[Foundation-l] [Fwd: Sardininan - Sassarese languages orlanguage and dialect?]

Tue Sep 11 12:53:12 UTC 2007

Languages, dialects, complexes and clusters etc. should be considered from
the bottom up... In most cases it is a combination of dialects that makes a
language - usually with one dialect being used as the preferred standard.

Thus languages are formed from dialects that can be much older than the
language itself but in creating a hierarchy it is easier to show the
dialects under the language.

Best wishes

Debbie

> -----Original Message-----
> From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
> [mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf
> Of Andre Engels
> Sent: 11 September 2007 13:42
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] [Fwd: Sardininan - Sassarese
> languages orlanguage and dialect?]
>
> 2007/9/11, GerardM <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> > Hoi,
> > When you want to know what languages are recognised for the
> > Netherlands check out Ethnologue.
>
> It has improved since the last time I read it (there were 3
> languages in the Veluwe only, if I recall correctly), but
> still there is an amusing difference in granularity between
> the Lower Saxon dialects of the Netherlands compared to the
> lower Franconian (i.e. Dutch) dialects and the Lower Saxon
> dialects of Germany. Still, even this list agrees with the
> basic point I was making, namely that dialects can be
> considered part of a language with a formalized form even
> when that language is younger than the dialects themselves -
> looking at this list, apparently the various Hollandic and
> Brabant dialects are dialects of Dutch, even though they (or
> at least many of them) existed before the 17th century.
>
> --
> Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
> ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels
>
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