Are languages real?

[MarxSchmarx]

Do you believe languages are real? If so, how are the delineated? How are they different from dialects?

For example, is Creole as spoken in Haiti a different language or is it just a branch of French? What about Mandarin and Cantonese?

Is a class based analysis of the question "what a language is" possible?

Just curious to read what people think.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Languages very obviously exist. :unsure:

There are entire concepts in say, cherokee indian, that aren't expressible in english, so it can't just be a difference of dialect - not all words have accurate substitutes in foreign tongues.

-Alex

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Languages exist insofar as all abstract ideas can be said to exist. I think the current mehtod we have of differentiating between languages, dialects etc. is acceptable.

[Dr Mindbender]

why is this thread in science? It belongs in philosophy IMO. :blink:

I think languages and dialects are different in the respect that you can have several dialects orientated around the same language, the difference being the words are anunciated differently.

If you visit the mainland UK and tour it from the north to south, you will experience many dialects!

[AGITprop]

Heres an even more important question because language is obviously real, and the categorization of a dialect or language is in my opinion not so important.

Does reality shape our language or does our language shape reality?
Something we discussed in anthropology class last week. thought it was interesting.

[Pawn Power]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 02:02 am
For example, is Creole as spoken in Haiti a different language or is it just a branch of French? What about Mandarin and Cantonese?


Yes it is a different language.

Or one could use that logica and say ("logically") that French, Italian, Spanish, etc. is a dialect of Latin.

[MarxSchmarx]

why is this thread in science? It belongs in philosophy IMO

Perhaps. Although the S&E thread is for topics:


...including sociology and psychology

which last I checked plausibly includes linguistics and anthropology. And I think this is a valid EMPIRICAL question, not a philosophical question per se. Should anthropologists and linguists (and psychologists and sociologists) even be speaking in terms of "languages."



Or one could use that logica and say ("logically") that French, Italian, Spanish, etc. is a dialect of Latin.

Right. Which is why I came to wonder, for example, is the distinction of "Spanish" as opposed to "Portguese" or "Italian" as a language meaningful?

After all, some people say that "Catalan" is a dialect of Spanish, not it's own language.

And we could make the same case for Portuguese. I mean, if Portugal was conquered by Ferdinand and Isabella, whose to say "Portuguese" won't have a status similar to "Catalan"?

And take French. Wasn't "French" codified by the Revolution? Before there was Langue d'oc versus whatever was spoken in Paris. Were these different languages?


I think languages and dialects are different in the respect that you can have several dialects orientated around the same language, words are anunciated differently

How about "lift" in British English and "Elevator" in American English (or "coke" and "pop" within American English?) And when do "sufficient" differences in annunciations accumulate to qualify a way of speaking as a dialect - e.g., in North America, English as spoken by African Americans versus English as spoken by Bostonians?


Languages exist insofar as all abstract ideas can be said to exist. I think the current mehtod we have of differentiating between languages, dialects etc. is acceptable.

Forgive my ignorance - what is the current method used?

[Cult of Reason]

I thought that whether differences in speech between two people being separate languages or just dialects was determined by the level of mutual intelligibility, or lack of, in their speech. Of course, intelligibility will likely be asymmetrical, for example, I have read that Norwegians find it easier to understand Swedes than the other way around, though that also depends on where in Norway and Sweden the people are from.

That also brings the problem of dialect continui, and of the social effect of the existance of Nationalism and nation-states. When Yugoslavia existed, with the exception of Slovenian and Macedonian, there was one language: Serbo-Croatian. However, how intelligible people were to each other depended largely on where in the country they lived, differences increasing with distance. Now, however, there is Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian etc.. Go figure.

[Pawn Power]

Should anthropologists and linguists (and psychologists and sociologists) even be speaking in terms of "languages."
Yes, it is a useful term, albeit it is often used incorrectly.


Which is why I came to wonder, for example, is the distinction of "Spanish" as opposed to "Portguese" or "Italian" as a language meaningful?
While those languages are all very similar they are not mutually intelligible.



After all, some people say that "Catalan" is a dialect of Spanish, not it's own language.
In linguistics, Catalan is its own language. It is only, and incorrectly, spoken of as a dialect of Spanish in the context of Spain as a nation. To be sure Catalan is more similar to French then it is to Castillano. Though, it is not mutually intelligible to either.


