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"1. A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" Tell that to the speakers of 10s of languages of India, most of which are so different from one another th

by shas3 10y ago

"1. A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" Tell that to the speakers of 10s of languages of India, most of which are so different from one another that no definition would classify them as dialects. I wonder if that quip, even as a humorous one, makes sense when it fails for about 20% of all humans.

cema 10y ago
Well it was said (attributed, anyway) to Max Weinreich (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...) who was a professional linguist. Notice that it was said in Yiddish which, of course, did not have its own navy or army. So it may have been said with a tongue in cheek, especially if the story relayed by Weinreich at the link is correct.
- jhbadger 10y ago
  I always interpreted it as meaning that there is no objective distinction between dialects and languages but that nations (which have armies and navies) declare their prestige dialect to be a "language" and claim related dialects to be subservient to it.
  - cema 10y ago
    Yes, normative dialects are selected to be the language. Often based on the dialect of the capital city.
labster 10y ago
I'm pretty sure that at some point in the not too distant past, these Indian languages had armies.
- shas3 10y ago
  Well, yes and no. Kingdoms and provinces weren't ever linguistically organized till 1957, 7 years after India was unified as a Republic (1950). Most kingdoms and provinces were multilingual, though they all had one or more court languages for which the respective governing elites patronized scholarship. An example is the Vijayanagara empire in southern India (1330s to 1565) which was ruled by different multilingual elites who patronized Kannada, Telugu, Sanskrit, and to a lesser extent, Tamil and Persian. There are also other types of counter-examples- dialects that were patronized by kings or leal chiefs with their own armies (e.g. Dakhani Persian/Urdu of the various Sultans and Nizams (1300s - 1900s) of the Deccan region of South/South-Central India)

by shas3 10y ago

cema 10y ago

Well it was said (attributed, anyway) to Max Weinreich (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_a...) who was a professional linguist. Notice that it was said in Yiddish which, of course, did not have its own navy or army. So it may have been said with a tongue in cheek, especially if the story relayed by Weinreich at the link is correct.

jhbadger 10y ago
I always interpreted it as meaning that there is no objective distinction between dialects and languages but that nations (which have armies and navies) declare their prestige dialect to be a "language" and claim related dialects to be subservient to it.
- cema 10y ago
  Yes, normative dialects are selected to be the language. Often based on the dialect of the capital city.

labster 10y ago

I'm pretty sure that at some point in the not too distant past, these Indian languages had armies.

shas3 10y ago
Well, yes and no. Kingdoms and provinces weren't ever linguistically organized till 1957, 7 years after India was unified as a Republic (1950). Most kingdoms and provinces were multilingual, though they all had one or more court languages for which the respective governing elites patronized scholarship. An example is the Vijayanagara empire in southern India (1330s to 1565) which was ruled by different multilingual elites who patronized Kannada, Telugu, Sanskrit, and to a lesser extent, Tamil and Persian. There are also other types of counter-examples- dialects that were patronized by kings or leal chiefs with their own armies (e.g. Dakhani Persian/Urdu of the various Sultans and Nizams (1300s - 1900s) of the Deccan region of South/South-Central India)