Re: dialectal diversity in English

 --- John Cowan skrzypszy:

> > Objective criteria are the
> > only way out, but in this part of the world every objective criterion
> > implies a political statement by itself.
>
> That can't be helped.  It may in some circumstances be a political statement
> to affirm that the earth revolves around the sun, but it is a statement of
> fact nonetheless (and to affirm the converse, as generally understood,
> remains a falsehood).
I don't think this comparison holds, because the question whether or not the
earth revolves around the sun can be empirically answered. Categorising,
however, is a matter of drawing lines and setting criteria, which is indeed a
matter of taste and personal objectives.

> But the question "What is a language?" has to be countered with the
> question "For what purpose?"  The Ethnologue takes the view that
> *unintelligibility* is the relevant criterion; if speakers of dialect X
> cannot understand speakers of dialect Y, then X and Y are in fact
> distinct languages.
If only it were that easy! Let's face it, the story becomes already much more
complicated when dialect Z appears: X and Y are mutually understandable, and so
are Y and Z, but X and Z are not. Now, if you consider the fact that all
languages and dialects are parts of one big continuum, then drawing lines
becomes a merely subjective activity, and mutual understandability is not an
issue anymore.
Look at the Netherlands: there are many dialects that are mutually completely
inunderstandable, even some dialects that are not understandable for a speaker
of Standard Dutch. Yet, nobody denies the fact that Dutch is a language with a
huge number of dialects. We are definitely no Dagestan.
On the other hand, Dutch and Afrikaans ARE mutually understandable. Does that
make Afrikaans a dialect?

> The Introduction to the Ethnologue is well worth
> reading: http://www.ethnologue.com/ethno_docs/introduction.asp .
That reminds me: the Ethologue's information about the Rusyns is highly
incomplete. It mentions only the Lemko dialect, while at least four other
dialects can be distinguished, and it mentions Ukraine and Slovakia as the
countries where Rusyn is spoken, while ca. half of them lives in Poland. IIRC I
have even sent a mail about that once, but never received any reply.

Jan

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

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