tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post6952188608903905708..comments2024-03-17T09:14:13.950+00:00Comments on John Wells’s phonetic blog: a Dutch and Afrikaans vowelJohn Wellshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13684304410735867148noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-67963524796809299652020-06-12T10:13:04.402+01:002020-06-12T10:13:04.402+01:00Haloo pak^^
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to clarify one point in this d...Ad Charlie, David,<br /><br />to clarify one point in this debate. <br /><br />Suppose that there is a language X and a speech-community C, a proper subset of all speakers (native) of X. <br /><br />Now, I do NOT BY ANY MEANS deny that:<br /><br />1. C can form the wish to call X as spoken by itself (with local peculiarities, perhaps, and even without) something else, say 'Y' and---under suitable circumstances---even make a valid law of that wish.<br /><br />2. ... and subsequently work on making Y develop away from X as spoken by the rest of the X-speaking 'world' (all other speakers of X).<br /><br />3. This can be successful, after a few generations, and as a result, Y WILL, indeed, become and thenceforward be a language different from X.<br /><br />What I obstinately do deny (and you guys equally emphatically affirm, meseems) is precisely that what in my story happens under 3. can happen someplace directly after 1. and before 2. has begun.<br /><br />Hier steh' ich, ich kann kaum anders --- to (roughly) quote Dr. Div. Martin Luther.<br /><br />Full name --- see Profile<br /><br />P.S. And of course C may go on calling their speech 'Y' without ever proceeding to 2. or their hearts being at it, still less without achieving 3. --- see our friends the Flemmings.Podpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-88724856308926703212013-03-04T08:33:17.842+00:002013-03-04T08:33:17.842+00:00Charlie:
'When the language users say that th...Charlie:<br /><br />'When the language users say that they speak three separate languages the problem is solved. they are three languages.'<br /><br />Can't they err? Are they, like Pope, infallible? And does that position not undermine all scientific linguistics? Why can't something analogous be true in medicine, economics, law? Or are you perhaps saying, there is no matter of fact here to err or be right about, it's just 'I say it it so and thereby I make it so'?<br /><br /><br />'Serbian speakers born and raised in, for example, Germany who say they ‘can’t stand’ the speech of Croats (or vice versa).'<br /><br />I know such cases. Well, the 'speech', not the 'language', because the latter's manifestly the same. Some Germans are in the habit of mocking the 'ridiculous' Austrian diphthongs or Swiss monophthongs ('uuswiis')...<br /><br />Re Chinese you're probably right, I assume, but I can't see how it proves me wrong.<br /><br />'many Chinese still read texts from the Warring States period in the original version, whereas Italians typically perceive the much younger Classical Latin as — a completely different language.'<br /><br />but can they read these texts just because they can read contemporary Chinese (in any form)? If yes, why just 'many', why not 'all'? Italians can of course learn Latin too, if they have learnt it.<br /><br />Deutschweizer. Sorry, that was a 'haplology'.<br /><br />'speakers of one variant can’t endure the speech of their contemporaries '<br /><br />One variant of what (if not 'the same language')? Besides, such 'can't endures' are inordinate impulses that should be educated away, rather than supported and encouraged by giving their subjects weapons. As I said before, I can't see anything objectionable in calling one's speech whatever (Nether-Grubbledwaithesque for instance---it's 'als het U belieft, mijnheer', wenn es Euch beliebt, if this be to your liking... feel free); I only object to fooling oneself and others into believing that by being given a new name a speech form becomes a separate language in the scientific, linguistic sense of 'language'. This the majority of Flemmings, for instance, wisely do not do....<br /><br />' Are the names of sovereign countries fancy names? I don’t think so.'<br /><br />Sovereign countries are conventional beings that men can create almost _ad lib_. (Question arises how viable they would be, but that's a different story.) Languages are not.<br /><br />'Which dictatorship are you referring to? The Third Reich?'<br /><br />No, People's Republic of Poland (1944-1989). It was a Communist (Soviet-style) dictature, certainly not so cruel as the Third Reich (especially to non-Polish nationals) but it had (while every dictature has some support from its subjects) less, not to say far less, moral support from its subjects than had that of the T. R. and was, as far as I can tell, more oppressive to its subjects than the latter to its.<br /><br />Full name --- see Profile<br />Podpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-36657372918513683252013-03-03T22:06:48.217+00:002013-03-03T22:06:48.217+00:00 Wojciech:
