LL-L: "Language policies" [E] LOWLANDS-L, 17.MAY.1999 (03)

[Lowlands-L Administrator]

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

Georg,

Thanks for your reply, obviously I didn't make myself at all clear.

I forget exactly the context I mentioned Austrian-German. I did,
however, mean that Austrians are capable of *writing* their dialect
in a form that speakers of the same dialect can understand and reply
to in the same way. But this is not meant to imply the existence of
some *standard Austrian German dialect*, but rather that Austrian
dialects are so well established that, for example, one speaker of
Wienerisch can go away from home and send back an e-mail to another
speaker of Wienerisch and receive a reply in the same orthography
(e.g. "I hob gmocht" for "Ich habe gemacht"). Now, well-known though
some English dialects are, I can't believe one Geordie (i.e. an
inhabitant of the NE English industrial city of Newcastle upon Tyne)
would e-mail another in Geordie, simply because there's no Geordie
orthography as such, and it would be confusing therefore to use
anything other than standard English.

I forget exactly how I connected this with Ulster Scots. I think my
point was that just because a dialect does have a written form (in
the above case, Wienerisch) does not make it a separate language.
Despite many amusing "Oesterreichisch-Deutsch" or "Wienerisch fuer
Anfaenger" dictionaries, there's no claim in Austria that the native
tongue is anything other than German. Which, given the situation in
neighbouring Switzerland (or even in Vorarlberg), is quite
interesting - but probably a topic for another list.

Hope that clears it up somewhat,

--------
Ian.

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

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