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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| beano Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4632 days ago 1049 posts - 2152 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Russian, Serbian, Hungarian | Message 177 of 299 26 October 2013 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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As a European citizen, I am aware of the languages in this part of the world which are similar. But I haven't
got a clue about African languages. Somebody could tell me they speak X, Y and Z and I would have to take that at face value. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6607 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 178 of 299 27 October 2013 at 1:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5440 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 179 of 299 27 October 2013 at 2:10am | IP Logged | |||||
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Good Heavens! I'm sorry I brought up this Balkan language question. Mea culpa. It was discussed to death about 5
pages back. This is what happens when you come late to the party. Edited by s_allard on 27 October 2013 at 3:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6607 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 180 of 299 27 October 2013 at 3:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've read it all, yes. The only thing I saw is that you have no clue what you're talking about.
5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5440 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 181 of 299 27 October 2013 at 5:28am | IP Logged | |||||
With reference to the post immediately preceding this one, please, let's not revisit the debate about the ex- Yugoslavian languages unless there is something new to be said. Been there, done that. We've moved on. Insofar as American and British English are concerned, it might be interesting to note that as early as 1921, H.L. Mencken wrote The American Language that one can read online here. The American Language I think a solid argument could be made for British English and American English being two distinct languages I should also point out that French translations of American works often say "Traduit de l'américain" as opposed to "Traduit de l'anglais" for works from British English. I'm not sure what they say about the other varieties of English. Edited by s_allard on 27 October 2013 at 6:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4838 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 182 of 299 27 October 2013 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@s_allard:
Thanks for the Mencken link. Just to add that I think that if they aren't now, then the trend is inexorably in that direction, in spite of other factors mitigating against it. They probably won't be recognised as such in my lifetime, but perhaps in the generation or two following. And similarly with North American / Latin American Spanish / Peninsula Spanish. Of course a lot will probably depend upon developments in geopolitics, about which we can only speculate now. For obvious reasons, it is quite a different situation to that in the Balkans or Scandinavia. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4717 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 183 of 299 27 October 2013 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think the big problem with that question is that it's political, and in that sense, I am inclined to agree with Chung on how BCMS/SC functions. I don't know your viewpoint on the latter but would like to see it, perhaps you could motivate it? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5440 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 184 of 299 27 October 2013 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Mencken's use of the term American language was not based on any linguistic analysis. He simply believed that
the English spoken in the US contained so much distinctive content, especially vocabulary, that it had taken on a quintessentialyl American character. The American language is the language that best expresses America. The question of intelligibility with British or any other variety of English is irrelevant. There is something of an equation Country = Language. This of course is why we have that eternal controversy about the Balkan languages. But we also have countries without a single dominant or official language and many countries that share a linguistic code inherited from a colonial period.. This leads to a certain ambiguity of usage when referring to the various varieties of a given language. This is important to us at HTLAL when we have to choose which variety of the spoken language to learn. With respect to Spanish materials, I've noticed two approaches to this problem. One approach claims to teach the Spanish language that is the same everywhere with some minute differences from country to country. The Spanish taught is usually European Spanish. The other approach is to teach Latin American Spanish with somewhat complete disregard for European Spanish. When learning spoken Spanish you have to choose your preference at some point. You can't do both varieties. North Americans will tend to go for Latin American Spanish whereas Europeans will opt for European Spanish. And then we have many books and websites devoted to the vocabulary of specific countries, especially for Mexican Spanish I've noticed a similar sort of trend for English where there is ton of learning material that says explicitly American English and not just English. Similarly, Assimil and other producers of methods are publishing stuff labelled Brazilian Portuguese. In passing, I should note that there are nearly no teaching materials in English for Quebec French, Rather than use the term divergence of these national varieties or dialects, I like to think of convergence or consolidation towards national standards. This convergence within a country obviously leads to divergence relative to other varieties. Where you have locally produced dictionaries and grammar books you have the foundations for a national standard. This is already the case in American English. I suspect that in the Balkans the history of political animosity may lead to explicit attempts such as spelling reforms, invention of new words and creation of teaching materials for schools in order to create distinct national standards. As we can see the issue of what is a language hinges on a combination of linguistic and political or historical factors. As an interesting example of how linguistics, politics and geography interplay, here is an extract from the Wikipedia entry for Portuguese. "The closest language to Portuguese is Galician, spoken in the autonomous community of Galicia (northwestern Spain). The two were at one time a single language, known today as Galician-Portuguese, but since the political separation of Portugal from Galicia they have diverged, especially in pronunciation and vocabulary. But there is still a linguistic continuity, the variant of galego referred to as "galego-português baixo-limiao" spoken in several galician villages between the municipalities of Entrimo and Lobios and the transborder region of the natural park of Peneda-Gerês/Xurês. "Considered a rarity, a living vestige of the medieval language that ranged from Cantabria to Mondego[...]".[87] As reported by UNESCO, due to the pressure of the Spanish language in the standard official version of the Galician language, the Galician language was in the verge of disapearing.[88] According to Unesco´s philologist Tapani Salminen, the proximity with the Portuguese language makes Galician a special language that is protected due to its proximity to the Portuguese language. [89] Nevertheless, the core vocabulary and grammar of Galician are still noticeably closer to Portuguese than to those of Spanish. In particular, like Portuguese, it uses the future subjunctive, the personal infinitive, and the synthetic pluperfect. Mutual intelligibility (estimated at 85% by R. A. Hall, Jr., 1989)[90] is very good between Galicians and northern Portuguese, but less so between Galicians and Brazilians. Nevertheless, many linguists still consider Galician to be a co-dialect of the Portuguese language. The government of Galicia has passed a law making the Portuguese language mandatory at all the school levels, intended to encourage the use of Portuguese at all levels of Galician society. Galicia will also become a full member of the CPLP (countries in the world that speak Portuguese)." 1 person has voted this message useful |
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