Re: [tied] Re: Franco-Provençal

2009/2/18 Arnaud Fournet <fournet.arnaud@...>:

>
>> The issue is about the use and misuse of the word "language".
>
> And it's the sort of argument that I expect to see among laymen,
> not linguists. In the cases of interest the choice of 'dialect'
> or 'language' is fundamentally a sociopolitical choice, not a
> linguistic one. Picard, Veneto, and Schwiizertüütsch are what
> they are, whether you call them languages or dialects of French,
> Italian, and German, respectively.
>
> Brian
>
> ============
>
> Amazing.
>
> This is about as stupid as claiming that a horse is not a horse because it's
> gray instead of black.
>
> There exists objective reasons to describe varieties as dialects or separate
> languages.
>
> A.

Those reasons, however, largely depend on the purpose/motivation of
"classification". So, please, define what language/dialect is/isn't.
Everyone will find both examples and counter-examples. ;-)

Best,

Petr