Re: Defining "Language"

In the last episode, (On Friday 20 July 2007 03:49:51), Jim Henry wrote:
> (Even if two of the most fluent
> "speakers" had different pronunciations in mind for the name of the
> language, as we found out at LCC2 (David Peterson after my talk:
> I was surprised to hear you pronounce /ka.'lu.sa/ as /'ka.lu.sa/.))
Are you referring specifically to the fact that a /large percentage/ of what
would surely be a /small number/ of speakers couldn't agree? Because, for
example, whilst I would be happy to say that the "official" or most
widespread pronunciation of "English" is /INglIS/, I myself regularly
say /INlish/.

And it can go further - in South America and post-Franco Spain, the language
brought by the conquistadors to the New World is most often referred to
as "castellano", after the region in Spain where it, specifically (and not
Galician, Catalan, Basque or any of the other, "smaller" regional languages)
originated. But some people still call it "español", and indeed that was
usual in Franco's Spain and before.

Jeff
--
"Please understand that there are small
European principalities devoted to debating
Tcl vs. Perl as a tourist attraction."

                            -- Cameron Laird

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