82 replies to this topic

[jwrevak]

a language is a dialect with an army
a dialect is a language without an army

look at some of the scandinavian languages, for example, i think alot of them are mutually intelligible (correct me if i'm wrong) but norway has norwegian, sweden has swedish, etc etc

For the most part no, even if most are part of the Germanic family of languages. (However, Finnish belongs to a completely different group of languages often called Finno-Uraic.)

[jwrevak]

Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian... etc., while heavily influenced by Latin, are not actually of the same language.

Prior to being conquered by the Roman Empire, various tribes in Europe already had their own spoken languages.  These languages borrowed heavily from Latin and eventually adopted the Latin script, but that doesn't mean they are of the same origin.

Linguistically they are of the same origin. French, Italian, Spanish, etc. are all Romance languages decended primarily from Latin. It is not as though the ancient Gauls spoke "Gaulish" which they then mixed up with Latin to develop a hybred language called French that was, say, 50% Gaulish and 50% Latin. Instead, the Gauls came into contact with Roman legionaires whose language was Latin, which they adopted. Later their version of Latin evolved into French. While local influences surely exist, French is primarily decended from Latin.

Chinese dialects, on the other hand, are more or less of the same origin. 

Similarly, so are Romance languages. They all go back to Latin as it was spoken in sundry regions of the Roman Empire by legionaires and "barbarians".

They are more different from each other than say, the various "English dialects" (American, British, Australian... etc.) is because Chinese dialects have been isolated and developed on their own for thousands of years while the various English dialects have only been separated for mere two hundred years.

The comparison is inappropriate, I think. The relevant comparison is to point out that Latin has evolved into separate languages (e.g., French, Italian, etc.) over the centuries. Perhaps in a way similar to the evolution of sundry Chinese languages (or "dialects") over the centuries?

Also, if Chinese dialects are considered different languages then which one is the "original Chinese dialect"?  I've heard some people argue that southern Chinese dialects were already spoken prior to the arrivals of Hans from the north.  But then how do they explain the fact that southern Chinese dialects are closer related to classical spoken Chinese?

Not being a linguist I have no idea, but I bet Chinese linguists have worked out some kind of theoretic "proto-Chinese", similar to how Westerners have worked out a theoretic "Indo-Euorpean".

[Yun]

The late Swiss linguist Bernhard Karlgren (in Chinese, 高本汉) has reconstructed the Middle Chinese of the Tang dynasty - go look for his dictionary. As for the Ancient Chinese of the Zhou (e.g. in the Shijing), I think work is still in progress.

See (in Chinese): http://www.pep.com.c...06/ca521826.htm

http://www.ling.sini...8--...8C城.pdf
(a comparative study of Ancient Chinese and Ancient Tibeto-Burman)

[jwrevak]

Really simple examples from relatively recent changes: Who here can use the word ‘whom’ without feeling like a dork?

I guess many speakers of English, including me, are dorks then. Whom is still in general use among speakers of standard English in my experience.

When you say "better than" does it sound more like "better then?"

Now you're talking about pronunciation which is another matter. On the other hand, if you want to write acceptable standard English you would not write: Wine is better then beer. That would be considered clearly wrong.

Or, (and I don’t know how this applies outside of the PRC- let me know, thanks!) in relaxed conversation, how do you personally pronounce 谁? How do you pronounce 의 in 존재의 이유? Same example, is it easier to say 재 or 제?

I’m glad to see that people on this board refer to Hakka and Cantonese as languages as opposed to dialects. The classification of languages into families or dialectical branches, while usually a blast, can never be definite or even ‘scientific.’

Isn't the above position a bit simplistic?

All languages are made up by their speakers over time- end of story.

More like the beginning.

Think of how you learn languages- you’re born, you hear people around you talking, you start imitating what you hear, and after a while you pick it up. Things change and you pass that on to the people you come into contact with. Language, like culture, depends purely on context. Nobody speaks Mandarin because they’re Han by ‘ethnicity,’ or even because they happened to be born within certain borders. This of course applies to all languages everywhere.

And the point is. . . .

All the so-called ‘differences’ and our neat little categories for organizing them, are usually politically derived.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Is it "political" or "linguistic" to label French French and Italian Italian? (And, no, a French person cannot easily understand an Italian, but a Parisian can easily understand someone from Marseille not to mention a French-speaking Haitian.)

