--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Francesco Brighenti" <frabrig@>
> wrote:
> >
> > [re: http://www.bartleby.com/61/1/A0450100.html ]
> >
> > Are the above constructions used by all social groups in a
> > geographical area, or are they the prerogative of the uneducated
> > ones? Because my notion of a 'dialect' is that it can be spoken
> > by all the members of the social fabric, including the educated
> > ones (as is the case with Italian dialects)
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > What I wanted to stress is that, if the varieties of US English
> > the above slang expressions belong in are only used by
> > uneducated people, but yet are never used by the educated
> > people, this fact alone would indicate that those varieties of
> > US English are not 'true' dialects because a 'true' dialect is
> > normally spoken by people from all walks of life in a given
> > geographical area.
>
> I think that is an Italian definition. You know of course that the
> status of dialects in Italy, because of your country's history is
> much different from that of countries which have always had a
> central power structure.
This may hold good as a general observation, yet I think that each
and every country/nation of the *Old* World (because the cases
represented by the Americas, Australia and South Africa after their
colonization by the Europeans must be dealt with differently here)
should not be examined as a separate case, both diachronically and
synchronically, with regard to the problem of the status of its
dialects.
For instance, in France regional languages and dialects (the sole
means of communication for the vast majority in the Middle Ages)
started to be intentionally disempowered under the reign of Francis
I, who in 1539 mandated the exclusive use of the French language
(Parisian French) in administrative and judicial proceedings. This
means that regional languages and dialects had been enjoying a high
status in France all through the Middle Ages. In Spain, a comparable
State-driven lowering of the status of regional languages and
dialects was only achieved in 1768, when king Charles III decreed
that throughout the kingdom the Castilian language be used in the
administration and education. This means that in previous epochs,
such regional languages and dialects as Catalan, Valencian and
Galician, whose respective literatures had flourished during the
Lower Middle Ages until Castilian had become the language of the
Spanish Court and literate elites in the course of the 16th century,
had been used as languages of the admisistration and education in
the areas of Spain where they were respectively spoken. In either
case, that of France and that of Spain, the politics of language
pursued by the centralized monarchy was the main agent for the
minimization of the status of all Romance idioms other than the
standard 'national' language; but the role played by a central power
structure in this historical process -- which you, Torsten, rightly
point to -- doesn't apply to the Middle Ages, both in France and
Spain.
The situation in the Middle Ages, both in Spain and France, must not
have been too dissimilar from that in Italy -- a Romance dialectal
continuum in which people from all walks of life, from the nobles to
the peasants -- were among the speakers of the local/regional
dialect/language.
Against this background, the peculiarity of Italy resides in the
fact that no central power structure was superimposed on that "mere
geographic expression" (Prince von Metternich's famous phrase) until
1861. This fact allowed Italian dialects to preserve till then the
high -- literary, and in several cases also administrative -- status
they had been been accorded in Italian States since the upper Middle
Ages, but opened a huge problem of linguistic unification after the
political unity of the nation was achieved.
I don't know what the status of dialect was once like in each and
every Italian State, but I know for certain that the Neapolitan
dialect (or language?) was historically spoken in Naples not only by
the lower classes, but also by the middle class and the nobility;
the same is true for the local variety of Venetian spoken in Venice
and for the Roman dialect in the Rome of the Popes. These are what I
dare define as 'true' dialects, which in this respect --
particularly when a politically imposed 'national' language is still
to come as in the cases of Italy until the 19th century, of Spain
until the 18th century, or of France until the 16th century -- to
some extent function as culturally unifying local or
regional 'languages'.
> > At least, this is the case with all old dialects in Italy (and,
> > I think, everywhere in Europe).
>
> Wrong. People in this part of Europe, apart from some diehards,
> try to get rid of their dialect, if they want to get up in life.
In Italy, too, many people try to ged rid of their dialect in order
to upgrade their own social/cultural status. Nowadays this is a
common pehenomenon all over in Europe, but how old is it? I guess
that the Danes of, say, the 19th century didn't feel ashamed of
their dialect(s). Have you ever made any search to establish which
social groups poke Danish dialects till the 19th century?
I realize that my views on what 'true' dialects have represented
throughout the medieval (and part of modern) history of Europe
cannot be applied to what some of the members of the List want to
call 'American dialects'. By now, it should be clear to anyone that
to me those are not 'dialects' at all, but rather 'accent varieties'.
And, in addition to that, their formation is so 'ridiculously'
RECENT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNvCoUvpOfU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NkruCmVTXs
Regards,
Francesco