Newsgroups: sci.lang
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From: gmb@natcorp.ox.ac.uk (Glynis Baguley)
Subject: Re: What is the difference between a "dialect" and a "language?"
Message-ID: <1995Feb13.155430.25722@onionsnatcorp.ox.ac.uk>
Originator: gmb@onions.natcorp
Organization: British National Corpus, Oxford University, GB
References: <3h763r$n3a@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com> <3hmgud$8vi@lyra.csx.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 13 Feb 1995 15:54:30 GMT
Lines: 16

> > Does there exist, within the discipline of Linguistics, an agreed-upon 
> > definition of exactly what constitutes a 'language,' what constitutes a 
> > 'dialect,' and that specifically defines what the difference is between 
> > a language and a dialect?
> 

This is a bit of an old chestnut, but it has been said that a language
is a dialect with an army, meaning that it's difficult if not
impossible to define the difference in strictly linguistic terms:
political and social considerations come into it as well. 

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{      Glynis.Baguley@oucs.ox.ac.uk     }
{  Oxford University Computing Services }
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