Re: Dialectal Diversity of English

----- Original Message -----
From: Joe
Sent: 5/18/2003 10:33:03 PM
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU
Subject: Re: Dialectal Diversity of English

> Italian isn't close enough to be called a dialect.  Spanish and Portugese -
> maybe, but doubtful.
A popular linguist (of the '60s, and no, not Berlitz) whose name I forget, who
spoke Italian as his native tongue once ran into a bunch of Portuguese, but
didn't speak Portugese. Since (or after finding out?) that they could understand
Spanish but didn't like to be spoke to in Spanish, he spoke to them in Italian
without much difficulty. Given a political situtation where the differences between
Italian, Spanish and Portugese were to be swept under the table, like those
between Czech and Slovak, and the differences between the non-Portuguese
dialects spoken on the Iberian penisula, I think it quite likely they could be
considered dialects of the same language.