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Linguistically, there's no agreed-upon rule for what makes a "dialect"[1]. What I heard from Linguistics people is that they're all just separate languages, som
by mkelly 17y ago
Linguistically, there's no agreed-upon rule for what makes a "dialect"[1]. What I heard from Linguistics people is that they're all just separate languages, some with and some without a written form.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect#.22Dialect.22_or_.22language.22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect#.22Dialect.22_or_.22lan...
- wheels 17y agoRight, I removed that line just before you posted for that reason. :-) I think usually the difference (as mentioned in the OT's paper) is more political than linguistic.
- fhars 17y agoMy usual half-serious stance on this is that a language is just a dialect with an army. But this does of course break down in the case of Icelandic, which is definitely a language, but has neither, but clearly captures tha fact that answers to these questions are to a large part political. When I was younger, there was a language called serbocroatian, spoken in one country and written with two different scripts...
- kjhgftgyui 17y agoA language is just a dialect with an army Luxembourgish is identical to the local German accent - but one is an official language while just over the border it's a dialect