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From: iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Ivan A Derzhanski)
Subject: Re: Hungarian / Czecho-Slovakian
Message-ID: <D2ytHs.Jqr@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: Centre for Cognitive Science, Edinburgh, UK
References: <3g11fe$dcq@overload.lbl.gov> <D2wLKA.I4C@actrix.gen.nz> <1995Jan24.180453.11939@midway.uchicago.edu>
Date: Wed, 25 Jan 1995 14:27:26 GMT
Lines: 45

In article <1995Jan24.180453.11939@midway.uchicago.edu> rmk4@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>We all (at least those of us who actually do linguistics)
>know how hard it is to distinguish related languages.  [...]
>Thus, it seems to me reasonable to cut people some slack
>when they talk about Czecho-Slovak or Serbo-Croat.

It seems absurd to talk about the opposition between Czech and Slovak
and the one between Serbian and Croat in the same breath.

>My point is that there is no final answer about what is a distinct
>language and what is a related dialect,

That is true, but nevertheless I'd say that there is consensus on the
languagehood of Czech and Slovak, and no one who has actually looked
at them thinks that they are the same language.  On the other hand,
it takes someone with a political agenda to claim that Serbo-Croat
is not a single language.

>and for some purposes, it makes perfect sense to group related lects.

That's a very good point.  Here's the relevant part of the tree, taken
from Merritt Rehlen's _A Guide to the World's Languages_:

family        Indo-Hittite
primary branch  Indo-European
group             Balto-Slavic
subgroup            Slavic
branch                West
subbranch               North:   Polish, Kashubian, Polabian
subbranch               Central: Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian
subbranch               South:   Czech, Slovak

The question is thus whether it should be considered acceptable to say
`Sorbian' instead of `Central West Slavic' (or `Upper and Lower Sorbian')
and `Czecho-Slovak' (or something similar) instead of `South West Slavic'
(or `Czech and Slovak'), when one is talking of features shared by all
languages of the subbranch.

I think it should.

-- 
`Don't know whit ye're bletherin aboot', said Peter.    (The Glasgow Gospel)
Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@cogsci.ed.ac.uk, iad@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu)
* Centre for Cognitive Science,  2 Buccleuch Place,   Edinburgh EH8 9LW,  UK
* Cowan House E113, Pollock Halls, 18 Holyrood Pk Rd, Edinburgh EH16 5BD, UK
