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I can think examples of any combination of "has army/not", "is language/dialect". Mutual intelligibility doesn't even matter either way. has army, is dialect:
by dyno12345 14y ago
I can think examples of any combination of "has army/not", "is language/dialect". Mutual intelligibility doesn't even matter either way.
has army, is dialect: Schweizerdeutch, American English, Brazilian Portuguese
has army, is language: Norwegian (v. Danish)
no army, is language: Yiddish, Afrikaans
no army, is dialect: Frisian
- SideburnsOfDoom 14y agoGood examples, but "Afrikaans has no army" is debatable and IMHO misleading. It doesn't share an army with Dutch. And in the formative period from the Boer wars (1880, 1899) to 1994 I would say that it did have an army in absolute terms.
- dyno12345 14y agoI had thought that English was more dominant in South Africa than Afrikaans, but I guess it's actually the other way around.
- SideburnsOfDoom 14y agoAs usage of the two languages go, I put it nearer 50%-50% (with slightly more Afrikaans). As political power went until 1994, all heads of state and of the army (and as far as I remember, all holders of other top positions) were Afrikaners.
- dlib 14y agoFrisian is an official language recognized by the Dutch government and the EU, in fact it is one of the two official languages of the Netherlands. It is taught in schools and spoken at official policy meetings. Nonetheless, your point still stands as I'm sure there are valid examples of 'no army, is dialect'