The Farsi-Tajik-Dari problem is the pr... Wojciech:<br /> <em>The Farsi-Tajik-Dari problem is the problem of whether they be separate languages in their own right or variants of the same language</em><br /> When the language users say that they speak three separate languages the problem is solved: they are three languages. No matter what outsiders say about linguistic structure and classification.<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>half-wild peoples [...] the way they have been perceived in NW Europe at least since Bismarck's time</em><br /> A lot has happened ever since, and many members of those peoples now live in parts of Europe further to the north and/or west. I doubt that the ‘general perception’ is still the same. What I find interesting, however, is to meet native Serbian speakers born and raised in, for example, Germany who say they ‘can’t stand’ the speech of Croats (or vice versa). — Why on earth should they be condemned by ‘scientific linguists’ to classify their own speech as something they ‘can’t stand’?<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>sometimes when reference is made to 'the' Chinese language (język chiński) people ask back: which?</em><br /> Someone says, ‘I’m American.’ — Where’s he/she from? • A. The village of America, Limburg, Netherlands. • B. The United States of America. • C. Anywhere in North or South America.<br /> Someone says, ‘You can write me in Chinese.’ — Which language does he/she mean? • A. Classical Chinese of the Qín dynasty (whence the word ‘China’). • B. Standard Mandarin. • C. Any form of Sinitic, like Cantonese or Shanghainese.<br /> It may seem strange to you that Hong Kong has two official languages, Chinese and English, <em>without ever stipulating what is meant by ‘Chinese.’</em> Most Hong Kongers speak Cantonese but write Mandarin and also learn to read Classical Chinese at school. The dictionaries I have from Hong Kong give both Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciations. Maybe your notion of what a language ‘should be’ is a bit Eurocentric. <em>Languages mean different things and serve different purposes in different cultures.</em> — And please don’t try to teach the Chinese the meaning of culture. They have the oldest surviving one and many Chinese still read texts from the Warring States period in the original version, whereas Italians typically perceive the much younger Classical Latin as — a <em>completely</em> different language.<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>Deutschweizer</em><br /> The German word is even longer than that, it’s <em>Deutschschweizer.</em> Sometimes German words are overly long. Thus, <em>Tschetschenien</em> (14 letters) is <em>Chechnya</em> (8 letters) in English and <em>Чечня</em> (5 letters) in Russian.<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>Calling them separate languages, furnishing them with a navy and an army would not be ridiculous. This is, as of 2013, not yet the case with our South-Slavic quadruplets</em><br /> It is not rediculous but very serious when speakers of one variant can’t endure the speech of their contemporaries — see above.<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>whither shall it lead when we go on recognising their self-determination in calling those micro-speech-forms fancy names?</em><br /> Are the names of sovereign countries fancy names? I don’t think so.<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>Having grown up in a country where self-determination was costly (due to a dictature then in power)</em><br /> Which dictatorship are you referring to? The Third Reich?<br /><br /> Charlie RulandAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-62353378053977384612013-03-03T16:59:27.969+00:002013-03-03T16:59:27.969+00:00The Farsi-Tajik-Dari problem is the problem of whe...The Farsi-Tajik-Dari problem is the problem of whether they be separate languages in their own right or variants of the same language; maybe it's a problem just for me, as I know far too little about it. I am accustomed to thinking that the '3' are just 1, with local variations and variants but that's rather third-hand knowledge.<br /><br />Re the half-wild peoples, I was talking about peopleZ, not people, and the way they have been perceived in NW Europe at least since Bismarck's time ('Pomeranian grenadier'...).<br /><br />Re Chinese: sometimes when reference is made to 'the' Chinese language (język chiński) people ask back: which? So there is a problem, takes some clarification, some patience...<br /><br />Re Swiss German: look up any decent history of Neuhochdeutsch. Economic reasons were at play too, it was of little profitability to print books in a 'weird' (without the Alemannic-Swabian area) language-standard which was underway forming itself, so they gave up on it by mid-1750ies at the latest.