Re: Language acquisition, dialects

Matthew Huntbach wrote: 

English is relatively homogenous compared to most other major
European languages. If there is an appearance of uniformity
elsewhere, it is only because it was imposed artificially, whereas
the homogeneity of English meant this was never necessary.


[...]

Low German and High German dialects differ at least as much, probably
more, than English dialects.


Courts in Germany employed "dialect interpreters" as recently as a hundred
years ago, as far as I know. Proceedings were carried on and written down in
standard German. The testimony of a witness who spoke an unintelligible
German dialect was translated into standard German by a dialect interpreter
for the court. It was Martin Luther who set the stage for the standard in
the 16th century by elevating a dialect, plus his own new words, for his
translation of "God's word." God is a hard act to follow so the spread of
Martin Luther's language like wildfire to all areas where German dialects
were spoken paved the way for today's standard, although dialects still
exist. There're some keen-eared Germans who can listen to a way a person
from a certain state speaks and can tell him where he comes from, either
exactly or within a radius of 15 miles from his home.

As far as big countries and dialects go, China is one of the all-time
winners. When a communist government came to power in 1949, the new leaders
made an effort to spread Mandarin throughout China. Fortunately, TV came
along to help them. Today someone who speaks Mandarin and travels throughout
China will find that many Chinese can understand him, but he often will have
great difficulty making any sense out of what they say to him in a mixture
of their local dialect and what they think is Mandarin.

After an experience like China, one realizes how homogenous English actually
is and begins to think about its general classification according to
difficulty. Admittedly, no foreign language, no matter which one it is, is
easy to learn, but English definitely falls into the kindergarten class of
Indo-European languages.

Regards, ----- WB. 

.

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