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Do you speak any slavic language?
Ok, Czech and Slovak without the diacritics:
Slovak:
Ottche násh, ktorý si na nebesách,
posvät' sa meno tvoje;
prid' král'ovstvo tvoje,
bud' vôl'a tvoja,
jako na nebi, tak i na zemi.
Chlieb násh vozdajshí daj nám dnes,
a otpust' nám nashe viny,
jako i my odpúsht'ame nashim vinníkom.
A neuvod' nás v pokushenie,
ale zbav nás od zlého.
Czech:
Ottche násh, kterýzh jsi v nebesích,
posvét' se jméno tvé;
prijd' království tvé,
bud' vuole tvá,
jako v nebi, tak i na zemi.
Chléb násh vezdejshí dej nám dnes,
a otpusť nám nashe viny,
jakozh i my odpoust'íme nashím vinníkuom.
A ne uvod' nás v pokushení,
ale zbav nás od zlého.
I think the debate here is simply about what we call things and what they really are. (signifiant et signifié)
It is absolutely irrelevant for the objective state of facts what somebody is going to call two standard languages born out of the same dialect continuum. Whether somebody says that Danish and Norwegian, Czech and Slovak, Macedonian and Bulgarian, Farsi and Dari, Catalan and Occitan etc. are two languages or one really mostly depends on one's SUBJECTIVE view of the given situation...
Of course, it is not that simple, as declarations can be (and often are) accompanied by actions, and one group might say, "You don't have a language. You don't have a distinct identity, therefore you don't have a right to exist." and then wage a war (or behave aggressively in another manner) against another group.
It is no wonder that Bulgarians claim that Macedonian is a Bulgarian dialect, but Macedonians do not claim the reverse. This is because of the respective sizes of the two countries.
When was the last time you heard a Dane saying that Norwegian was a mere dialect of Danish or a Czech saying that Slovakian is not REALLY a language?
Such an approach would be counterproductive and disrespectful of others. Who are Bulgarians to tell Macedonians how they are going to feel about themselves? It's so incredibly aggressive, stupid and arrogant that it leaves me speechless.
Imagine an area with a chain of dialects, each almost identical to its adjacent dialects:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
A is very, very much like B, C is more different, D even more etc. Speakers of A and Z can't understand each other.
In this area, you might end up with one country with one literary standard (LS). Something like this:
LS
[ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ] = One country, one "language".
Or, perhaps two countries might form and they might base their literary languages on dialect D and dialect W, which would most probably render these standards mutually unintelligible.
LS1 LS2
[ABCDEFGHIJK][LMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ] = Two countries, two "languages".
Or, you might end up with four countries, each one with its own literary standard:
LS1 LS2 LS3 LS4
[ABCD][EFGHIJ][KLMNOPQR][STUVWXYZ] = Four countries, four "languages".
You might also have two countries, but they might decide to base their LS on a group of dialects they share or that are the most prestigious:
LS
[ABCDEFGHIJK][LMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ] = Two countries, one "language".
Possibilities are truly endless.
Note that it is not always the central dialect that is chosen as the basis of the standard language, for example in Bulgaria, France or Germany.
It would be an oversimplification to say that political and standardisation processes do not influence the situation in the field. Once strong, centralised states are formed and they start exerting their inevitable influence on their "subjects" and their speech, dialects within the area of a "language" will slowly start converging.
This is an excellent examle of how the connection between the signifiant and the signifié (Saussure) can indeed become more than just arbitrary, when applied to the world of humans, as with us it actually does matter what you call somebody, because, if you reinforce what you are saying enough times and strongly enough, any human signifié will accept any arbitrary signifiant that you assign them.
Too bad this doesn't apply to the physical world. Otherwise, I'd be able to look at a penny in my hand and repeat to it assertively about a hundred times that it was a loonie (a Canadian $1 coin) and it would eventually believe me and turn into a loonie.
Ved : your account of real-life politico-linguistics is interesting. And the analogy with signifiant and signifié is elegant. In originally non-ehnic, centralised States, though, the historical process of unification - and the subsquent mythology - may not necessarily lead to peoples' decerebralisation. It's just an extra layer of complexity (a theme developed by Edgar Morin).
Yes, multi-ethnic countries are more complicated, but the outcomes can be (and often are) similar or the same. Of course, there are always idyllic exceptions like Switzerland, but they truly are exceptions.
The picture is much gloomier in a great majority of countries. Just look at ethnic and linguistic minorities in Germany, Greece or France. The situation is Truly sad.
Yeah, I fink my peeps spoke Slavic back wen dey wuz pickin' cotton out in da plantayshuns.
Then how come American and British English are the same languages?
Ved said: "It is no wonder that Bulgarians claim that Macedonian is a Bulgarian dialect, but Macedonians do not claim the reverse. This is because of the respective sizes of the two countries."
I very much like your explanations but that would make English (as spoken in England) a dialect of American. There is something else to be considered: geography, history, literature and even some sort of political unity in the past. That would explain why Americans are still convinced they speak a variety of a language spoken in a much smaller country. And the prestige of England, of course, the prestige of England.
Even regarding "continuums" there are constitutive dialects and consecutive dialects which are due to more recent migrations. I will speak of what I know best. Although Occitan and Catalan are indeed, in many of their solutions, the same Latin continuum, the 13 main evolutive differences already existed before the 12th century; these can be clearly seen in Catalan early literature and great chronicles (13th century) amd Catalan was the official language of the kings of Aragon from the 12th century onwards (and the sole official language of its terrirtory until 1714). The fact that both our neighbours, Castilian and French, have evolved much more make both our conservatives varieties look even closer. Many of the things we share were also shared by Castilian and French in the early Middle Ages.
