Do dialects count as �languages�? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Do dialects count as �languages�?
Tags: Language Politics \| Dialect
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

27 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

minus273
Triglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 5767 days ago
288 posts - 346 votes

Speaks: Mandarin*, English^C2, French
Studies: Ancient Greek, Tibetan

Message 25 of 27

09 May 2009 at 12:59am | IP Logged

Volte wrote:

I really don't like that definition. By it, Spanish is a dialect of Italian, but Italian dialects are separate languages - at least to me, from the view of understanding.

Actually, it's a bit worse than that - any 'heavy' dialect is a separate language by that definition, while the fairly standardized 'newscaster' registers of the major Germanic and Romance languages are two languages, albeit somewhat unwieldy ones - they require some study to understand, but not 'serious' study - and it definitely takes less study than understanding those entities traditionally called dialects.

But this view, then, contains more than a grain of truth. In some sense, the newscaster romance languages IS one language, and only by prolonged exposure had the ordinary people learned their high register, that is, just another language.
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Snesgamer
Groupie
Afghanistan
Joined 6613 days ago
81 posts - 90 votes

Studies: English*, German, Spanish, Norwegian, Scottish Gaelic

Message 27 of 27

13 May 2009 at 3:05am | IP Logged

I do believe the "navy and army" argument holds some validity. How else does Portuguese classify as a language while a "dialect" like say Scots, which broke off from English a long time ago (as did Portuguese from Spanish), has gone through a distinct set of linguistic influences than its "parent" did (more Scandinavian and Celtic words in Scots than in English), and although it has no real political hold, it claims a vital linkage to Scottish culture and even has its own "official" poet (Robert Burns)?

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