Re: [tied] Re: Franco-Provençal

2009/2/19 Arnaud Fournet <fournet.arnaud@...>:

>> You may classify Uralic languages with them if you want.
>> A.
>> ==========
> I don't understand. Please, explain and exemplify.
>
> ==========
> I examined Sicilian and other Romance varieties on the basis of three
> criteria :
> I wrote :
> For example, in the case of Sicilian versus standard Italian,
> If we ask basic phonological questions about Sicilian :
> Q1 Does this variety of Latin-based language have geminate consonants ?
> Q2 Does this " " " accept word-final consonants ?
> Q3 Does this " " " accept consonant clusters ?
> These basic questions can be asked about any language.
> They are not prefabricated to show Sicilian should be considered Italian.
>
> Q1 : Which Uralic languages have geminates ?
> it's mainly a feature of Finnic, Saami.
> Moksha-Mordvin has some morphologically conditionned geminates.
> Yurak also does.
>
> Q2 : Which Uralic languages have word-final consonants ?
> Finnic does not like that so much.
> No problem in other languages.
> It seems (southern) Samoyed has a marked preference for vowel-final nouns.
>
> Q3 : Which Uralic languages have consonant clusters ?
> I guess only Mordvin accepts more than three consonants in a row, including
> in initial position.
> Ostyak-Vogul also accepts heavy clusters, like -Nkw-
> Other languages avoid more than two consonants in a row.
>
> With these three criteria, you can classify Uralic.
>
> Another interesting criterion is :
> Does it accept heterorganic nasal clusters ? (like N-p or m-t)
>
> A.
> ==========

OK, but why are we classifying Uralic languages now? How does that
relate to the matter of our distinguishing between dialects and
languages? Those are all interesting pieces of information, but how
are they relevant? The questions are not universal enough, fine, they
can help us with the interal classification of Uralic languages, but
what about the other language families, languages and dialects?

>>> I totally agree they're practically the same language, but would all
>>> the Croatians/Serbs? While Czechs wouldn't mind if you called their
>>> language a dialect of "Czechoslovak", many Slovaks would be quite
>>> angry, I guess. Yes, silly nationalism, but that's irrelevant. Those
>>> languages have certain status, different phonologies, literary
>>> traditions etc. Easternmost Slovak, by the way, wouldn't be understood
>>> in westernmost Bohemia, or with serious difficulties.
>>>
>> ===========
>> It depends what one calls "serious"
>
> Well, if you need something urgently and don't have the few necessary
> days to get used to it, you won't understand it.
> ======
> ok
> A.
> ========
>
>> Anyway it seems these people are not very interested in understanding each
>> other.
>
> How have you come to that conclusion???
>
> =======
>
> Well, you were previously in only one country
> and you opted for two.
> This seems to show a strong desire to disrupt communication.
>
> A.
> =======

Well, unlike down there in the Balkans where the former Yugoslavian
enterprise ended up in a complete disaster, we really showed a strong
desire to go on with communication. We "divorced" peacefully, because
the federation was untenable - Slovaks wanted be responsible for
themselves and we let them go, no matter how much we loved the High
Tatras. ;-) You won't find other two countries in Europe that have
better relationship than Czechs and Slovaks. And better communication.
;-)

>
>> Moksha Mordvin does not have vowel harmony but Erzia Mordvin does.
>> This criterion is irrelevant when you compare Sicilian with Std Italian or
>> Mandarin with Cantonese.
>>
>> A.
>> =====
>
> Of course. Hence, this criterion clearly cannot be a part of the
> universal definition.
>
> =======
>
> Unless you add a check-list of typological criteria.
>
> A.
> ========

...like?

Please, make a clear, consistent, coherent definition that will define
what dialect is as opposed to language.

You don't seem to understand what I mean: a language-independent
definition of dialect/language.

>>> Are Czech, Slovak and Polish dialects of the same language?
>>>
>> ======
>> My knowledge of them is about zero
>> so I cannot answer.
>>
>> I suppose that the different places of demarcative stress,
>
> Bohemian Czech - initial stress
> Moravian Czech dialects (northern) - penultimate stress
>
> ========
> Why is it Czech then ?
>
> It could be a Polish dialect.
>
> A.
> =======

Because vowel length and stress are not enough here.

>
>> plus the absence
>> or presence of long vowels
>
> Bohemian Czech, southern Moravian Czech - long vowels present
> northern Moravian Czech - long vowels absent
>
> ======
> Same as above.
> Why is it not a Polish dialect ?
>
> A.
> =======

By the way, Eastern Slovak also lacks long vowels, and it also
displays penultimate stress. ;-)

>> plus different consonantal systems, all this must
>> make intercomprehension fairly uneasy.

Dialects which are geographically close tend to be easier to
understand. The further you are, the more difficult the communication
gets.

> I understand Polish quite well. There's an interesting dialect near my
> hometown which renders standard Czech /st/ and /st^/ as /s^c^/.
> Together with the typical penultimate stress, it sounds much like
> Polish to the Czech ear. The problem is that there have been
> transitional dialects between Czech and Polish, Czech and Slovak and
> Slovak and Polish.
>
> Piotr, what's your opinion concerning these issues?
>
> =======
> Maybe they are not far from being dialects of the same language then, even
> though this language does not have a name.
>
> A.
> =======

An anecdote:

A friend of mine once attended a linguistic conference. He met with
his collegue from Slovakia and another one from Poland. They were all
sitting in a café, he was speaking to them in Czech, they were using
their own languages, when suddenly a collegue of theirs (who was from
the USA, I think, and was quite well acquainted with Russian and other
Slavic languages) came to them, listened for a while and cried out:
"What kind of language is that, for Christ's sake???" My friend
replied: "Why, that's West Slavic!" :-D

Wishes,

Petr