The morphoxyntactic differences between Catalan and Occitan already existed 8 centuries ago and, since then, evolution has mainly affected the lexicon, which has become very partially more iberised in Catalan and greatly more francised in the case of Occitan, since the situation of Occitan (as a political entity) has always been much weaker.
Even the spellings were already different in the 12th century in the same points they are now. Contemporary Standard Occitan (as spoken by Occitan scholars) is now moderately borrowing from Catalan due to Catalan's stronger position but people from the Catalan-Occitan border (Salses is the first Catalan town in French soil) have always had the feeling they speak different languages. The border line is very well marked and the differences appear immediately. There hardly is any transitional line between these two languages. The fact that there was a real political border between these villages until 1659 must have helped a lot, I agree and although French was the official language on the Occitan side, Catalan was the only official language on the Catalan side.
Is that the case with dialects which were called Bulgarian in the 19th century and which were a part of the "national" Bulgarian literary tradition? Of course, people do have a right to evolve and to become whatever they want to become? Imagine the Americans decided to create a new American standard. Who would stop them?
Catalan is the evolution of Latin as spoken in the Tarraconensis and Occitan (specially Lengaocian and Provençal) are the result of the Latin spoken in the Narbonensis. They have always been very close but it is the same situation as Portuguese and Castilian Spanish (95% lexical similarities whilst Catalan and Occitan "only" would have 87%). Let us not speak about phonetic and intonation differences because this would make the languages even more different.
The feeling is that the differences in the south Slavic continuum seem to be very recent indeed (some from 1991 and where is the difference if Croatian insists in diverging?) and, given the unstability of the region, it doesn't seem the last page has yet been written. It's up to those interested, of course.
Après tout, la souveraineté réside dans le peuple. (LOL).
they want to become? should be "they want to become". It isn't an interrogation but an affirmation.
Jordi : "French was the official language on the Occitan side".
True, but in those times Occitanophone monolingualism was prevalent among the people while some of the social-economic élite (not all) was bilingual pretty early.
And Occitanophony's situation in Late Middle Ages was also very complex as it was split into the kingdom of France, the county of Toulouse, the duchy of Aquitaine and the Holy Empire.
Ved, just to get the figures from the Ethnologue straight these are:
CASTILIAN SPANISH: Lexical similarity 89% with Portuguese, 85% with Catalan, 82% with Italian, 76% with Sardinian, 75% with French, 74% with Rheto-Romance, 71% with Rumanian.
CATALAN: Central Catalan has 87% lexical similarity with Italian, 85% with Portuguese and Spanish, 76% with Rheto-Romance, 75% with Sardinian, 73% with Rumanian.
FRENCH: 89% lexical similarity with Italian, 80% with Sardinian, 78% with Rheto-Romance, 75% with Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish, 29% with German, 27% with English.
According to the lexical similarity Catalan is closer to Italian than Spanish! Although it doesn't say anything, since Italian and French have got 89% lexical similarity Catalan must also be in that range for French and Occitan.
Castilian Spanish is even closer (lexicon) to Portuguese than Italian is to Occitan, French or Italian?
I imagine that lexicon similarity between some Bulgarian and some Macedonian dialects must be around 95% (that is what happens between Catalan dialects where Valencian has 95% lexical similarity with Central Standard Catalan and that is the furthest you'll get).
Obviously, lexical similarity isn't everything but it does give you an idea of "how it all started".
I imagine there is no such thing as a scientific, pure, linguist although some do try and all languages evolve (it they are helped they evolve even more.)
Greg:
That is true and as you know I also have an Occitan studies diploma. The influence of Standard French over Occitan starts very early although Occitania will remain a basically monolingual area until the mid 19th century and Occitan will remain the most popular language in Occitania until 1918.
In the case of Catalan, although we will share the same king that Castille since the late 15th century, the countries that made up the Crown of Aragon will remain independent until the 18th century. As I said Catalan will remain the only official language until the early 18th century and will be co-official during the Spanish 2nd Republic (1931-39) and since 1978.
The situation is very different on the Spanish and French sides, except for the Rosselló (Roussillon), half of the Cerdanya (Cerdagne) and Vallespir that will become French in 1659.
The important thing to retain is that political barriers do create different standards but do not necessarily break the unity of a language. It takes centuries for that to happen although it will eventually happen if the same language is cut in two. The first thing they do is to borrow lexicon from neighbouring languages (I've read that Bulgarian borrows quite a bit from Russian whilst Macedonian borrowed quite a bit from Serbian.)
Even the Catalan dialect spoken in the Roussillon (Perpignan) now has a moderate French influence. It was pure Catalan in the early 19th century when people were really monolingual. Nowadays it is becoming more Catalan again because Standard Central Catalan is taught in French Catalonia and because they can watch Catalan Television from Barcelona and they travel to this side more often.
Languages can converge or diverge depending on political factors.
Jordi : I agree with what you said. Also, the political entities I mentioned (Aquitaine, Holy Empire...) are just a very poor account of the immensely complex societies prevailing in Occitany (a relatively modern concept that doesn't render the political fragmentation of what is now Southern France). It was even more complex in Early Middle Age. But you know all that already.
You mentioned a French influence on Northern Catalan. Is this influence limited to 'international' words (like <television>, <informatique> etc - words that anyway would look like their Catalan counterparts) or are there more surprising examples ?
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