<br /><br />Re Luxemburgian. Afaik German was made an official language of the GDoL only 1820 or thereabouts, L. never considering itself a German-speaking country, so introducing Letzeburghish in the XX century as the national language was only consistent and perhaps overdue. But they had (and have) French, as the Swiss (Deutschweizer) did not. Plus, as you correctly note, they never cancelled German as an official language.<br /><br />But Letzeburghish, Swiss German, Low German are clearly and distinctly different from German, it may be a matter of debate whether enough to count as separate languages, but clearly enough to count as separate 'language forms'. Calling them separate languages, furnishing them with a navy and an army would not be ridiculous. This is, as of 2013, not yet the case with our South-Slavic quadruplets, which continue being more like English in UK and US, or (standard) German in D and A. Let's wait another 60-90 years...<br /><br />Re Cashubian: there are people who speak a Cashubian dialect, write standard Cashubian (hardly anyone speaks it, but there are schools where they teach it, there is some literature in it), speak and write standard Polish. Some of them may speak a(nother) Polish dialect. Same with Sardinian (Italian for Polish of course).<br /><br />Re fictitious languages. Well, Hebrew was not all that fictitious, it was added-to by Eliezer ben Yehuda and others, but what was authentic in it from the Antiquity was carried-over. This is at least the story that I know. Indonesian --- no idea. Esperanto may be a better example. My point is that 'Serbian' etc. are not (yet) on a par with Hebrew or Esperanto, and when they will have become really distinct languages (in several generations' time) that'll be due to natural evolution as much as to aprioristic language-planning.<br /><br />With all due respect: every hamlet, nay, every cottage has its own dialect, people have their individual idiolects --- whither shall it lead when we go on recognising their self-determination in calling those micro-speech-forms fancy names? Am I free to call my (what to all ends and purposes is) standard Polish 'Upper-Callersmanian' because I pronounce the word 'kino' (movie-theatre) with a particular inflection?... This would mock the very idea of self-determination, I fear. Having grown up in a country where self-determination was costly (due to a dictature then in power) I'd oppose distributing it to anybody for free.<br /><br />Full name --- see ProfilePodpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-70775022257436928842013-03-03T14:03:44.979+00:002013-03-03T14:03:44.979+00:00 Wojciech:
I am aware of the Farsi-Tajik-Dari pro... Wojciech:<br /> <em>I am aware of the Farsi-Tajik-Dari problem</em><br /> I am not. What’s the problem?<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>I think Western Europeans (pretend to) connive with those excesses of linguistic self-determination in the Balkans out of a feeling of mature cultural superiority over those (supposedly) 'half-wild Balkan peoples'</em><br /> Wojciech, there are millions of BCMS speakers in Germany and the UK, so we know very well they are not ‘half-wild.’ For some of you in Poland they may be exotic and seemingly wild peoples, but certainly not for citizens of the countries who received a lot of immigrants from the Belkans.<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>there is 1 Chinese language [...] and many Chinese languageZ (a somewhat, admittedly, paradoxical situation)</em><br /> <em>Nema problema.</em> In Chinese there is no singular-plural contrast, so 语言 <em>yǔyán</em> can mean both ‘language’ and ‘languages’ (or dual: ‘two/a couple of languages’).<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>Swiss German: [...] there were more serious reasons for not splitting off from German, such as having a 'big' standard language</em><br /> This is new to me in the context of the Swiss Germans, yet it makes me curious. Where can I read more about it?<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>(for the Luxemburgians it's French, that's why they could afford splitting off from German, not consistently...)</em><br /> This is nonsense, I’m afraid. The introduction of Luxemburgian never meant a turn away from Standard German, which has remained an official language all over the Grand Duchy. And Standard German might also remain official in Switzerland, why not? — Please also note that Montenegro recognizes Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian (as well as Albanian) and officially concedes that currently Serbian is the language of a larger part of the population than Montenegrin. It’s not an EITHER-OR, but rather an AND.<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>Cashubian dialects being sometimes most wildly unlike 1 another (here an analogy to Frisian [...])</em><br /> How far does the analogy go? Do (at least some) people speak a Kashubian dialect as well as a Polish dialect as well as standard Polish (and maybe also standard Kashubian, if they can learn it at school or elsewhere)?