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From: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Mutual intelligibility (again)
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Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 22:51:58 GMT
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I wrote:
>>I repeat my challenge:  Can anyone out there provide me with a
>>reasonable, unambiguous, objective standard of "mutual intelligibility"?
>>As far as I can tell, the standard generally used is "Two [speech
>>varieities] are mutually intelligible if speakers of one or the other say
>>they are."  Real scientific, that.

To which Mark Rosenfelder responded [in part]:
>Of course, any discussion of "mutual intelligibility" will soon derail
			       ^^^^^^
>if one assumes that it has to be binary, or mutual, or transitive, or
					     ^^^^^^
>universal within the speech community, or independent of factors such as 
>subject matter and degree of interaction with other speech communities.  

I can only conclude that, despite appearances to the contrary, the two of
us are not speaking mutually intelligible dialects.  I would have thought
that "mutual intelligibility" was mutual by definition, since there are
other types of intelligibility that are not mutual.  (E.g.:  I've yet to
encounter a Portuguese speaker's claim, either orally or in print, *not*
to understand Spanish; very few Spanish speakers, however, admit to
understanding Portuguese.  Maybe this is a parallel to the situation Mark
and I find ourselves in.)
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
