Re[4]: [tied] Anatolian

At 13:17:35 on Monday, 24 October 2005, Grzegorz Jagodzinski
wrote:

> Brian M. Scott wrote:

>> At 8:52:50 on Monday, 24 October 2005, Grzegorz Jagodzinski
>> wrote:

>>> And, have dialectologists problems with counting each
>>> single dialect as French, Occitan aka Provençal,
>>> Catalonian, Spanish or Italian?

>> What about the Franco-Provençal dialects?

> French is a langue d'oil while Provençal is a langue d'oc.
> This is rather generally accepted, so nobody should have
> problems with Franco-Provençal.

On the contrary, that is precisely why Franco-Provençal has
been problematic: these dialects have not always been
considered a distinct sub-family. For instance, some have
seen them as oïl with much oc influence. Thus, there *has*
been a problem with classifying these dialects.

[...]

>>> By the way, the idea of nation is older than you think.
>>> Ancient Greeks had strong feeling of belonging to a
>>> particular region or town, and, as a consequence, to a
>>> particular dialect. But they can have distinguished a
>>> Greek from a barbarian as well. I can see striking
>>> similarities to the idea of nation in modern times, and
>>> can't you?

>> No. That last is an example of the older notion of a
>> people, quite different from the notion of a state.

> And what nation has to do with state???

In everyday modern English usage they are almost synonymous.
The use of 'nation' to refer to a people is obsolescent in
popular usage; it is found, rather, in historical contexts
(e.g., the nations of the medieval University of Paris) and
political science. To quote the OED:

In early examples notions of race and common descent
predominate. In later use notions of territory, political
unity, and independence are more prominent, although some
writers still make a pointed distinction between nation
and state.

I would go further: it is no longer safe to use 'nation' in
the old-fashioned sense unless it is very clear that this is
the intended sense. If the context doesn't make it
absolutely clear, you really need to say so explicitly.

[...]

> Not a word on state... Do the Basques are a nation
> according to you? And what about the Welsh, the Scottish?

In the current everyday English meaning of the word the
Basques are not a nation; in more academic discourse it is
of course perfectly normal to refer to the Basque nation.

Brian