--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Andrew Jarrette" <anjarrette@...>
wrote:
> Francesco, I just wanted to ask, so that I can be certain that I
> understand:
>
> Were you saying that Sicilian, Corsican, Gallo-Italian, Venetian,
> Neapolitan, and all the other "dialects of Italian" are better
> considered modern dialects of Vulgar Latin, since that is their
> common starting point, and standard Italian is not a common
> starting point?
Yes, I were saying that, but mind that the regional diversification
of Latin into many 'Vulgar Latins', in the Italian as well as in
many other western provinces of the Roman Empire, dates from the
last centuries of the imperial period. There was, of course, no
monolithic Vulgar Latin, and the development of the various Italian
(and Romance at large) dialects from as many forms of Vulgar Latin
took centruries to lead to the proto-forms of the modern Romance
dialects (some of which were given the status of national languages
for socio-political reasons) as we know them.
> If so, it seems that by that definition they are equal in status to
> Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc., and also Catalan, Occitan, and
> the other non-national modern descendants of Vulgar Latin. So it
> would seem all these modern descendants of Vulgar Latin are
> languages, regardless of political boundaries.
In my humble opinion, Italian dialects have an equal status to that
of standard French, standard Castilian, standard Catalan, the
various Occitan dialects etc. within the ambit of the Western
Romance dialectal continuum as far as their origin through direct
derivation from varieties of Vulgar Latin (combined with specific
substrate influences) is concerned. Some linguists hold that a
dialect gets the language status only after it produces a
substantial literary corpus. In this sense, many dialects of Italy
(or, e.g., of Catalan, such as Valencian) can be regarded as
languages by full right. Otherwise, if one doesn't accept the above
definition, the dialects of Italy must be considered
mere 'dialects', not 'languages'. But they are *not* 'subdivisions'
of the Italian language, which came into existence only in the later
medieval period!
> If a European language spreads beyond Europe, it is either the
> same language (American English) or another language (Afrikaans).
> It is never a dialect in such cases.
Isn't Afrikaans considered a modern dialect of Dutch?
Regards,
Francesco