[Lowlands-l] Google Translate

Fri Jul 21 08:22:18 UTC 2017

Agreed Paul.

Closest is dependent on definition.

West Fries is another example. It is closer to English than to Dutch in the tree, but it is for me, as a speaker of Afrikaans (let alone Dutch proper), quite accessible and easy (even fun) to read wiki articles in West Fries without a dictionary. Attempting East and North Frisian is considerably more difficult. An English-only speaker would struggle to read any standard of Frisian. A common misconception particularly about Frisian and English is that because Frisian is the closest living language to English if not counting Scotts, then English must also be the closest living language to Frisian. It does not work like that in any other field (take geography: because Los Angeles is the closest major city to Honolulu, does not mean that Honolulu should be the closest major city to Los Angeles) but somehow it is expected to work like that in linguistics. 

What complicates matters further, even if later stage (post split) contact is ignored, which one would assume would account for much of the similarities of modern West Fries to Dutch, is that the languages did not develop a hierarchical tree like split in the first place. In the West Germanic languages, certain features have a north-south progression (such as the second sound shift), while others may have an east-west progression, while others may by south east to north west. Still others may be the result of an innovation that started in the middle that spread out, which may have the effect of languages on opposite site with no contact appearing closer to each other than their shared neighbour in the middle. A good example is Satem-Centum languages in Indo-European. Satem was assumed to correspond to East, and Centum to west, but the discovery of Tocharian in what is now China posed challenges to that view.

It would be interesting to think what would have happened had an isolated West Germanic pocket settled before the second sound shift, remained in the south of Italy, unaffected by the High German consonant shift. Would the modern version of that language have reminded of Low-Saxon? My guess is probably not. Like English went it’s own way, such a language may gone in a direction very different from other West Germanic languages. 

> On 21 Jul 2017, at 8:49 AM, Lowlands Languages & Cultures <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
> 
> The question of "closest£ when it comes to languages is very dependent on definition.  A philological tree re[resents how different languages developed; it doesn't reflect intelligibility. The classic case is the Scandinavian languages. Norwegian classifies as a West Norse language, on a branch with Faroese and Icelandic. Swedish is East Norse, a distinct branch.  The reality is that most Norwegians would struggle to understand more than a handful of words of Icelandic, but can converse with a Swede comfortably.
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
> From: Lowlands Languages & Cultures <lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> To: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org 
> Sent: Friday, 21 July 2017, 6:50
> Subject: Re: [Lowlands-l] Google Translate
> 
> I don't like the idea of creating a kind of rivalry between minority languages so this thread makes me feel uncomfortable. West Frisian is (as the North Frisian languages and Saterfrisian) a language of its own, even if it might show results of the contact to Dutch. I might say the same about Dutch as I wasn't able to learn it because my Low Saxon was stronger and taking control. I can read Dutch without big problems - so Dutch isn't more than a Low Saxon dialect, right? Okay, that was a pun. I hope you get my point.
> Why cannot we applaude Google Translate and Facebook for their decision and work on for getting the same for Low Saxon and other minority languages?
> 
> As for the relations between the languages around the North Sea: Through the centuries they had many contacts because of migration, trade and politics. Of course that had an impact on the languages. English is even the best example how a language develops because of history. Anglo-Saxons, Danes, Normans - they all came to conquer what we know today as England. They all brought their own languages as sign of their mastery.
> 
> Greetings from Kiel,
> 
> Anja
> 
> 
> <-----Ursprungligt Meddelande----->
>  	 	From: Lowlands Languages & Cultures [lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org]
> Sent: 20/7/2017 9:50:18 PM
> To: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org
> Subject: Re: [Lowlands-l] Google Translate 
> 
> Yes. Definitely lively, that's why we should make Google add it.
> I really don't see the point of making West Frisian a seperate language though, 
> as it doesn't contain that much of a unique vocabulary, and strongly resembles Dutch.  
> 
> בתאריך 20 ביולי 2017 8:24 אחה״צ,‏ "Lowlands Languages & Cultures" <lowlands-l at listserv. linguistlist.org <mailto:lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org>> כתב:
> On 20/07/2017 11:18 AM, Eitan wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>>   I've requested Facebook they should add low german into their language poll since they recently had added West Frisian which isn't much an obvious choice.
>> 
>> That being the case, to my surprise Google Translate added West Frisian as well.
>> 
>> I don't consider West frisian the closest language to English language because of certain reasons. Here's what I wrote:
>> 
>> Low german (of plaudietsch language) is spoken by 450,000 people around the world, which is about on par with Frisian on the total. It has a rich body of literature, including the bible, and many unique expressions and vowel sounds.  
>> Compared to what is spoken in west friesland, it's a fully-fledged and dynamic language. And while it is true that Frisian is recognised minority language in the Netherlands, Plautdietsch is recognised in belize and has a minority status there.
>> 
>> Do you agree?
> https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=tf55TFRG-2w <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tf55TFRG-2w>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=9lV4S4VLhV0 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lV4S4VLhV0>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=EdaLj8jkJfI <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdaLj8jkJfI>
> 
> Sure doesn't look dead to me.
> 
> Ed Alexander
> 
>  
> 
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