--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Arnaud Fournet"
<fournet.arnaud@...> wrote:
> The issue is about the use and misuse of the word "language".
>
> If one applies your approach of the word "language" to English
> varieties currently spoken around the world, there is no English
> language.
>
> I consider that there is an English language of which current
> varieties are dialects.
This is yet another special case that cannot be compared with that
of the origin and development of Italian and its so-
called "dialects".
The varieties, sub-varieties and sub-sub-varieties of English spoken
in countries colonized by the British in the course of the Modern
Age (the U.S.A., Canada, Australia etc.) are the outcome of a
process of divergence (especially as regards pronunciation) from a
relatively homogeneous mother tongue, English, which was spoken by
the white colonizers themselves (N.B. I won't take into account here
the varieties of English spoken by the colonized non-Caucasian
natives of former British colonies in Asia and Africa, which is an
entirely different matter: English speakers in those countries are,
indeed, for the most part bilingual). Thus, Modern English came
first; further to colonization, Modern English differentiated into
new geo-cultural varieties of English -- American English,
Australian English etc. -- with their own sub-varieties and separate
linguistic histories (including a very moderate tendence to
creolization). This process of linguistic differentiation, motivated
by geo-cultural reasons, is quite understandable (the same cannot be
said for the internal differentiation of British English dialects).
Can you maintain a similar process to have occurred in the case of
the historical differentiation of Italian "dialects"? Did the latter
diverge from a homogeneous Italian "language" spoken in the Middle
Ages, or did they rather diverge directly from Vulgar Latin as I
have pointed out in my earlier post? And, what is older, Italian or
its "dialects"?
> There is an Italian language, of which regional varieties are
> dialects.
This statement looks quite dogmatic and inspired by nationalistic
prejudices to me. It doesn't tell all the story.
> The farmers and soldiers who conquered western Europe with their
> feet and hands were not speaking a pre-packaged official language.
> Typical garbage rewriting history.
What did they speak then? Were they the speakers of some already
differentiated varieties of Latin which, in the European lands they
conquered, turned magically into 'Proto-French', 'Proto-
Castilian', 'Proto-Rumanian' etc. etc.? Or wasn't their own common
Latin language, to a great extent, a standardized one which evolved
locally into the various Romance languages and dialects long after
the Romans conquered those lands?
Regards,
Francesco