<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>There are fictitious marriages</em><br /> ... and there are ficticious languages. Yet even ‘constructed’ languages may be very thriving. Examples are Modern Hebrew and Indonesian. The latter now has over 20 million native speakers and several times as many are fluent L2/L3/Ln speakers.<br /><br /> Wojciech:<br /> <em>What you write about recognising the place from the accent is strongly reminiscent of Prof. 'Iggins.</em><br /> Yes it is. My mother was able to place a speaker of her dialect group quite narrowly, within a few miles. But of course this was not based on accent alone, but also on idioms, grammar etc. And I don’t think that would have been possible in a less rural area. Nor do I think is it still possible nowadays, due to the levelling effect of mobility and the mass media.<br /><br /> Charlie RulandAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-49950399213853073272013-03-03T08:44:16.383+00:002013-03-03T08:44:16.383+00:00Ad Charlie,
I am aware of the Farsi-Tajik-Dari pr...Ad Charlie,<br /><br />I am aware of the Farsi-Tajik-Dari problem, or Hindi-Urdu or, closer to home, Bulgarian-Macedonian but I can't tell if they be separate languages already. As I wrote earlier, if two speech communities develop independently from 1 another they can develop 2 languages from what originally was just 1. No doud aboud it! My point was, rather, that in the case of Serbo-Croatian this has not happened yet, perhaps too little time has flown by, in the case of the Flemmings and the Dutch they had enough time but have not developed 2 different languages either. (As distinct from the Dutch and the Boers!). Nor have Yanks and Brits, he'en be thanks. What with self-determination: everyone be free to 'leave his/her language alone' (Robert A. Hall Jr.), and away from a previously common standard, and to call one's language anything to one's liking, AND even to rename one's language BEFORE it has become a different language from what it was before the renaming, except that the last one is ridiculous and mocks the sublime ideal of self-determination. I think Western Europeans (pretend to) connive with those excesses of linguistic self-determination in the Balkans out of a feeling of mature cultural superiority over those (supposedly) 'half-wild Balkan peoples', and not because they truly and sincerely believe 4 languages have arisen where formerly there was but 1.<br /><br />Chinese: there is 1 Chinese language (the C. l.: putonghua/guoyu... what not) and many Chinese languageZ (a somewhat, admittedly, paradoxical situation). And also, 'Chinese language' (singular) can be a collective term for all Chinese languageZ or some subset of them, sometimes.<br /><br />Swiss German: a standard dialect exists: Bahnhofbuffet-Olten-Dialekt :). But seriously, there were more serious reasons for not splitting off from German, such as having a 'big' standard language (for the Luxemburgians it's French, that's why they could afford splitting off from German, not consistently...).<br /><br />Pomerania is very variegated dialect-wise, probably to the highest degree in all of Poland, Cashubian dialects being sometimes most wildly unlike 1 another (here an analogy to Frisian or Sardinian). Yet it would be mockery to declare the standard language of that region a different language from Polish.<br /><br />Marriage: the madders ain't that simple, sir. There are fictitious marriages, entered for instance with a view to obtaining immigration privileges or such ... so a 'real marriage' is very well a matter of what the married couple do after the vows... (and not just the _prima nox_).<br /><br />What you write about recognising the place from the accent is strongly reminiscent of Prof. 'Iggins. I don't think it is true of all languages, some have less local variation than others, considerably less, even.<br /><br />Full name --- see ProfilePodpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-71762543264591660652013-03-02T22:59:33.103+00:002013-03-02T22:59:33.103+00:00 Wojciech:
But a marriage is a conventional insti... Wojciech:<br /> <em>But a marriage is a conventional institution, whereas a language not (not in the same way,at least).</em><br /> What matters is that you can <em>declare</em> linguistic entities to belong to the same language just as you can declare human beings to belong to the same family. This is completely independent of linguistic or structural similarity. There are so many examples that show that it is <em>always</em> possible for a structlang to be perceived as several idlangs (e.g. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_language" rel="nofollow">Farsi—Tajik—Dari</a>) or vice-versa (e.g. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_language" rel="nofollow">Mandarin—Wú—Mǐn—Hakka—Cantonese—...