LL-L: "Language policies" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 17.MAY.1999 (02)

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From: Ian James Parsley" <I.J.Parsley at newcastle.ac.uk>
Subject: Language policies

Ron,

Yes, one of the most useful things about this list is that it does
combine several minority languages whose stories are similar.

For all their talk of being "different" from the English (which they
undoubtedly are), the Scots and the Northern Irish are both
undoubtedly included when you think of the "English-speaking
peoples", as per Churchill's book. There can be little doubt that
such as there is cultural unity within the English-speaking world,
the Scots and Ulster folk are part of it. Yet many of them are not,
in fact, English speaking. Which is very bad form in some circles!
--------
Ian.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Rhodes/1677

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From: gdeutsch at estec.esa.nl
Subject: Language policies

Ian James Parsley wrote:

>..I've seen Austrians write
>Austrian-German with a moreorless standardised orthography, yet none
>of them would deny it was a dialect of "German".

High Ian,
I am confused by your note. I am not sure how it is meant.
The status of Austrian German vs. Germany German is a good reference and in
many respects similar to the status of Belgian Dutch vs. Dutch of the
Netherlands, or e.g. Australian English vs. Britsh or US-English.
But as you know these are no dialects but variants of the standard. With of
course a standardised orthography which can be looked up (as far Austrian
German is concerned, where it concernes about 0.05 per cent of the
vocabulary) e.g. in the "Duden".
The many, partly quite different dialects, however, which do exist in Austria
do not have a (one) standardised orthagraphy. Some have none, some have more
(attempts of) standards. In any case each of them is not  *the*
Austrian-German dialect but a German dialect in Austria, like Walserisch in
the west or Carinthian in the southeast.
Maybe unlike to the situation of Switzerland, there is no possiblity or
meaningful attempt (or even any requirement in Austria) to define Austrian
identity by a (non-existing) "austrian-german dialect".

So I don't now what you meant and how you think this could be a reference to
the situation of Ulster vs. (Standard?-)Scottish.
could you explain?

best regards,
Georg

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