And take French. Wasn't "French" codified by the Revolution? Before there was Langue d'oc versus whatever was spoken in Paris. Were these different languages?
Languages change all the time. The English we speak now different from the English spoken 200 years ago and very different from that spoken 500 years ago.


How about "lift" in British English and "Elevator" in American English (or "coke" and "pop" within American English?) And when do "sufficient" differences in annunciations accumulate to qualify a way of speaking as a dialect - e.g., in North America, English as spoken by African Americans versus English as spoken by Bostonians?

These speech communities do share a common mutually understandable vocabulary and sentence structure which allows them to communicate. One could say they are dialects of each other. Historically, the "language" is the spoken by the dominant social group while the "dialects" are labeled as the speech of the others. Though this is not a meaningful distinction in term of linguisti

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Pawn Power+October 11, 2007 11:58 pm--> (Pawn Power @ October 11, 2007 11:58 pm)
[email protected] 11, 2007 02:02 am
For example, is Creole as spoken in Haiti a different language or is it just a branch of French? What about Mandarin and Cantonese?


Yes it is a different language.

Or one could use that logica and say ("logically") that French, Italian, Spanish, etc. is a dialect of Latin. [/b]
I don't know to what extent Haitian créole is a different language than French. In it's written form, it looks like French after a (much needed) orthographic reform. But this says more about my ignorance of Haitian créole than about anything else.

French, "Spanish", Italian, etc., are not dialects of Latin. Their structure is completely different.

It is common to say that "languages are dialects with an army", and to certain extent that is true - French is a "language", Occitan is a "dialect". But there are languages that have no army, and can by no means be considered dialects - Basque, Welsh, Kreen-Akarore, Navajo.

A more linguistic approach would be mutually comprehensibility: two different langs would be dialects of the same language if speakers of lang A can understand the spoken version of lang B without formal training, and vice-versa. But there are two problems with this. First, when three langs are involved, two of them may be mutually incomprehensible, while being both mutually comprehensible with the third one (speakers of A can understand speakers of B, who can in turn understand speakers of C - but speakers of A cannot understand speakers of C). Second, between two languages, comprehensibility may be unilateral (for instance, speakers of Portuguese can usually understand Castillian, but speakers of Castillian have a lot more trouble understanding Portuguese).

Oh, and while this thread hasn't much to do with environment, its place is in "Science". Linguistics is a science, not philosophy.

Luís Henrique

[Enragé]

Does reality shape our language or does our language shape reality?

Both ;)
At least in the sense that, our language shapes the way we see reality, in which terms we explain reality, talk about it etc, and so also influences the extent to which and they way in which we can change reality, have an impact on reality.
Its actually one of the more philospohically interesting points in Orwell's book 1984, where the regime tries to get everyone to talk and above all think in Newspeak for in Newspeak (e.g) its simply impossible to bring to words such concepts as freedom.

On the other hand reality also shapes langauge, for example look at the Inuit with the multitude of words they have for snow (material reality influencing language), or amongst native americans all women above a certain age being seen as and thus called the equivalent for "mother" (which in english is confined to one person, the biological mother, therefore mother isnt actually the correct translation) (social reality influencing language).

Basicly in the social world causality is never linear, never goes in but one direction; structures, concepts, ideas influence each other, rather than give birth to the other.


(This discussion is actually a sociological discussion whereas the rest of the thread is a linguistic discussion)

[LogicalPimp]

No, of course languages are not real. It's a huge conspiracy!

[Devrim]

On the differences between a language, and a dialect, I would say that the definitions are completely political.

Serbian, and Croatian, which are both completely mutually comprehensible are now considered to be seperate languages.

Kurdish is considered to be a language despite the fact that some of it dialects are mutually incomprehensible.

Devrim

[MarxSchmarx]

On the differences between a language, and a dialect, I would say that the definitions are completely political.

Well, there are examples of dialects elevated to languages (like Serbian and Croatian, which is often called "Serbo-Croatian"), but is the difference purely political or historical? My sense is that professional language categorizers don't rely on politics alone.



French, "Spanish", Italian, etc., are not dialects of Latin. Their structure is completely different.