</a>). Language structure does <em>not</em> per se constitute linguistic identity. In some cultures the speech of men and women wildly differs on all levels (phonological, grammatical, lexical), yet as long as people declare that what they speak is the same language it has to be accepted that it is. Not to accept this means depriving those people of their right to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-determination" rel="nofollow">self-determination</a>. (Didn’t you cite from the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/SearchByLang.aspx" rel="nofollow">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>?) To be sure: No one has the right to teach others the ‘correct’ classification or status of their language or ethnicity. People don’t need cultural missionaries. Never.<br /><br /> David Crosbie (Mr Salter):<br /> <em>So we'll have to invent two new terms </em>idlect<em> and </em>structlect<em> for the two views of what a dialect is.</em><br /> Fine, почему нет?<br /><br /> David Crosbie:<br /> <em>• Are the measures of the Constitution irreversible in the feasible near future?<br /> • How many people outside the region have woken up to this constitutional status?</em><br /> • I don’t know what it takes to change the Montenegrin Constitution, but why should they want to revert?<br /> • My guess is: very few so far.<br /><br /> David Crosbie:<br /> <em>What I like about the </em>id<em> view of dialect and language is that it's a particularly good fit with the view in Classical Greece where the terms originate.</em><br /> This I cannot judge. I don’t even know which non-Hellenic languages were spoken in Greece at that time let alone what role linguistic variation played among the Hellenes. However it is clear that it’s not possible to study Classical Greek without learning about dialectal variation. It seems to have been much more important in Classical Greek than a few centuries later in the more standardized κοινή Greek. — Generally speaking people always want to differ from their neighbours (or: be ‘<em>id</em>entical with themselves’?) and therefore listen for even the slightest linguistic differences. Many locals can identify the speech of a particular place when to me it is just a, say, Irish accent. And this perceived diversity can be an obstacle to creating one’s own idlang. It is said that the Swiss Germans would long ago have split linguistically from the rest of the German speaking world if only they could agree on a homogeneous new standard of Swiss German. There’s variation everywhere... with the possible exception of coastal Pomerania ;-)<br /><br /> Charlie RulandAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-52420027069853041002013-03-02T20:59:15.343+00:002013-03-02T20:59:15.343+00:00Gentlemen:
As an addendum: I do not deny the obvi...Gentlemen:<br /><br />As an addendum: I do not deny the obvious fact that, once Ruritania is split into Ruritania and Urbitania, and the common language of both parts, heretofore known as Ruritanian, is renamed in both parts Ruritanian and Urbitanian respectively, it can well develop after a few generations into two different languages. This has happen'd as we know innumerable numbers of times. If, that is, Ruritanians and Urbitanians are at daggers drawn with one another, do not entertain much contact, don't care about the common heritage (don't read the 'old' books) and what not. But Croatia and Serbia aren't like that (anymore) and soon all of'em we'll be just beans in the common European soup, aka the Belgian Empire. Some Serbians, some Croatians, some Bosnians and some Montenegrinoes (if that be the word...) might well think that they speak a different language than the other three, like your Punjabi who believed he spoke Urdu, or M. Jourdain who believed he spoke verse... they all err. That's no surprise, we human beings err often, perhaps most of the time.<br /><br />At least our host, Mr. John C. Wells, had the pluck---and the Lord-Russellian 'robust sense of reality'---to maintain that Flemish is the same language as Dutch. I have here in Gdansk a Flemish students who keeps praising the beauty of his natural tongue, setting it sharply apart from the less-than-beauty of that of his 'northern neighbours', yet even he calls it 'Dutch' and does not pretend that it be anything else than a variant of Dutch.<br /><br />Full true name --- see ProfilePodpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-46048667130223761612013-03-02T14:44:32.604+00:002013-03-02T14:44:32.604+00:00But a marriage is a conventional institution, wher...But a marriage is a conventional institution, whereas a language not (not in the same way,at least). <br /><br />Full name -- see ProfilePodpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-74170511095352265402013-03-02T13:51:47.755+00:002013-03-02T13:51:47.755+00:00CORRECTED VERSION OF EARLIER POST
homoid/Charlie
