Re: "Re-formed" Latin-script writing

DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:

> Given that much of the mutual unintelligibility of the dialects is primarily
> grounded in pronunciation and word choice, wouldn't "'different' as Spanish
> is from Portuguese" or some such be a more accurate analogy?
"Mandarin is to Cantonese as French is to Romanian."
        --anon

> With the unity
> of the written form and the ever-tauted five thousand years of Chinese
> history which most Han plug into, why place 'dialect' in quotes?
Language/dialect distinctions, insofar as there is any metaphysical basis
for them at all other than Weinreich's Rule ("a language is a dialect
with an army and a navy"), are typically founded on spoken rather than
written forms.  The 8 or so main "dialects" would be called "languages"
in any other situation.

> If "Wu" and
> "Yue" were still their own countries, I might be inclined to call them
> separate languages for political reasons,
Au contraire: they are called dialects for political reasons.

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