Well this seems contestable. I thought their fundamental grammar was the same, e.g. adjectives follow nouns, Subject-verb-object, subject-verb agreement follows essentially the same outline, etc... Not to mention that much of their vocabulary derives from the same roots, with the possible exception of Arabic words in Spanish.

I like how "Spanish" is in quotes.

Mutual incomprehensibility seems like a respectable proposition, but as LH points out there is this transitivity problem. What are some real examples of this phenomenon?

However, if
, comprehensibility may be unilateral
this would seem to contradict mutual comprehensibility - so Portuguese is distinct for the simple reason that Castillian speakers generally can't understand it (at least in it's spoken form).



Languages change all the time. The English we speak now different from the English spoken 200 years ago and very different from that spoken 500 years ago.


Well, this raises an interesting point - is Old English, say, a different language than modern English? By the mutual intelligibility test, it is indeed a different language. Or is it still the same "English"?? A similar question seems to hold for Haitian creole as French. Written old English most modern English speakers could, with effort, comprehend. Yet I often find performances of even Shakespeare unintelligible.

[Devrim]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 03:54 am
Well, there are examples of dialects elevated to languages (like Serbian and Croatian, which is often called "Serbo-Croatian"), but is the difference purely political or historical? My sense is that professional language categorizers don't rely on politics alone.
...
Mutual incomprehensibility seems like a respectable proposition,
I don't think that there is an effective definition. If you think the example of Serbo-Croat is recent, and 'political'. Try Turkish, and Azeri.

Devrim

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 03:54 am

French, "Spanish", Italian, etc., are not dialects of Latin. Their structure is completely different.

Well this seems contestable. I thought their fundamental grammar was the same, e.g. adjectives follow nouns, Subject-verb-object, subject-verb agreement follows essentially the same outline, etc... Not to mention that much of their vocabulary derives from the same roots, with the possible exception of Arabic words in Spanish.
Well, there are of course similarities.

But Latin is totally incomprehensible to the speaker of a modern Romance language, even in its written form, without special training.

Latin is a language with declinations, and nominal concordance is declination dependent. Except Romanian, the Romance languages have no declinations. Also Latin has a highly free order (it is Subject-Verb-Object, but that can be changed for rhetorical or aesthetic reasons much more freely than in Romance languages). All Romance languages have articles, which Latin lacks. I think it is safe to say that modern Romance languages resemble each other (with the exception of Romanian) than they resemble Latin.

A person who knows two different western Romance languages, except if those are Portuguese and Castillian, can probably read and understand, at least roughly, any other western Romance Language (I can read, and understand, Italian, Occitan, or Catalan, because I know Portuguese and French); but even if you know all modern western Romance languages I doubt very much that you can understand written Latin (you can, though, probably understand quite well Latino Sine Flexione).

Except Portuguese, all western Romance languages made huge imports from Germanic languages. Not only Castillian, but also Catalan and Portuguese inherited a huge Arabic vocabulary. Portuguese also borrowed enormously from Tupi-guarani.

Luís Henrique

[MarxSchmarx]

But Latin is totally incomprehensible to the speaker of a modern Romance language, even in its written form, without special training.

Well, really ONLY in its written form. My understanding was that Latin as we know it and study it is literally Latin, which was quite different from spoken Latin or "vulgar" Latin. Was this the case?



Except Portuguese, all western Romance languages made huge imports from Germanic languages.

Do you know why this is? I thought Portugal too was conquered by the Visigoths.

As for Tupi-Guanari's influence on portuguese much of (%age) Portuguese would you say is Tupi-Guanari in origin??

And also I thought Italian-speakers had as hard a time understanding French as the Spanish-speakers do. Is this not the case?

thx, sorry for the questions if they are OT.

[Cult of Reason]

Vulgar Latin developed around 100 AD or something, I think.

Classical, literary, Latin started distinguishing itself from the rest earlier, being derived from earlier Latin from the days of the Republic, but neatened up to make it a better language for poetry. Classical Latin, then, is somewhat artificial, like modern Icelandic.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 05:57 am
Well, really ONLY in its written form. My understanding was that Latin as we know it and study it is literally Latin, which was quite different from spoken Latin or "vulgar" Latin. Was this the case?
Not exactly. "Vulgar" Latin is late Latin, as in Latin spoken in the Middle Ages. Of course there was a popular version of spoken Latin even in the Classic times, but I've never seen any effort to reconstruct it.