...CORRECTED VERSION OF EARLIER POST<br /><br />homoid/Charlie<br /><br />Up to a point, Lord Copper. I can accept <i>idlang</i> (though I don't much care for the name) but with one caveat.<br /><br /><i>David emphasises the function of language as a means of establishing social groups and more especially of providing nations with a separate identity</i><br /><br />I would say <b>exclusively</b> providing nations — a loaded term, so let's say <i>'states'</i> or <i>'political entities'</i> — with a separate identity. The <b>identity-reinforcement</b> does not distinguish languages from dialects.<br /><br />So we'll have to invent two new terms <i>idlect</i> and <i>structlect</i> for the two views of what a dialect is.<br /><br /><i>Structlects</i> are recognised by linguists — either by accepting popular perceptions of dialects, or by analysing <i>structlangs</i> for significant variations.<br /><br /><i>Idlects</i> arise from cultural and political forces. When those forces succeed to the point of external recognition, the <i>idlect</i> becomes an <i>idlang</i>.<br /><br />It's that <b>external recognition</b> I had in mind when I wrote of <i>at least three</i> successors to Serbo-Croat. There are teach-youself Bosnian books widely available, and other superficial marks of normality and acceptance. That, I suggest, is far less true of Montenegrin. Two questions arise:<br /><br />• Are the measures of the Constitution irreversible in the feasible near future?<br />• How many people outside the region have woken up to this constitutional status?<br /><br />What I like about the <i>id</i> view of dialect and language is that it's a particularly good fit with the view in Classical Greece where the terms originate. I actually studied Greek Philology as an undergraduate and the major work <i>The Greek Dialects</i> by Carl Buck was initially a great surprise. I now see that, in these new terms, Buck was writing about <i>structlects</i>, whereas the Greeks of the time were interested in <i>idlects</i> associated with <b>a selection</b> of geographical areas, to which particular literary genres were conventionally associated.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-12085891902020699392013-03-02T13:03:40.749+00:002013-03-02T13:03:40.749+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-1327076654351253612013-03-02T12:50:29.304+00:002013-03-02T12:50:29.304+00:00 Wojciech:
Is British (English) English and Ameri... Wojciech:<br /> <em>Is British (English) English and American English different idlangs? Because the Brits spell 'theatre' and then Yanks 'theater' or because the former say 'have you eaten yet' annd the latter famously say 'did you eat yet'? [...] My God, do different phrasings create different something-or-other-langs out of one?</em><br /><br /> No, it doesn’t matter for idlangs how similar or different the idioms used really are. You are again thinking only in terms of structlang. It’s like wedlock: what matters is not the fact that you share your lives or have children, but that you solemnly <em>declare</em> you are a married couple.<br /><br /> Charlie RulandAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-47810081959494446012013-03-02T12:24:56.079+00:002013-03-02T12:24:56.079+00:00This comment has been removed by the author.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-759542121610261232013-03-02T11:37:43.145+00:002013-03-02T11:37:43.145+00:00I can only say that I don't understand this &#...I can only say that I don't understand this 'idlang' business. Is British (English) English and American English different idlangs? Because the Brits spell 'theatre' and then Yanks 'theater' or because the former say 'have you eaten yet' annd the latter famously say 'did you eat yet'? <br /><br />If Tusk and his chummies decreed that we don't speak Polish in Gdańsk but say 'Pomeranian' only because have certain linguistic mannerisms and quirks not so often met with in say Cracow and (and their behest) shall henceonward write in runes---would that create a Pomeranian idlang?<br /><br />Omniglot's translations are different phrasings of the same, e.g. the Croatian says 'All earth had one language' whereas the Serbian says 'There was on the whole earth one language...', and the Bosnian says 'All earth spoke ... one language'. My God, do different phrasings create different something-or-other-langs out of one? Is 'England expects that every man shall do his duty' and 'England anticipates that all members of the personnel will discharge their respective tasks' really written in two different ....-langs?Podpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-78673319330318343822013-03-02T00:21:19.010+00:002013-03-02T00:21:19.010+00:00 1. My impression is that this discussion suffers ... 1. My impression is that this discussion suffers from a lack of determinateness of the word <em>language.</em> David emphasises the function of <em>language</em> as a means of establishing social groups and more especially of providing nations with a separate identity, whereas Wojciech seems to refer to a means of communication that has a certain structure which is different from that of other <em>languages.</em> Here’s my proposal to put an end to this confusion: let’s henceforth call David’s notion <em>idlang</em> [ˈɪdlæŋ] and Wojciech’s <em>structlang,</em> taking <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constructed_language" rel="nofollow"><em>conlang</em></a> as a model for word formation. Further <em>-lang</em> words may be coined when it seems necessary or helpful.