LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 13.MAR.2000 (02) [E]

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From: Jorge Potter [jorgepot at caribe.net]
Subject: LL-L: "Language politics" LOWLANDS-L, 11.MAR.2000 (01) [E]

Sandy,

I must confess I don't think I agree with you with relation to your
distinction between language and dialect.

There is a big difference between apparent approval of somebody's right to
use dialect grammar and disapproval of the "incorrectness" of somebody's
usage in a minority language.

Firstly, I don't think we are drawing a distinction between a _language_
and a _dialect_ at all, merely between a language with an agreed written
standard and one without (not the key word there is "agreed" - written
standards come about by consensus).

There is also a fundamental difference between what can be defined as
"dialect usage" and what is quite simply "incorrect".

For example, "I ain't done nothing wrong" is, as you say, natural idiom.
The origins of such phrases can be traced back, and they constitute a fully
explicable grammatical usage.

However, "A seen anent 200 fowk thar" is utter nonsense. Nobody at any
stage in the development of Scots from Anglo-Saxon has ever used "anent" is
this way. This is a quite clear case where somebody has looked up "about"
is a Scots dictionary and seen "anent" (which means "regarding", NOT
"approximately"). True, if enough people come to use it then it will become
part of the language, but NOBODY apart from the author of the phrase I
mention has ever used it like that, therefore it is "incorrect".

In the same way, I accept "I done" is English, a lot of regional dialects
use it, so it is part of the "natural idiom". However, "I have did" is not
English, it is "incorrect", because nobody uses it. In the Scots of Ulster,
either "A sa" ("I saw") or "A seen" is fine, as is "A hae seen", but "A hae
sa" is nonsense, it is "incorrect", because nobody uses it.

I would argue, though with slightly less conviction, that there is even a
difference between defending "learn vs. teach" and attacking "infer vs.
imply". If we look at the German, we can see that "lehren" and "lernen" are

strikingly similar. The confusion in their usage in English dialects does
not in fact derive from just mixing up the meanings, it derives from the
confusion of the switch from infinitive in -n suffix to infinitive with
preposition "to". Most people it Ulster-Scots would say "that'll larn ye!"
(for "that'll teach you!"), but in fact the logical Ulster-Scots would be
"that'll lear ye!", which isn't much different. Thus the confusion of
"learn vs. teach" is more akin to "lie vs. lay" than "infer vs. imply". The
latter is a mix-up in meaning (which obviously can lead to complete
breakdown in communication), whereas the former is more defensible on the
basis it is a mix-up in pronunciation (and such communication problems
because of pronunciations will always come about so long as accents exist).
I should add that I don't see a major problem in people using "lay" where
strictly-speaking it should be "lie" - anybody who has studied Germanic
languages historically will see the tendency towards unifying verbs which
usually had slightly different intransitive and transitive forms (in MHG,
for example, this was usually indicated by root vowel /i/ or /e/, as still
indicated by "sitzen" vs. "setzen" or, of course (!), indeed, "liegen" vs.
"legen").

Thus I don't see the distinction of _language_ or _dialect_ along the
linesyou suggest. To me, English usage still has to be accepted by its
"inheritors" before it can be considered standard. No Government ever said
that British people has to use -ise instead of -ize on the end of words, it

just happened. People accepted the logic that if it's "advise" it's got to
be "advertise" - of course, some people didn't and usage still varies. No
Government ever said the British had to use the words "commute" or
"downsize", but given the lack of a suitable British equivalent, people
started using them.

I would add that I would accept "I ain't done nothing wrong" as "English",
but I would not accept it as "standard English". There is a difference. In
Scots we cannot define this difference because there is no standard, not
because Scots has a different status.

Essentially what we are both bringing out is a distinction between Scots
(or Low Saxon or whatever) actually being languages and being perceived as
languages. Those two are quite different.

Best wishes,
-------------------------------
Ian James Parsley
http://www.gcty.com/parsleyij
"JOY - Jesus, Others, You"

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