"Vulgar" Latin is the language (or languages, I'm not sure to what extent it was still a single language) from which the modern Romance languages originated (in two or three steps: Vulgar Latin - Iberic Romance - Old Portuguese - Modern Portuguese).



Except Portuguese, all western Romance languages made huge imports from Germanic languages.

Do you know why this is? I thought Portugal too was conquered by the Visigoths.

By the Sueves. But it seems they weren't able to imprint Portugal as much as the other Germanic peoples did in their respective areas.


As for Tupi-Guanari's influence on portuguese much of (%age) Portuguese would you say is Tupi-Guanari in origin??

Don't know... 2 or 3% perhaps. This of course is very different in Brazil or Portugal, and is somewhat specialised (lots of names of fruits, plants, and animals; and toponyms of course)


And also I thought Italian-speakers had as hard a time understanding French as the Spanish-speakers do. Is this not the case?

Not sure... the vocabulary is perhaps closer, but the prosody of French is very unique.

Luís Henrique

[blackstone]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 03:54 am
Written old English most modern English speakers could, with effort, comprehend. Yet I often find performances of even Shakespeare unintelligible.
Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

That's Old English, a verse from Beowulf specifically.

Can you speak that? Let alone comprehend that? Do you believe that Modern English speakers can? That looks more like German than Modern English.

I should know, i had a few courses on the history of English.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by blackstone+October 16, 2007 01:30 pm--> (blackstone @ October 16, 2007 01:30 pm)
[email protected] 15, 2007 03:54 am
Written old English most modern English speakers could, with effort, comprehend. Yet I often find performances of even Shakespeare unintelligible.
Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

That's Old English, a verse from Beowulf specifically.

Can you speak that? Let alone comprehend that? Do you believe that Modern English speakers can? That looks more like German than Modern English. [/b]
Perhaps he was thinking of Middle English?

Luís Henrique

[Cult of Reason]

First 15 lines of Middle English version of the Canterbury Tales:


Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury.
1 Whan that Aprille, with hise shoures soote,
2 The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
3 And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
4 Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5 Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
6 Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
7 The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
8 Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
9 And smale foweles maken melodye,
10 That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
11 So priketh hem Nature in hir corages-
12 Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
13 And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
14 To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
15 And specially, from every shires ende

Taken from:

http://www.canterburytales.org/canterbury_tales.html

Understandable? The structure is easily comprehensible, as is most of the vocabulary, but the exceptions make it quite difficult to understand what is going on.

For comparison, here is the Modern English translation:


Here begins the Book of the Tales of Canterbury
1 When April with his showers sweet with fruit
2 The drought of March has pierced unto the root
3 And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
4 To generate therein and sire the flower;
5 When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
6 Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
7 The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
8 Into the Ram one half his course has run,
9 And many little birds make melody
10 That sleep through all the night with open eye
11 (So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-
12 Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
13 And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
14 To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
15 And specially from every shire's end

[blackstone]

Originally posted by Luís Henrique+October 16, 2007 09:38 pm--> (Luís Henrique @ October 16, 2007 09:38 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 16, 2007 01:30 pm

[email protected] 15, 2007 03:54 am
Written old English most modern English speakers could, with effort, comprehend. Yet I often find performances of even Shakespeare unintelligible.
Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.

That's Old English, a verse from Beowulf specifically.

Can you speak that? Let alone comprehend that? Do you believe that Modern English speakers can? That looks more like German than Modern English.
Perhaps he was thinking of Middle English?

Luís Henrique [/b]
I don't even think he meant Middle English, since he brought up Shakespeare. But it's possible that's what he was thinking.

[MarxSchmarx]

Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum
þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.


:huh:

Yeah, sorry blackstone, I meant middle english, Chaucer indeed in particular. Thanks Haraldur.



I don't even think he meant Middle English, since he brought up Shakespeare. But it's possible that's what he was thinking.

I just brought up shakespeare as somebody modern English speakers seem to do a better job understanding when written rather than spoken. I guess this was the only commonality I meant to imply between SHakespeare and middle english...