<br /><br /> 2. I would like to make it clear beyond doubt that Serbo-Croatian has split into <em>four</em> (not three) separate idlangs. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegrin_language" rel="nofollow">According to Wikipedia</a> the Montenegrin Constitution ‘was ratified on 19 October 2007, declaring Montenegrin as the official language of Montenegro, as well as recognising Albanian, Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.’ Please also note that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegrin_alphabet" rel="nofollow">the Montenegrin alphabet</a> is unique among the <em>BCMS</em> alphabets in that it possesses the letters <strong>Śś Źź</strong>, like Polish. The Cyrillic equivalents are <strong>С́с́ З́з́</strong> which to the best of my knowledge do not occur in the alphabet of any other idlang.<br /><br /> 3. It is also interesting that <a href="http://www.omniglot.com/babel/langfam.htm" rel="nofollow">Omniglot’s <em>Tower of Babel</em> translations</a> given for <a href="http://www.omniglot.com/babel/croatian.htm" rel="nofollow">Croatian</a>, <a href="http://www.omniglot.com/babel/serbian.htm" rel="nofollow">Serbian</a> and <a href="http://www.omniglot.com/babel/bosnian.htm" rel="nofollow">Bosnian</a> all look quite different. This might be indicative of a development towards separate structlangs. Or it might not.<br /><br /> Charlie RulandAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-86224092772058251002013-02-28T14:21:26.600+00:002013-02-28T14:21:26.600+00:00David,
I would agree that a populus etc. can deci...David,<br /><br />I would agree that a populus etc. can decide to call its hitherto-existing language some other name, this most certainly. Is that all you mean? If some silly politician decides to call the Polish of Gdańsk and environs 'Pomeranian', this alone, regardless if the new name gets acquiesced-in after 20 years of bullying and fooling us into using this name, won't change anything about the linguistic fact that Pomeranian is the same language as Polish, not even a different dialect (in the Serbo-Croatian area there are various dialects but their borders do not coincide with 'Croatian' or 'Serbian') thereof. If you have got a different dialect in the true sense of the word, e.g. Luxemburgian, you can certainly decide to start it on a development separate from that of its 'Mother-language', but that is a different story. Serbian and Croatian are not separate dialects in this sense, but rather like Standard German (Hochdeutsch) in D, A and CH, or Standard French in F, B and again CH. (Standard Serbo-Croatian is significantly younger and less well-entrenched than either standard German or standard French, hence, perhaps, the whole mess...). <br /><br />Full name --- see Profile (Google)Podpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-30188473598101777652013-02-28T12:24:00.110+00:002013-02-28T12:24:00.110+00:00Samopriya Basu
I suspect there's an interesti...Samopriya Basu<br /><br />I suspect there's an interesting story of which i know only part. If only I'd asked more questions back in 1968.<br /><br />I was told that the largest group of children were from a valley that had been flooded for a dam project. If this was true, it may be that the core of the West Pakistani immigration to Bradford was <b>indirect</b> via Mirpur — i.e. that the dam was in a linguistically different area. It's not implausible that the first migrants from a place should themselves be migrants.<br /><br />I say West Pakistani because Bangla Desh had not then seceded. According to what I was told, the rest of the children spoke Bengali, Gujarati, Pashto and (possibly) Sindhi. They had no difficulty evolving a lingua franca that was easier than English, but the Centre also took in speakers of Jamaica Patois and Antilean Creole French. <br /><br />The children were supposed to be better prepared for mainstream secondary schooling after an intensive full-time course of English. It was always a silly idea for the Caribbean kids. I'm not at all sure it worked that well for the South Asian kids. I don't think any education authority uses centre like this any more.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-38548074390755448202013-02-28T11:39:24.686+00:002013-02-28T11:39:24.686+00:00Wojciech
but would they be really new, those '...Wojciech<br /><br /><i>but would they be really new, those 'new' languages?</i><br /><br />If the nation states said so, yes.<br /><br />I may be only <b>partly</b> true that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy, but it's <b>entirely</b> true that a political unit (populus as well as politicians) with an army and a navy can (if thee wish) turn a dialect into a language. David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-77986174031577929352013-02-28T04:51:24.985+00:002013-02-28T04:51:24.985+00:00"I didn't realize that this was controver..."I didn't realize that this was controversial."<br />No, this isn't, at least to the best of my limited knowledge. I apologize if my stupid wording caused any sort of misunderstanding -- I was just surprised to learn that ethnic Kashmiris spoke Punjabi as their first language.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11343068774549667364noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-1478476882693340312013-02-27T19:37:30.834+00:002013-02-27T19:37:30.834+00:00David
