different languages. Socially, the
Chinese have historically had great respect for the written
language, which has varied much less than the oral forms of
Chinese for most of its existence. Thus, the history of Chinese
culture and writing may be considered to have unified what
otherwise would be considered a family of languages (Norman
1988:1-3).
In response to Alexis Manaster Ramer's question:
> It is clear that in normal English usage _dialect_ means a
> less important linguistic variety than does _language_, but
> what is not clear to me is (a) whether _dialect_ is really in
> any way pejorative...
An intuitive comment is that dialects, with "normal users", have
emotional connections, both pejorative and positive. Using
German as an example, it is my understanding that speakers of
more high forms of German might look down on "lower" forms of
German, but that on the other hand Germans generally speak two
dialects, the standard and the local, and that not speaking a
local dialect might lead to feelings of rootlessness.
Mark Lewellen
mlewellen at guvax.georgetown.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 1995 15:04:00 PDT
From: IBENAWJ at MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU (benji wald )
Subject: Re: 6.1262, Disc: Dialect
With regard to Alexis's message, "dialect" in ordinary English means what
"nonstandard" means to linguists (the majority -- some still use the
vernacular word "substandard", which says it all). However, "dialect" can
also mean foreign accent. So, actors are taught to use Italian, Yiddish,
Spanish, etc. "dialect", which means English with those accents. The
interesting question that Alexis raises, following what I said in my first
message, is "how seriously should we take linguistic insecurity expressed by
speakers of vernaculars?" My answer is: it depends on the social context.
If we're linguists, members of some establishment, whether we like that
perception or not, then it will seem to us that varnacular speakers we
question are insecure about the way they speak -- but they're speaking to
us as representatives of a greater power, and they are acknowledging that
power. It takes more insight into the individual respondent to know whether
they really give a damn, and are just giving us what they think we think is
the right answer. By the way, I just read a review of a new book on an old
theme. "The Inarticulate Society: Eloquence and Culture in America" by
some guy named Tom Schachtman. A new round of hysteria about how our
language is going to pot, and our brains and country with it. They never
stop. Try as we will to dissociate ourselves from that kind of thing, we
will have great difficulty succeeding because we're all the same to those
who are not in the same box. Don't cry. We have our fans too, who follow
linguistics the way some amateurs follows astronomy, biology etc. But they
are relatively few.
I love it when somebody finds out that I'm
a linguist at some party and says "Oops, I better watch my language". All
I can think of saying is "you wanna step outside?" A ray of hope for the
world -- in Kenya I was talking to a teenager selling Kamba statues on the
street. He asked me what kind of work I did. I told him (in Swahili) I
was a mtaalam wa lugha (scientist/scholar of languages). Oh, he said,
linguistics -- using the English word. Benji
------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 08:58:32 +0800
From: ellgupta at leonis.nus.sg ("Anthea F Gupta")
Subject: Re: 6.1262, Disc: Dialect
Michael Newman wrote:
> A language is a dialect with a bureaucracy. Any counterexamples?
I am surprised that for most of the correspondents this has been the
primary meaning of the language/dialect distinction. With this
definition there were no languages before standardisation, and certainly
no languages before writing was developed. People who speak a
non-written [oops -- I was going to say "language"] way-of-speaking are
not speaking a language. I find this unworkable.
For me the primary relationship of language/dialect is of hyponymy. A
language is the sum of its dialects. And one of those dialects may be
the standard variety. J K Chambers & Peter Trudgill's DIALECTOLOGY begins
with this definition (p3) so I can't surely be an isolated user of this
term... Or is there a difference between UK and US traditions?
Anthea
_________________________________________________________________________
Anthea Fraser GUPTA
English Language & Literature
National University of Singapore
Kent Ridge e-mail: ellgupta at nus.sg
Singapore 0511 telephone: (65) 772 3933
________________________________________________________________________
------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 10:07:03 EDT
From: kvt at husc.harvard.edu (Karl Teeter)
Subject: Re: 6.1262, Disc: Dialect
In this discussion of the term "dialect" I think it is time to
interpolate the definitive discussion by my academic grandfather, Edward
Sapir. which appeared originally as "Dialect" in Encyclopedia of the
Social Sciences (N.Y. Macmillan 1931) 5.123-126, and was reprinted in
Mandelbaum, ed., Selected Writings of Edward Sapir. U.C. Press, Berkeley
and Los Angeles, 1951, pp. 83-88. I have just referred back to it and
it seems to me he handles brilliantly (as is his wont), 64 years ago,
everything which has been raised in the current discussion. Yours, Karl
------------------------------------------------------------------------
6)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 10:56:13 EDT
From: AROUCHD at CMS.CC.WAYNE.EDU (aleya rouchdy)
Subject: Re: 6.1262, Disc: Dialect
A language is a dialect if the speakers of that language refer to it as dialect
Nubians in Egypt consistently referred to the Nubian language as a dialect. Whe
n they were asked why? the answer was: " it is not written". Thus, linguists
have to take in consideration what the definition given by speakers of a
specific language/dialect.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
7)
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 1995 09:55:08 -0400
From: ROGER at beattie.uct.ac.za ("Lass, RG, Roger, Prof")
Subject: 6.1262 Dialect
A couple of points arise from various contributions.
(a) Michael Newman wants counterexamples to the claim that a language
is a dialect with a bureacracy: if by that one means some kind of
'academy', then there may be few counterexamples, since most
languages (or what one would normally call languages) have at least
self-appointed academies or some kind of regulatory organ (e.g. the
YIVO institute for Yiddish); but how seriously do normal speakers of
languages take these things? But if this doesn't count, then probably
Yiddish, Frisian, Karelian, Vepsian, Livonian, would be examples.
(b) Someone sugggested that we maybe ought to top using dialect in
the techjnical way to avboid confusing lay-people. I don't think so.
Why should professionals let amateurs dictate the way they talk
(sorry, says the Dr, I didn't mean to say 'patient presented with
severe epigrastric pain', better 'booger coom in wi bloody toomy-
ache'.
Within our own ambit, when we are talking (as we mainly do) to each
other, I think most uses of 'dialect' are fairly transparent: it's
one level down in the hierarchy from 'language', and can be used at
any level as part of a pair: thus Germanic and Baltic are (overall)
IE dialect-groups, and say Old English or LIthuanian could be called
either 'IE dialects', or respectively Germanic (or West Germanic,
Ingvaeonic, Anglo-Frisian) and Baltic dialects. On the other hand I
could be said to speak 'English', which is a language, but a dialect
of West Germanic and so on down the tree, or American English, or New
YOrk English,. or New York Middle-Class born-in-the-1930s-English,
all of which would classify at one level of discourse or another as
'daielcts', but probably only 'English' as a 'Language'.
On the other hand, what do you do if two lects are historically
related, spoken in the same country under the same political system,
but are mutually (almost) incomprehensible? For instance the
'broadest' sort of Buchan (Aberdeenshire) Scots and any variety of
(Scottish) English. Is Buchan Scots a dialect of English, or ONLY a
dialect of SCots, and in that case is Scots a language or a dialect?
Just musing; it's always good to think about our terminology, but
also to remember Karl Popper's frequent warnings about the dangers
of essentialism: ultimately definitiions are boring and trivial, and
can lead to real epistemological horrors if we reify them and project
them pout into the world as 'natural kinds'.
Roger LassRoger Lass
Department of Linguistics
University of Cape Town
Rondebosch 7700/South Africa
Tel +(021) 650 3138 Fax +(021) 650 3726
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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