Re: dialectal diversity in English

 --- John Cowan skrzypszy:

> I say again, there are *three* languages spoken in Scotland:  Gaelic
> (a Celtic language), Scots (a West Germanic language), and English
> (another West Germanic language, the one most closely related to
> Scots).  The varieties of English spoken in Scotland are more
> or less influenced by Scots, but Scots is not a dialect of
> English any more than Dutch is a dialect of German.
This made me wonder; back when I was little, I used to satisfy my linguistic
interests by reading encyclopaedia entries. And what is so strange: I never saw
Scots mentioned as a separate language there (Low German WAS mentioned). Could
it be that Scots gained the status of a language only sometime during the last
thirty years?
Would Luxemburgish be considered a separate language too, nowadays?

Jan

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

__________________________________________________
Yahoo! Plus
For a better Internet experience
http://www.yahoo.co.uk/btoffer

Replies