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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: What is a Language
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References: <4kmi5h$8qj@altrade.nijmegen.inter.nl.net> <4l86c2$j6q@pelican.unf.edu> <4ldogk$fvr@neptunus.pi.net> <rte-2204961357400001@mac-118.lz.att.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 14:30:18 GMT
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In article <rte-2204961357400001@mac-118.lz.att.com>,
Ralph T. Edwards <rte@elmo.lz.att.com> wrote:
>In article <4ldogk$fvr@neptunus.pi.net>, mcv@pi.net (Miguel Carrasquer
>Vidal) wrote:
>
>> Ronald Kephart <rkephart@osprey.unf.edu> wrote [in part]:
>> >Thus andaluz, for example, is a variety of 
>> >language which, as a result of historical political processes, has come 
>> >to be considered a dialect of Spanish, along with castellano, aragones, 
>> >etc.
MCV [in part]:
>> Being more into historical linguistics than sociolinguistics, I feel I
>> have to object slightly to the example chosen.  Historical origin does
>> count for something, and I would not say that andaluz "has come to be
>> considered" a dialect of Spanish: it always has been.
>
>I would imagine the "came to be considered" rhetoric might apply more to a
>border variety.  For example is Platt a variety of German or Dutch?

It depends:  Which Platt?  In general usage, "Platt" means merely
"dialect" or "local speech variety" (the Hessians, for instance, over-
whelmingly call their Middle German dialects "Platt" and not "Hessisch"),
which is why Germanicists have come up with terms like "Low German" and
"Low Saxon" to refer collectively to dialects spoken north of the Benrath
line.
 
>Politically German, but linguistically (or at least phonologically)
>Dutch.  

Even limiting the comparison to West Low German (Mecklenburgisch, for
instance, is quite distinct), this doesn't really hold.  Important
isoglosses dividing Low Saxon (including Westphalian and the dialects of
the northeast Netherlands) from Low Franconian (Dutch, Flemish, and the
Low Rhenish dialects of Germany) include s -> S /_C (in LF, not in LS),
/ge/ -> 0 / [past part. of verbs] (WPh.), and a uniform ending for all
persons of the verb in the plural (LS). 

>The issue is where do you break the bigger continuum.  Most
>varieties of Romance brobably have distinct features that go back to their
>days as a dialect of Latin.  I suppose one can choose features of a
>dialect group that mark it off from its neighbors, but in the end politics
>wins.  Platt is Plattdeutsch.

Not necessarily.  Political and linguistic borders often coincide, be-
cause the same geographical features whose presence limits communication
lead both to bundling of isoglosses and frustration of administrative
expansion.  And even when political borders do cross linguistic ones, 
politics doesn't always win:  Nobody calls Corsican a variety of French, 
for example, or Aostan a variety of Italian.

>How would you define Spanish without reference to geography or politics?
>I'm not saying you can't, just that it would get a little messy, and in
>the end, arbitray.  You'd be looking for features that mark it off from
>French and Portuguese dialects, that is looking for linguistic features
>that recapitulate the political and geographical realities.

This is exactly the problem I had with what appeared in this thread
previously regarding diachronic sound shifts.  It was asserted that they
were useful, e.g., in determining which Romance dialects are Italic
and which aren't.  This presupposes the validity of the concept "Italic."
Nevertheless, although defining Spanish using purely linguistic criteria
is messy, defining Ibero-Romance (i.e. Spanish, Portuguese, and their
dialects) is much less problematic.  In the end, of course, all groupings
of spoken varieties are, to a large extant, arbitrary.  Nevertheless,
some clearly do make more sense than others.


-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