A frequently quoted example comes from northern Europe, where speakers of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, which we’d assume are all separate languages since, hey, that’s three different countries, are easily able to communicate with each other.

No, it isn't that simple. They cannot communicate with each other as easily as, say, Americans, British, and Australians.

Going slightly south to Germany, which we might be tempted to view as a unified nation and a single ‘ethnicity,’ it turns out that speakers of ‘German’ in certain areas of this pretty small country (at least when compared to the PRC) are completely unable to understand each other.

These are regional dialects. People use them optionally, although not as much as, say, a century ago.

The ‘German Language’ is just a political label.

No, it is not "just a poliltical label". It is linguistic too. Nearly all speakers of German know standard German and can easily communicate with each other. It is called Hochdeutsch. It's been like that for a long time. And its origins are less political than religious/cultural. Hochdeutsch is the kind of German Luther used to translate the Bible from Latin.

Obviously in the PRC (and pretty much every other country where ‘cultural heritage’ helps to keep the government in power, which unfortunately in the modern world is just about every country), it’s the same deal, and you can’t refer to Wu or Yue as separate languages because apparently that threatens national security and the disrupts the unity of the motherland.

This sounds to me like a political or cultural matter. In the case of the latter it is may reflect the desire to have an indentifiable Chinese culture rather than only maintaining a political status quo.

[Yun]

Could anyone comment on the apparent degeneration of English in many parts of the US, where 'they're' and 'you're' are widely corrupted into 'their' and 'your', and people say 'different than' rather than 'different from'? Or where (as Phoenix Bladen seems to imply) people don't bother to learn how to use the word 'whom'?

Are we seeing the formation of a new American dialect, or just a decline in standards of education?

[Kulong]

Could anyone comment on the apparent degeneration of English in many parts of the US, where 'they're' and 'you're' are widely corrupted into 'their' and 'your', and people say 'different than' rather than 'different from'? Or where (as Phoenix Bladen seems to imply) people don't bother to learn how to use the word 'whom'?

Are we seeing the formation of a new American dialect, or just a decline in standards of education?

Depends. When those examples you mentioned become "official" then it'd be the formation of a new American dialect. Until then it's just a decline in standards of education.

[jwrevak]

Could anyone comment on the apparent degeneration of English in many parts of the US, where 'they're' and 'you're' are widely corrupted into 'their' and 'your',
and people say 'different than' rather than 'different from'? Or where (as Phoenix Bladen seems to imply) people don't bother to learn how to use the word 'whom'?

Are we seeing the formation of a new American dialect, or just a decline in standards of education?

First, many people continue to learn how to use whom and do so correctly. To fail to do so, especially in writing, is still generally considered an error in standard English (whether British or American).

Second, while there may be a "degeneration" in American English, I'm unsure that the pronunciation of they're and you're are examples. In contemporary standard English (both in and outside America) it's widely considered correct to pronounce they're like there and you're like your.

Third, it is generally considered acceptable to say different than in American English. It is generally considered unacceptable to say this in British English. I usually avoid different than even though I speak and write American English. But that doesn't make different than wrong or signal the "degeneration" of American English in my opinion.

Language is always evolving and there are many minor differences between how American English has evolved compared to British English. For example, is it correct to say the following? My father had to go to hospital. In British English this is clearly correct, but in American English this is clearly wrong. In American English you would say the following. My father had to go to the hospital.

With regard to the degeneration of American English, I'm far more concerned that some well educated native speakers who are in college have a lot of difficulty writing lucid, coherent prose. Now there's a big problem!

[Kulong]

Second, while there may be a "degeneration" in American English, I'm unsure that the pronunciation of they're and you're are examples.  In contemporary standard English (both in and outside America) it's widely considered correct to pronounce they're like there and you're like your.

He was referring to people MISPELLING words like "they're" and "their" not MISPRONOUNCING them...

[jwrevak]

* I use 方言 fangyan instead of "dialect" or "language" because it's the most fitting as in Chinese, it literally means "regional spoken language".

Good point and I think many Chinese linguists would agree with you. In fact, I was re-reading parts of DeFrancis' book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy today. He suggests that perhaps the best solution to the problem of describing Chinese as either a language or dialect is to do niether and instead use an English equivalent to 方言. Further, he suggested that it might be best to invent a new word to do so: regionalect.

