Re: dialectal diversity in English

From: "Christophe Grandsire" <christophe.grandsire@...>
Subject: Re: dialectal diversity in English


> En réponse à John Cowan :
> >I suppose the SIL folks, splitters that they are (taxonomists come in two
> >subspecies,
> >splitters and lumpers), would call this a separate language.
>
> I don't know. Do they separate the Inuit language continuum in plenty of
> different languages? This is basically the same phenomenon here.
Then again, should they?  I'd say that if mutual intelligibility is the
criterion, then the various Inuit dialects/languages are separate languages.
But my criterion would probably be whatever the speakers of that language
tell you.  If a German from Ost-Friesland and an Austrian from Steiermark
can't understand each other but insist they both speak Deutsch, then it's
one language.  If they insist that they're speaking two different languages,
then they're two different ones.

Replies