erinja:So I think there is a place for teaching a standardized language, and also a place for respecting local dialects, so that people can participate fully in the world of English speakers and be economically successful, and also preserve their local speech patterns.

When it comes to English though, what 'standardised' language are we going to have? (notice the bolded words ) (Sorry if I'm going a bit off track from what you've said)

There currently is no true standard of English for any one country. It Australia, some of us would say 'butter', where as others would say 'bu'er' with a glottal stop. And then comparing the national dialects, you've got all sorts of pronunciation varieties.

E.g. I and many (but not all) other speakers in Australia will pronounce 'th' (that) as 'v' and 'th' (three) as 'f'. This is also present in Cockney English...

Nonetheless, with differences like those, how does one go around standardising English while keeping the different regional vernaculars standardised too?

P.S.: everyone know's it's -ise, not -ize

erinja:even though we will likely speak Venetian or Sicilian at home and with friends (assuming this is what our families speak).

The amusing part is that technically very few people speak proper Italian; most of us speak a regional variation of Italian, that takes into account the peculiar local pronunciation of vowels and consonants on a somehow standard grammar basis (my own family was an exception to the norm, as my parents came from two very different dialect families, we used Italian at home and it took me longer than most of my friends to understand and speak the local dialect). This is, I think, what one would call accent or inflection. Dialects are another beast altogether and personally I treat them as languages. When one asks me how many languages I speak, sometimes I include Venetian in the list. After all, it predates Italian, it has been an official language of a powerful nation at some point in its history, and it has been used in literature, for day-to-day necessities (ship logs, cargo manifests), official laws, and works of art (theatrical works).

Interese mnlg!

How is Venetian different to standard Italian? I've seen some differences, but given my limited understanding I have no comprehension of the deep rooted differences between the two.

In a way, you could see the Germanic languages as dialects of each other - if you went slowly back in time you'd find the differences between them are no where as deep as one might think (however that said there's still enough differences to prevent you from understanding all of them automatically if you speak one)

ceigered:How is Venetian different to standard Italian?

This article should give you a few pointers. I suspect this is going quite off topic, both to this thread and the English forum, so perhaps we can continue in another forum or through e-mail/PMs if you so wish.

andogigi:Their languages aren't that far apart and they can understand each other to a certain degree.

Actually I should of brought this up earlier, but I completely agree, I've self taught myself some Swedish (so it's pretty rusty as you can imagine) but one you know a bit of one of the Scandinavian tongues you can pretty much read the others blissfully and even understand a LITTLE bit of the spoken language (well, with Danish it's exceptionally hard, which is a pity coz it's a beautiful tongue!)

For example (using Esperanto as a pronunciation guide), when you hear 'jaj' you know its 'I' in Danish, 'jog/ja' (more or less) is Swedish and 'jej' is Norwegian .

Sometimes it is not clear whether something is a language or a dialect.

For instance, Catalan, spoken in the region of Cataluna, Spain, is nowadays considered a language but in the days of dictator Franco the government considered it a dialect of Spanish.

Many times the acknowledgment of the status of language or of dialect depends not on linguistics but on politics.

That is why some acute writer whose name escapes now from my memory, once wrote:

"A language is a dialect having its own army."

Regards,

Daniel

mnlg:

erinja:even though we will likely speak Venetian or Sicilian at home and with friends (assuming this is what our families speak).

The amusing part is that technically very few people speak proper Italian; most of us speak a regional variation of Italian, that takes into account the peculiar local pronunciation of vowels and consonants on a somehow standard grammar basis (my own family was an exception to the norm, as my parents came from two very different dialect families, we used Italian at home and it took me longer than most of my friends to understand and speak the local dialect). This is, I think, what one would call accent or inflection. Dialects are another beast altogether and personally I treat them as languages. When one asks me how many languages I speak, sometimes I include Venetian in the list. After all, it predates Italian, it has been an official language of a powerful nation at some point in its history, and it has been used in literature, for day-to-day necessities (ship logs, cargo manifests), official laws, and works of art (theatrical works).

danielcg:Sometimes it is not clear whether something is a language or a dialect.

I am speaking about linguistics of course. I would not call upon linguistics to determine whether a certain political ideology leans to the left or to the right, and for the same reason I do not see why I should use politics to determine how to name an assortment of symbols, grammar rules and literature.

Ask ten linguists about the differences between a language and a dialect, and they will refer to nationality, ethnic groups, political borders; nothing inherently linguistic. Therefore I feel free to say that there is no relevant difference and I treat them the same way.

As for your quote, I have seen it in at least half a dozen variations and attributed to even more writers, philosophers, generic wise men and the likes. The web site Omniglot attributes it to Max Weinreich and gives the (supposedly) original version in Yiddish:

אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמיי און פֿלאָט
(A shprakh iz a dyalekt mit an armey un flot)
"A language is a dialect with an army and navy".

Perhaps I was not clear (please let me put the blame on English not being my native language, OK?).

I don't in the least agree with the use of politic considerations when determining if something is a language or a dialect. I was just mentioning that it has been done.

Regards,

Daniel

mnlg:

danielcg:Sometimes it is not clear whether something is a language or a dialect.

I am speaking about linguistics of course. I would not call upon linguistics to determine whether a certain political ideology leans to the left or to the right, and for the same reason I do not see why I should use politics to determine how to name an assortment of symbols, grammar rules and literature.

Ask ten linguists about the differences between a language and a dialect, and they will refer to nationality, ethnic groups, political borders; nothing inherently linguistic. Therefore I feel free to say that there is no relevant difference and I treat them the same way.

As for your quote, I have seen it in at least half a dozen variations and attributed to even more writers, philosophers, generic wise men and the likes. The web site Omniglot attributes it to Max Weinreich and gives the (supposedly) original version in Yiddish:

אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמיי און פֿלאָט
(A shprakh iz a dyalekt mit an armey un flot)
"A language is a dialect with an army and navy".

mnlg:אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמיי און פֿלאָט
(A shprakh iz a dyalekt mit an armey un flot)
"A language is a dialect with an army and navy".

Stupid computer fonts not displaying the nikkudim properly, for some reason Verdana or whatever this site uses doesn't show hebrew vowel + modifier sounds right so to me the yiddish text looks very odd

א שפראך איז א דיאלעקט מיט אן ארמיי און פלאט

The text sans nikkudim for anyone interested.
(I'm not actually sure whether this is allowed in yiddish but if your fonts are stuffed like mine then this might help with the reading).

ceigered:Stupid computer fonts not displaying the nikkudim properly, for some reason Verdana or whatever this site uses doesn't show hebrew vowel + modifier sounds right so to me the yiddish text looks very odd

I see them perfectly. Depending on your operating system you should either upgrade your verdana or any other sans-serif font. Your computer should pick it automatically when it does not find the characters it needs in the font you are using at the moment (or at least this is what I have noticed).

You can find the so-called "core fonts" package here. The download is legal and it is explained here.