[Kulong]

Good point and I think many Chinese linguists would agree with you.  In fact, I was re-reading parts of DeFrancis' book The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy today.  He suggests that perhaps the best solution to the problem of describing Chinese as either a language or dialect is to do niether and instead use an English equivalent to 方言.  Further, he suggested that it might be best to invent a new word to do so: regionalect.

Actually, in this other forum I used to go to, we did use the word regionalect to refer to 方言 fangyan

[jwrevak]

He was referring to people MISPELLING words like "they're" and "their" not MISPRONOUNCING them...

Ohhhhhh. That's another matter. This is indeed a case of poor education in my opinion, although "degeneration" might be too harsh a term. No way is confusing the spelling of they're for their considered OK in standard English.

[lobster]

I see over-reliance on Roman characters and Juyin symbols (for TWese) in internet language used by Chinese youngsters as degeneration in their language skills.

[tianzhuwoye]

The thing with ‘whom’ is that it’s one of the last remaining traces of the previously complex case system that has been falling out of English for centuries, even as it’s kept reasonably intact in most other ‘related’ languages. There was a time when English had equivalents for all the ders, dies, dems and deses in modern German, but today ‘the’ does just fine covering them all. Whether or not the usage of ‘whom’ is actually ‘correct’ depends on ‘when’ in English we’re talking about, and the word is in fact quickly becoming irrelevant now that the case system supporting it has almost completely disappeared. The system is still around in the use of personal pronouns in English, but even here the general trend by now is probably to view words like ‘he’ and ‘him’ as separate lexical items rather than as a morphological inflection, or the same root in a different grammatical setting. There’s something of an ‘elitist’ or ‘purist’ movement to keep things like ‘whom’ alive, but one wonders how many speakers of ‘correct’ English are still using the word þára and adding the –e ending to masculine and neuter nouns in the dative. Also, the existence of wer (who), wen (whom) and wem (to whom) in German might imply that some of today’s ‘correct’ uses of ‘whom’ were viewed by someone as mistakes at some time in the past, before the use of a separate word for the third case was eventually abandoned.

I like the idea of ‘regionalect’ in translations as an invented term for a usage that has no traditional equivalent in English, where there’s usually less of a political necessity to overcome the obviously very grey area between ‘languages’ and ‘dialects’ (PRC linguistics defines the 分化 of, for example, proto-Slavic and proto-Chinese as two separate processes), and as a sweet way to dodge the issue when there’s no call to get into it. Still, we might want to be hesitant before referring to the regionalect as a ‘linguistic’ categorization, at least until its unique characteristics, outside of political context, are demonstrated. That said, and to clarify some of my earlier posts, the ultimate issue is with the definitions of the terms in question themselves, especially now that language has been picked up all over the world as a critical aspect in modern nation-making mythologies. Languages are too fluid and arbitrary to be fit neatly into restrictive and exclusive categories (including states), yet there is currently a strong political need to try and do just that. Especially after being granted with official status, languages tend to take on an air of timelessness and purity that is arguably unnecessarily divisive as well as downright mistaken.

[xng]

The chinese languages are indeed languages and not dialects for the following reasons:

1. They are not intelligible to each other if one is hearing them for the first time.

2. Each of the main chinese languages have their own dialects which are more intelligible with each other and with common characteristics.

For example, "ay sai" for "can" is common to most of the "min" dialects.
"hai" for "yes" is common to most of the "cantonese" dialects.


But the chinese languages are not different unrelated languages, they are RELATED languages for the following reasons:

1. A large proportion of the sounds are derived from the same vocabulary but with slightly different pronounciation. For example, "fang" in mandarin, "fong" in cantonese, "hong" in hokkien.

2. It is much easier to learn another chinese language when one knows the chinese characters.

3. It has a similar grammatical structure based on tones, classifiers and monosyllabic, subject-verb-noun order etc.


The chinese languages are related and are a branch of the sino-tibetan language family which is similar to the indo-european language family.

Sino-tibetan language family have 3 main branches:

1. Sino branch - cantonese, mandarin, hakka, hokkien, wu etc (compare to germanic branch)

2. Tibetan/burmese (compare to indo branch)

3. Tai/laos (compare to latin branch) (adjectives come after the noun)


It can be argued that vietnamese may belong to tai branch.