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From: rturkel@cas.org (Rick Turkel)
Subject: Re: What is the difference between a "dialect" and a "language?"
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Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1995 22:28:40 GMT
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In article <3hav4n$6pl@motss.newpaltz.edu>,
solomon taibi <taibi91@matrix.newpaltz.edu> wrote:
>Scott C DeLancey (delancey@darkwing.uoregon.edu) wrote:
>: In article <3h763r$n3a@ixnews3.ix.netcom.com>,
>: Gary Clark <wtwpubs@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>: >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?
>
>: No.  The one linguistic criterion which is sometimes suggested is
>: "mutual intelligibility"--i.e. if speakers of two different varieties
>: can carry on a conversation, they speak dialects of one language, if
>: not, they speak two different languages.  But this can't be applied
>
>Hear, hear!  If mutual itellegibility were the criterion, how about:
>
>German -> Yiddish -> Yankee Yiddish -> American English ->
>Nuyorican -> Puerto Rican -> Spanish.
>
>--
>Solomon Taibi
>taibi91@matrix.newpaltz.edu
>State University of New York College at New Paltz
>New Paltz, New York 12561, United States of America


This sounds lovely, but there are a number of breaks in your series
which make it meaningless.  (1) The Yiddish lexicon contains about
15-20% Slavic-derived words and about the same percentage of
Hebrew/Aramaicderived words.  German speakers therefore have a hard
time understanding Yiddish.  (2) What you refer to as "Yankee Yiddish"
is mutually intelligible with either standard Yiddish or American
English (depending on the proportion of English loan words), but not
both.  (3) "Nuyorkian" is hardly mutually intelligible with Puerto
Rican.

A better example is Normandie French --> Standard French -->
southeastern French dialects --> northwestern Italian dialects -->
Standard Italian --> Sicilian.  But, of course, that doesn't sound
quite as sexy, does it?
-- 
Rick Turkel         (___  _____  _  _  _  _  __     _  ___   _   _  _  ___
rturkel@freenet.columbus)oh.us|   |  \  )  |/  \     |    |   |   \__)    |
rturkel@cas.org        /      |  _| __)/   | ___)    | ___|_  |  _(  \    |
Rich or poor, it's good to have money.  Ko rano rani | u jamu pada.