'In that impossible event, the new lang...David<br /><br />'In that impossible event, the new languages would, of course, exist.'<br /><br />but would they be really new, those 'new' languages? <br /><br />As a linguist, I would indeed treat the emergence of such 'new' languages as a chance to boost my productivity: I would publish the same thing, 'A Descriptive Grammar of ...' twice, thrice, fource over, just exchanging the name of the language, and perhaps a couple of minor details inside, such as got(ten) and '... that he (should) not smoke'.<br /><br />Re German: you were wrong previously, the ministries work on a common SPELLING, not language, standard. In Swiss High German eg 'ohne' (without) reigns the dative, not the accusative as in German High German, and it would be preposterous to foist the 'bundesdeutsch' case on the German Swiss, no such attempts are made afaik.<br /><br />We acquiescence: well, we acquiesce in various things, such as that there is no British Empire to speak of any more, or that Canada is no longer called 'British North America', etc. In Poland, they like 30 years ago took to calling Dutch (holenderski) --- 'niderlandzki', Netherlandic, a weird (to say the least) quirk of some overzealous bureaucrats, the word had gone out of use over 200 years ago, now with younger generations 'niderlandzki' is taking root, though old 'fools' like myself still find it ridiculous and avoid it; there are young fools who believe that 'Dutch' and 'Netherlandic' be two different languages... <br /><br />What you write about linguists ignored and cities-as-authorities reflects, I fear, on the respectability of linguistics as a science. Or would have reflected if it had been true. Podpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-20347010408501976412013-02-27T17:18:29.420+00:002013-02-27T17:18:29.420+00:00Wojciech
David, you appear to believe in magic. O...Wojciech<br /><br /><i>David, you appear to believe in magic. One day English gets renamed, let's suppose, 'South Brittanic' for England, 'North Brittanic' for Scotland, 'American' for the US and so on --- will English go out of existence? Will so many new languages start existing and being spoken? </i><br /><br />The impossible magic would be for English to <i>'get renamed'</i>. It would take the political activity of thousands and the acquiescence of billions. In that impossible event, the new languages would, of course, exist. But it won't happen, so they won't.<br /><br />In that impossible event, any linguist who objects will be ignored. Linguists who agree will be cited as authorities.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-71768435570196382492013-02-27T16:47:31.314+00:002013-02-27T16:47:31.314+00:00David, you appear to believe in magic. One day Eng...David, you appear to believe in magic. One day English gets renamed, let's suppose, 'South Brittanic' for England, 'North Brittanic' for Scotland, 'American' for the US and so on --- will English go out of existence? Will so many new languages start existing and being spoken? What's in a name? A rose under a different name---nay, under so many new different names--would still be a rose, would it not? Let Americans not just say but even write eg 'the cennrr of the ciddy' while you Brits go on with 'the centre of the city' --- it will continue being the same thing and the same language, no? Add to this 'aluminum' vs. 'aluminium', 'stroller' vs. 'pram', 'hood' vs. 'bonnet' etc. etc. --- still, English under these different names would 'smell just as sweet'. Does that not stand to reason?<br /><br />The Croats insists on their diphthongs, 'mlijeko', that Serbs on their non-diphthongs, 'mleko'... that of course is very true...<br /><br />Full name ---- see Profile Podpora społeczeństwahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08339088245843399386noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-377103124456226005.post-35968319901271833162013-02-27T16:06:26.345+00:002013-02-27T16:06:26.345+00:00Wojciech
my point is that while Serbo-Croatian go...Wojciech<br /><br /><i>my point is that while Serbo-Croatian goes on existing, it is---for nationalist reasons---called something else in Serbia, Croatia, etc. That alone does not make it 3 or 4 different languages.</i><br /><br />Ah, but it does. Nothing else whatsoever is needed.<br /><br />Serbo-Croatian goes on existing in the way that Hittite goes on existing. Well, rather more people can read Serbo-Croat than can read Hittite. A great many people remember speaking it, and there's a considerable body of spoken Serbo-Coat on film and audio recording. But it's essentially a dead language — except for purposes of linguistic study.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.com