Re: The whole dialect business

On Sat, 26 Nov 2005 09:38:38 -0000, "Nebulous"
<nebulous@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>
><skrossa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>news:1132974356.969383.213550@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Custos Custodum wrote:
>> > In what respects does a dialect differ from 'a fully developed and
>> > competent language in its own right'?
>>
>> Well, first, lets define dialect and language. According to _The
>> Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics_ by Peter Matthews (Oxford
>> University Press, 1997) a dialect is "Any distinct variety of a
>> language, especially one spoken in a specific part of a country or
>> other geographical area."
>>
>> A language is simply is a grouping of dialects. Thus, the English
>> language is the grouping of all the dialects of English. The French
>> language is the grouping of all the dialects of French. And so on.
>> (Note in particular that Scottish English is a dialect of English, RP
>> English is a dialect of English, Cockney is a dialect of English, etc..
>> It is not the case that RP English is the language while Cockney is a
>> dialect, but rather that RP English and Cockney are both dialects of
>> English.)
>>
>> The characteristics that distinguish one dialect from another are
>> differences in grammar, lexicon (vocabulary & such), and phonology
>> (sound system). Therefore, since languages are groupings of dialects,
>> what distinguishes one language from another are also differences in
>> grammar, lexicon, and phonology.
>>
>> Note that both for different dialects and different languages, these
>> differences do not have to be total -- there is often overlap. In
>> general, the more closely related two dialects or languages are, the
>> more they will overlap in grammar, lexicon, and phonology. Thus the
>> grammar, lexicon, and phonology of Italian overlap more with those of
>> Spanish than they do with those of English, and so on.
>>
>> The primary linguistic (rather than cultural) criteria used by
>> linguists to determine where to put the dividing lines between
>> languages is mutual comprehensibility. That is, if two dialects are
>> considered mutually intelligible with one another, they're more likely
>> to be considered dialects of the same language, while if they aren't
>> mutually comprehensible (enough) with one another, then they are more
>> likely to be considered dialects of different languages.
>>
>> But before folks get too excited about such an easy, "objective" way to
>> "clearly" judge dialect and language, note two things:
>>
>> How mutually comprehensible two dialects are is a subjective judgment.
>> Further, even if we could easily numerically quantify mutual
>> comprehensibility, we're still left with the question of how mutually
>> comprehensible is enough -- 95%? 90%? 80%? 50%? 49%? 48%?
>>
>> Even more problematic, dialects are frequently distributed in dialect
>> continuums, whereby neighboring dialects are highly mutually
>> comprehensible, but are connected by a long string of mutually
>> comprehensible neighboring dialects to more distant dialects with which
>> they are not mutually comprehensible. E.g., there is a string of
>> dialects in a row -- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 -- each of which is
>> highly mutually comprehensible with its neighboring dialect, but less
>> so the further away two dialects are from one another, with dialect 1
>> and dialect 10 not mutually comprehensible. By the mutual
>> intelligibility criteria, dialects 1 and 5 should be considered the
>> same language (since they're mutually comprehensible) and dialects 5
>> and 10 should be considered the same language (since they're mutually
>> comprehensible), but dialects 1 and 10 should be considered dialects of
>> different languages (since they are not mutually comprehensible).
>>
>> So much for linguistic criteria solving the dialect and language
>> categorization question "clearly". (BTW, one such real world language
>> continuum runs through the Iberian peninsula, France, and Italy to
>> Romania. Another runs through Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands
>> to South Africa [Afrikaans] -- and I've even seen a few argue that it
>> branches off via Frisian & Scots to Scotland and then England.)
>>
>> Which is where subjective non-linguistic, cultural criteria comes in --
>> politics, social prestige, popular attitudes, etc. All of which
>> criteria have just as many ambiguities and inconsistencies as mutual
>> intelligibility, and none of which is consistently applied. For
>> example, political independence (having an army and navy) sometimes
>> results in mutually intelligible dialects (such as Norwegian and
>> Swedish or Spanish and Portuguese) being grouped as different
>> languages, while in other cases (American, British, Irish, New Zealand,
>> Australian English) political independence does not prevent mutually
>> intelligible dialects being grouped as the same language. Likewise,
>> political unity sometimes results in dialects that are not mutually
>> intelligible (such as the various Chinese dialects) being grouped as
>> the same language, while in other cases political unity does not
