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As I understand it dialects which somehow qualify as language are weighted more than English and all it's dialects? Definitions of languages tend to be quite ar
by mxfh 13y ago
As I understand it dialects which somehow qualify as language are weighted more than English and all it's dialects? Definitions of languages tend to be quite arbitrary or even politically motivated at times; look no further than the Balkans or Moldovan [1].
"a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot" [2]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language#Controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_language#Controversy
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an...
- bad_user 13y agoWhat do you mean by Moldovan?
- vorg 13y agoMoldovan is almost the same as Romanian, but written with the Cyrillic instead of the Latin alphabet.
- bad_user 13y agoThis ceased to be when Moldova declared its independence, in early nineties, reverting the official language to the Latin alphabet. Saying that Moldavian is a dialect of Romanian is sort of an overstatement, because besides a couple of regional words and phrases imported from Russian, it's the same as literary Romanian in writing and when spoken we have the same accent used in the region of Romania that borders Moldova (and that's bigger than Moldova itself, we even call that region Moldova and when we refer to Moldova, the country, we're calling it Basarabia). Romanians are also the largest population group living in Moldova. This country is basically a part of Romania that was taken from us. Unfortunately they don't want to unite with us, because many Romanians there forgot that they are Romanians or consider themselves to be Moldovans. We also help them whenever we can and we also represent their door to EU, since obtaining Romanian citizenship is easy for Moldovans. Unfortunately having them close to our hearts went without returned favours. But whatever, if they want to be Moldavian-speaking Moldovans, living in Moldova, to each his own.
- dmiladinov 13y agoYes, as for the Balkans, some would argue that Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian are all just dialects of the same basic language.
- ithkuil 13y agoa shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot (A language is a dialect with an army and navy) -- Max Weinreich