Re: [tied] Re: Franco-Provençal

I totally agree that differentiating between "language" and "dialect"
is a sociopolitical (or sociolinguistic) question. No matter how the
differences have arisen, no matter how numerous they are, no matter
how heavy they are, no matter to what extent the two speeches are
mutually intelligible, no matter whether they have an immediate common
ancestor, "language" and "dialect" will be what we define them to be -
no matter which criteria (uniting/distinguishing) we use.

From the political perspective, languages tend to have better status,
they tend to be somewhat "safer", or, if you like, protected. And I
think it should be up to the speakers' communities. Do they want to
call their speech a "language"? Do they feel they need to protect
their distinctive traditions? Let them keep their traditions, let them
preserve their (feeling of) distinctiveness. Give them schools, books,
TV/radio channels and there won't be any ETA's or FNLC's or whatever,
will they (or will they not)? Maybe somewhat naïve, I know, but... ;-)

Best,

Petr