>> prevent dialects that are not mutually intelligible (such as Swiss
>> French and Swiss Italian) being grouped as different languages.
>>
>> So, what does this all mean for Scots and English? Well, by the mutual
>> intelligibility criterion, Scots can be classified either as a separate
>> language from English or as a (group of) dialect(s) of English, because
>> various dialects of Scots are _not_ mutually intelligible with various
>> dialects of English, e.g., RP English and Doric are not mutually
>> intelligible as someone who if familiar with only Doric and not
>> Scottish English needs an interpreter to speak to someone who is
>> familiar with only RP English and not Scots but at the same time there
>> is a dialect continuum from the southernmost English dialects of
>> English to the northernmost dialects of Scots. By the popular attitudes
>> criterion, Scots can be classified as either a separate language from
>> English or as a (group of) dialect(s) of English, because many people
>> consider Scots to be a separate language but at the same time many
>> others consider it to be a dialect of English. By the political
>> independence criterion (army and navy), Scots can be classified as
>> either a separate language from English or as a (group of) dialect(s)
>> of English, because Scotland had its own army and navy until 1707 (and
>> so is a separate language) but now does not (and so is not a separate
>> language). And so on for all the various criteria involved in the
>> highly subjective choice of where to draw the dividing lines between
>> languages.
>>
>> And the lesson that is to be learned from this is not who is right and
>> who is wrong, but rather that everybody is right, whether they consider
>> Scots a separate language from English or a dialect of English -- that
>> is, as long as they understand that whether considered separate
>> language or dialect of English, it makes no difference to the
>> linguistic value, validity, legitimacy, importance, etc. of Scots.
>> Whether separate language or dialect of English, Scots is _not_ "broken
>> English", but a tongue in its own right with its own systematic rules,
>> just like all other dialects of English, whether RP or Cockney.
>>
>
>Wow!
>
>I think I agree.
>
>What I've been trying to say all along is that our language (Doric from a
>small fishing community) as spoken by locals amongst themselves is
>inaccessible or impenetrable to many people not just from England, but also
>from other parts of Scotland. We use very few words thatr don't have a
>direct translation into English (whatever that is) There are some words that
>are used slightly differently though, so I would probably argue that some of
>them have a high degree of overlap rather than being an exact match, even
>though they come from the same root.
>
>Equally with sentence construction. We routinely use sentence constructions
>that would be clumsy at best if translated into English but there are others
>that would be relatively meaningless. Somewhere up thread I gave the example
>of 'falling down through yourself.' which makes perfect sense in Doric, but
>doesn't in English.
>
>With the argument about new words always following the English I have been
>trying to think about times when that is not the case. The only one I can
>come up with is around Wellington boots. The perceived wisdom is that they
>were invented by the Duke of Wellington during the Crimean War. Yet we did
>not until very recently use the word Wellingtons. For us they were Baltic
>beets (Baltic boots) So we have some kind of parallel evolution of the two
>names. I have often imagined a mannie from our village returning from the
>Crimean War with a pair and calling them his Baltic Boots.
>
>I don't know where all that takes us though. I am proud of my culture and
>that includes our language. I see it as somewhat distinct from not just
>other countries, but even the next village (your dialects 1through 10) You
>probably go from one to ten between home and Aberdeen which is some 50
>miles. Someone with a keen ear can tell which North East village someone
>comes from within two minutes of first meeting them.
>
>Does that make it a language though? Well I'm not a linguist amd I don't
>know if I really care. What does seem to come across though is that a
>subtext for people who argue it is not a language seems to be that they want
>to denigrate its value. I'm not happy with that. I can accept that people
>see us as different, but any suggestion that we are therefore lesser raises
>my hackles.
>
>Neb

The very point that angers me. For centuries the smug, self-appointed
collaborators in the drive to make Scotland an English province
dismissed Gaelic as an Irish abomination, but now that Gaelic has been
shoved in their faces by the EU and the Scots Parliament, they have
done their best to present Scots as crude, aboriginal Teutonic
grunting.

Why? Because they worship the English class system and are desperate
to belong to it. The same phenomenon amused the English in India; the
insecure licking their boots, arses pointing skywards.

Scotland, long a meritocracy, has been undermined by the fears of the
secondrate. A pox on the English and their damnable class system!

Murchadh
.