Even the most casual student of linguistics realizes that there are far fewer lexical differences between Russian and a number of East European Slavic "languages" than between various Chinese or Arabic "dialects."
Jack Bryar
Grafton, VT 05146
Office: 802-843-6033
-----Original Message----- From: corpora-bounces at uib.no [mailto:corpora-bounces at uib.no] On Behalf Of Shekhar Pradhan Sent: Monday, February 15, 2010 3:49 PM To: corpora at uib.no Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Can corpora help to distinguish a dialect and a language?
In India where the states that comprise the country are language-based as opposed to dialect-based, we would say a language is one that has a Chief Minister attached to it. Shekhar
-----corpora-bounces at uib.no wrote: -----
To: "Angus Grieve-Smith" <grvsmth at panix.com>, "Corpora list" <corpora at uib.no> From: "Paula Newman" <paulan at earthlink.net> Sent by: corpora-bounces at uib.no Date: 02/15/2010 03:09PM Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Can corpora help to distinguish a dialect and a language?
Hi, This is a funny discussion. Why? Because it indicates that the Weinreich quote was originally given in Yiddish, definitely a language, not a dialect of German, but never having an army or navy, or much political power.
That Yiddish is a separate language that amalgamates German syntax (albeit
dialect syntax) with many borrowings is directly indicated by the included
quote
>Assaf, "A halber emes iz a gantse lign."
(A half truth is a whole lie).
The sentence is not intelligible to a monolingual German speaker except by guessing--some examples: "emes" is the Hebrew word for truth, and "lign" seems to be a Germanization of the English ambiguity between lie (n-untruth, v-tell an untruth) and lay (v-place, v-locate).
Also, Yiddish is normatively written in Hebrew script rather than Latin script.
Possibly a better definition of the distinction between a dialect and a language would focus on the amount of difference between the purported base language and the dialect, possibly indicated by mutual intelligibility.
Paula
> [Original Message]
> From: Angus Grieve-Smith <grvsmth at panix.com>
> To: Corpora list <corpora at uib.no>
> Date: 2/15/2010 11:16:48 AM
> Subject: Re: [Corpora-List] Can corpora help to distinguish a dialect and
alanguage?
>
> Seth, how do you expect us to take a pronouncement like that, with no
supporting documentation?
Diana, I think the one-army thing is a minimum. The Catalan exception shows that it's actually political power, not military power, that matters.
Seth Grimes <grimes at altaplana.com> wrote:
>Clever notion but not correct, not even figuratively.
> >
> >Assaf, "A halber emes iz a gantse lign."
> >
> > Seth
> >
> >
> >
> >On Mon, 15 Feb 2010, Assaf Urieli wrote:
> >
> >> You took the words right out of my mouth Angus. Anybody who wants a
scan
> >> of the text containing the original quote from Max Weinreich (for
those
> >> of you who can read Yiddish!) may contact me.
> >>
> >> The context is - Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich was giving a lecture
> >> about problems in the history of the Yiddish language, when a
> >> high-school teacher asked him "What is the difference between a
dialect
> >> and a language?" Max Weinreich tried to give an intellectual answer,
but
> >> the teacher interrupted him, "All of this I know already, but I'll
give
> >> you a better definition: a language is a dialect with an army and a
> >> navy." (a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un a flot)
> >>
> >> Rgds,
> >> Assaf Urieli
> >>
> >> Angus Grieve-Smith wrote:
> >>> On 2/13/2010 4:35 PM, Yuri Tambovtsev wrote:
> >>>> Dear Corpora colleagues, how can corpora help to differentiate
between a
> >>>> dialect and a language? Looking forward to hearing from you directly
to
> >>>> yutamb at mail.ru <mailto:yutamb at mail.ru> Yours sincerely as ever Yuri
> >>>> Tambovtsev
> >>>>
> >>> They can't, because they can't detect whether the variety in
> >>> question has an army or a navy.
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> -Angus B. Grieve-Smith
> >>> grvsmth at panix.com
>
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