Low Saxon, dialect or language?

"I was not planning on getting into any details, such as preservation of West Germanic /ai/ and /au/ as distinct from West Germanic /e:/ and /o:/"

I'm actually interested in those details, Travis! Which other West Germanic languages or dialects preserved that? Isn't it a feature of North Germanic languages also?

Well I'm certain that is not a feature of all varieties and doesn't make it as special as you want it to be. It strikes me as odd that someone from the Us(?) Canada(?) ever heard of West Flemish in the first place, however, I do know the WestFlemish speakers... so have you by any chance been in contact with one?

>>"I was not planning on getting into any details, such as preservation of West Germanic /ai/ and /au/ as distinct from West Germanic /e:/ and /o:/<<

Some North Germanic dialects do preserve a distinction between /ai/ and /e:/ while some don't. Standard Danish and Standard Swedish do not contain this distinction, while it does exist in Bokmål, Nynorsk, Icelandic, and Faroese. Of course, this is completely ignoring many North Germanic dialects, which may differ quite significantly from any given standard.

>>I'm actually interested in those details, Travis! Which other West Germanic languages or dialects preserved that? Isn't it a feature of North Germanic languages also?<<

English does maintain such a distinction with /ai/ and /o:/ (the mergers were reversed in Anglo-Frisian) while in most dialects having lost the distinction between /au/ and /e:/.

>>Well I'm certain that is not a feature of all varieties and doesn't make it as special as you want it to be.<<

It was just one feature that I thought of off the top of my head; I could have mentioned a different one, like lack of diphthongization of /i:/ and /y:/. The main thing is that from what I've heard and seen, West Flemish's relationship with Standard Dutch and dialects associated with it such as Brabantic, Hollandic, and East Flemish is analogous to that between Scots and English - that is, it is clearly distinct, but whether it is a "language" sociopolitically is controversial.

>>It strikes me as odd that someone from the Us(?) Canada(?) ever heard of West Flemish in the first place, however, I do know the WestFlemish speakers... so have you by any chance been in contact with one?<<

I'm from the US, for the record (from Wisconsin specifically).

As for hearing about West Flemish, the matter is that I primarily found out about it from looking into Low West Germanic languages, especially those outside of Standard Dutch. And no, I don't know anyone who speaks it. Unfortunately, the amount of documentation on it that I've been able to find has been very slim, even more so than with, say, German Low Saxon (which I have at least found some actual concrete documentation on).

Well that's odd, because it seems from archived discussions (which I accidentally found - has this forum always been like 'this' btw?-) it seems you were introduced to this topic by a fellow named "matthis". Who seems to've been west Flemish.

In some of these "threads" you explicitly mention Westflemish being a different language from Dutch. I qoute:

//What most people call "Flemish" is just Dutch, and less far from Dutch Dutch than North American English is from Engilsh English at that. There is a separate language from Dutch known as *West Flemish*, which is spoken in West Flanders and French Flanders, but this is not spoken in East Flanders, where simply dialects of Dutch are spoken. //

I've referred to West Flemish as a "language" for the same reasons that I refer to Scots as a "language", as I've said before - such is sufficiently distinct from, in this case, Dutch to be called a language by some definitions of the term, and actually calling it such lends itself to political and social recognition and its actively being taught, and thus would improve its prospects of long-term survival. Its status relative to Dutch seems to be pretty analogous to that of Scots relative to English, and considering that I already spoke of Scots as a "language" before I even knew of West Flemish, I referred to West Flemish as one too simply for the sake of consistency.

Sure ... but in my book, when a dialect is "sufficiently distinct to be called a language by *SOME* definitions of the term" it still isn't a language.

That quote is from Max Weinberg, and its not a good argument. Its an overused quote to say the least.

Btw, the Austrians have an army, do they speak Austrian there?

I know what the quote wanted to say, I just illustrated that its a bad quote.

Besides Im not at all that interested in the dialect/languages distinction. Its the supposed distinction from Dutch that worries me.

Why does it worry you; why do you see supporting it as a regional language, albeit one relatively close to Dutch, to be a problem exactly?

You're not supporting a regional language relatively close to Dutch, you're supporting a core Dutch dialect.

Because the continual pushing of political "status" for dialects (see Limburgish see Low Saxon) as (regional) "languages" for political support (in this case the European union and national politics) ignores linguistics.

They made Limburgish a regional language, then again they didn't. They declared the dialects spoken IN Dutch limburg regional languages. It ignores the fact that most Limburgers (north of maastricht) speak dialects closer to Brabantian than traditional limburgish.

The same goes for west flemish, people understand them just fine, and there is no clear line where West Flemish begins and other dialects take over as you seem to want to think.

>Why does it worry you; why do you see supporting it as a regional language, albeit one relatively close to Dutch, to be a problem exactly?<

He/She seems to be a Dutch nationalist.

actually Im belgium thank you very much.

Even if West Flemish were to be recognised as something its not (a separate language) it would never be a "threat" to Dutch, because even without the West Flemish speakers (who are in that case also bilingual) it outnumbers French by far.

So no, thats not my main objection. The true main objective is that it is Dutch, and nothing more.

>>Even if West Flemish were to be recognised as something its not (a separate language) it would never be a "threat" to Dutch, because even without the West Flemish speakers (who are in that case also bilingual) it outnumbers French by far.

So no, thats not my main objection. The true main objective is that it is Dutch, and nothing more.<<

The matter is this - just how do you define "Dutch" anyways? If you define it as being one and the same as "Low Franconian", it would include Afrikaans while not including Limburgish or Low Saxon (contrary to your assertion that Limburgish and Dutch Low Saxon are part of Dutch). To have Dutch *not* include Afrikaans, one would have to limit the range of Low Franconian dialects that falls under the name "Dutch". If one is already limiting the Dutch to a subset of Low Franconian dialects, then what is the problem with effectively limiting it to Brabantic and Hollandic dialects and cases where Standard Dutch has been exported from Brabant and Holland, which most closely approximate the formal notion of "Dutch" to begin with?