what do does language have to do with the matter at hand .. in any case?
Is Afrikaans 'n taal?
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>>Calling Afrikaans a language and [West] Flemish a dialect is political decision, it has nothing to do with objective linguistics.<<
Indeed. Hell, West Flemish seems *far* further from Standard Dutch than Afrikaans is; calling West Flemish a "dialect of Dutch" but calling Afrikaans a "language" is like calling Scots a "dialect of English English" while calling North American English and English English separate languages...
Indeed. Hell, West Flemish seems *far* further from Standard Dutch than Afrikaans is; calling West Flemish a "dialect of Dutch" but calling Afrikaans a "language" is like calling Scots a "dialect of English English" while calling North American English and English English separate languages...
It's due to political borders people call it such. Afrikaans is indeed pretty much intelligible for Dutch speakers, but it's vocabulary differs significantly. Afrikaans people aren't taugh Dutch and vice versa, but every West Flemish speak Dutch.
travis with this west flemish shit again ... be silent of what you do not know a German proverb goes
>>what is westflemisch anyway?<<
West Flemish is a set of Low Franconian dialects spoken in, well, western Flanders, a bit of Zeeland, and bits of French Flanders. It has quite a few differences from Standard Dutch, many of which are far more fundamental than those between Afrikaans and Standard Dutch, and some of which reach back to the Middle Dutch period or even the Old Frankish period. For instance it has a different fate of Proto-Germanic /ai/ and /au/, strongly distinguishes masculine and feminine nouns, preserves the Middle Dutch "ne" particle, has quite different plural personal pronouns, and has conjugated affirmative/negative words, unlike both Standard Dutch and Afrikaans. However, it is still Low Franconian, and within such it is closest to Zeelandic dialects (and not East Flemish dialects, which have had significant influence from Brabantic dialects).
And as to whether West Flemish is a distinct language from Dutch per se or not is roughly analogous to the perennial controversy as to whether Scots is a distinct language from English; I support the position that it is distinct from Dutch on grounds similar to why I support the position of Scots being distinct from English, but I cannot really claim to be an authority on the matter myself.
West Flemish is a set of Low Franconian dialects spoken in, well, western Flanders, a bit of Zeeland, and bits of French Flanders. It has quite a few differences from Standard Dutch, many of which are far more fundamental than those between Afrikaans and Standard Dutch, and some of which reach back to the Middle Dutch period or even the Old Frankish period. For instance it has a different fate of Proto-Germanic /ai/ and /au/, strongly distinguishes masculine and feminine nouns, preserves the Middle Dutch "ne" particle, has quite different plural personal pronouns, and has conjugated affirmative/negative words, unlike both Standard Dutch and Afrikaans. However, it is still Low Franconian, and within such it is closest to Zeelandic dialects (and not East Flemish dialects, which have had significant influence from Brabantic dialects).
And as to whether West Flemish is a distinct language from Dutch per se or not is roughly analogous to the perennial controversy as to whether Scots is a distinct language from English; I support the position that it is distinct from Dutch on grounds similar to why I support the position of Scots being distinct from English, but I cannot really claim to be an authority on the matter myself.
what are your sources if I might ask? Have you seen large volumes of the language/dialects corpus or have got any soundfiles?
its funny how these discussions drift from language to language with the entended topic language only being named in the first 2 (tops) posts
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