Explanation of some proverbs (In English, please)

muhannad · Post by **muhannad** » 30 Jan 2006 15:15

Max Weinreich, one of the leading figures in modern Yiddish linguisics, says in one of his aricles:
"a language is a dialect with an army and a navy" which is read in Yiddish as:
"a shprakh iz a dyalekt mit an armey un flot".
Could any one explain what does this aphorism mean, please?

mansio · Post by **mansio** » 30 Jan 2006 17:09

The army and the navy of a "shprakh" is its grammar, its large vocabulary, its literature, its numerous speakers, its higher standard, as compared to the "feeble" dialect.
That's how I understand the sentence.

Maïwenn · Post by **Maïwenn** » 30 Jan 2006 17:21

Actually this is not correct...

It's often hard to distinguish between a language and a dialect. Some people say we have to consider imutual-intelligibility. That is to say : if speakers of one "language" understands their neighbors' "language" they're not really languages, but dialects. That's why in France Ch'ti and Gallo are said to be dialects, and not languages, because people who speak them are virtually able to understand each other. Whereas Breton or Alsacian are languages, because French people will never be able to understand it (without learning).

But then, what about Swedish and Norwegian ? They are mutually intelligible. But we consider them as languages. Why ? Because they belong to two nations. And that's where army and navy come in. Army and navy are symbols of real powerful countries. So, the sentence "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy" means that the distinction between dialect and language isn't linguistic, it's all about political matters.

I hope it makes sense, please ask again if it's not clear.

Olivier · Post by **Olivier** » 30 Jan 2006 17:28

This has been discussed in the French part of this forum and it seemed to mean that in fact there is no difference, any dialect is a language, so that basically it is called a "language" in the case when those people have a State of their own, or in other words: an army.
-- Olivier

mansio · Post by **mansio** » 30 Jan 2006 18:02

I entirely agree with Maiwenn. Her explanation is of course the right one. I overlooked the political implications of having an army and a navy, as I was only focused on the linguistic aspect.

Maïwenn · Post by **Maïwenn** » 31 Jan 2006 03:01

mansio wrote:I entirely agree with Maiwenn. Her explanation is of course the right one. I overlooked the political implications of having an army and a navy, as I was only focused on the linguistic aspect.

damas · Post by **damas** » 31 Jan 2006 03:06

So waiting for the answer of Muhannad, who is a close friend of mine by the way

mansio · Post by **mansio** » 31 Jan 2006 11:17

Damas

How do you say Syria in Arabic btw ? Ash-Shams, Shâm or Suriyya ?
And Damas ? Dimashq ?

damas · Post by **damas** » 31 Jan 2006 14:23

We say "Suria" or "Suriyya" for Syria (I find the second one strange a bit, but you can hear it though).

For Damascus, we say either Dimashq the official name, but usually -and almost all the time- we refer to it as "Ach-châm".
The word itself is Châm, but we add the definite aritcle "Al" and due to some pronunciation rule, it's pronounced "Ach-châm" or more precisely "Ch-châm"; and not "Al-Châm".

But in literary Arabic, it's only Dimashq - دمشق -

Voilà

Cool coincidence mansio, that at the moment you and I have the same number of posts, and I also noticed that we registered in the same week

mansio · Post by **mansio** » 31 Jan 2006 16:15

Damas

Shukran for your information. I also have a nice piece of coincidence concerning Syria.
When I travelled there in the seventies, I took the train from Turkey to Aleppo. As I went out of the train station I asked a young man (the first Syrian I talked to) with a suitcase for information. The man was leaving the country to visit his brother in the German town of Kehl on the Rhine river. Kehl is the town where I was born and it is separated by the Rhine from Strasbourg where I live!

damas · Post by **damas** » 31 Jan 2006 18:52

Wow!!

muhannad · Post by **muhannad** » 31 Jan 2006 22:44

Thanks for all of you.
But I want to ask, why it is difficult to differentiate between a "language"
and a "dialect"?
As I know:
A language : is a set of symbols and rules to manipulate them.
A dialect : is how can someone say (read) a vocabulary of some language,
(i.e dialect = accent).
is this idea correct or not?, please explain.

I think you are very good in Arabic "mansio".

Hi Damas.

mansio · Post by **mansio** » 31 Jan 2006 23:04

Muhannad

I'm just a beginner in Arabic.

Maïwenn · Post by **Maïwenn** » 01 Feb 2006 02:52

Accent and dialect are different

An accent is only about pronunciation. A dialect differs from a language because of pronunciation, syntax, grammar, vocabulary...

That's why it's so hard to distinguish between dialect and language : how different should a dialect be to be called a real language.

muhannad · Post by **muhannad** » 01 Feb 2006 20:02

Thank you very much.