tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-263500209934861984.post2000922534112097686..comments2024-03-16T09:27:17.373+07:00Comments on The Online Scum: Soi Cowboy will have to wait (and so will last Saturday's write up)AllBlackhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14421686073161531296noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-263500209934861984.post-4780853037428798012013-06-26T08:52:21.950+07:002013-06-26T08:52:21.950+07:00I think I mentioned the mutual intelligibility tes...I think I mentioned the mutual intelligibility test to [NAME REDACTED] but it's really more of a popular definition ('A language is a collection of dialects') than a proper linguistic one. There are just too many exceptions.<br /><br />The most obvious examples are the languages that are essentially identical. Dutch/Flemish and Czech/Slovak, as you mention, but also Croatian/Serbian, Romanian/Moldovan, Hindi/Urdu and Bahasa Melayu/Bahasa Indonesia. <br /><br />Then there are mutually intelligible languages, including Bulgarian/Macedonian, Kazakh/Kyrgyz, and, close to home, Thai/Lao. After a few years study of Central Thai I found I could get along fine in Laos, yet after decades more of it I still can be completely baffled by the 'dialect' of Southern Thai.<br /><br />Meanwhile are any number of mutually unintelligible dialects, perhaps most notably the varieties of Frisian (which in turn was once mutually intelligible with English). You would have difficulty convincing a Texan, say, and a rural Scotsman that they shared a common language. Arabic is apparently just as varied, and of course the many so-called dialects of Chinese even more so. I can vouch for the fact that a native speaker of the Western Cambodian 'dialect' used in the Thai provinces of Surin and Buriram is utterly incapable of communication with a speaker of standard Phnom Penh Cambodian (and no, not just because I pissed her off).<br /><br />While a complete purview of mutual intelligibility and the classification of languages is beyond the scope of this comment, let me end (and you do want me to end?) with the instructive example of Spain. Its Galician 'dialect' is, for all purposes, Portuguese. And yet I am confident that not a single living Catalan would consider his language to be a 'dialect' of Castilian (and this despite Catalonia's lack of an army).<br /><br />No doubt there are some nice clear cut cases where one can or should distinguish languages from dialects on the basis of mutual intelligibility, but I believe most linguists at this point would admit that the exact features of the languages themselves are generally less important than the political, social, and culture contexts in which they are used.<br /><br />But back to another encounter with GOD this afternoon . . . . Beavohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16865506477674200499noreply@blogger.com