LL-L 'Language varieties' 2010.12.26. (01) [EN]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 26 December 2011 - Volume 01
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From: Pat Barrett pbarrett at cox.net <douglas.hinton at gmail.com>
 Subject: LL-L 'Language varieties' 2010.12.25. (01) [EN]

I weigh in on these matters with trepidation since I don't command any form
of Lowlands except English (N.A. variety).
However, I've read of lot of linguistics over 50+ years and have always
read that linguists study dialects only and a language is politically
defined. So Swedish, Nowegian, and Danish are mutually intelligible to an
extent that Chinese dialects are not. The distinction is that the first set
of dialects is found within national borders and the second set is found
within the borders of one country where they share a history and writing
system, etc.
Is it Serbo-Croation or Serbian and Croation or one of the 3 dialects the
"language" Serbo-Croation can be divided into? Is it Hindi or Urdu? Depends
on your religion, the writing system, and which higher level vocabulary you
use: Sanskrit-based or Perso-Arabic-based, etc.
As far as I can tell, Scots-English would have been a "language" had
Scotland remained independent of England and developed over 400 years as
such, thus deepening the differences between English and Scots. Can anyone
on the list say how much difference there is between Scots and English now
and compare it to the difference between Norwegian and Swedish?
As far as mutual intelligibility goes, man-on-the-street interviews I've
heard of Scotsmen and movies I've heard are not intelligible but probably
would become so, given time to hear the speech, assuming Douglas'
characterization of the differences as mainly phonetic is accurate.
Pat Barrett pbarrett at cox.net
http://ideas.lang-learn.us/barrett.php
p.s. I wrote "Scotsmen" with trepidation, also. Scottish folk would have
been safer but I've also heard Scotchmen. Any help there?

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Thanks, Pat.

It's important to bring in Scottish English at this point: a group of
English dialects with Scots substrata. Scottish English is *not* Scots,
however, or *vice versa* for that matter.

Scots has its own grammatical rules and vocabulary. You will not be able to
follow much of Scots speech unless you are thoroughly exposed to it and
learn the vocabulary and idiom. Following Scottish English is another
matter (with the exception of some Scots loanwords); it's easy once you
have a grasp of the phonology.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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