Don't even get me started on Hungarian... -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Raymond E. Feist Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 1:57 PM To: feistfans-l Subject: Re: New "get to know you" question
On Nov 8, 2011, at 9:53 AM, Nick Andrews wrote: > Much like the debate around here of Spanish versus Mexican. And then > there's Spanglish... People from Spain come here and scratch their > heads at people speaking 'Spanish' a lot, wondering what they are > saying. It's almost like the difference between spoken Dutch and > German, but not quite as different. Languages evolve, though not as fast as they did before print. Portugese would be considered a dialect of Spanish if it wasn't for a very serious range of mountains between the two nations. For another example, look at Catalan, the language of the Catalonian region of Spain, but also spoken in Andora, the French Pyrenees, and Sardinia. It's a Romance language, like Spanish, Italian, French, etc. but there's a lot of linguistic debate on if it's originally it's own language or a dialect of early Spanish. As for Mexican and Spanish, the language is still Spanish in Mexico, but with a fair number of Mesoamerican (Aztec, Toltec, Tobassco, Texcallan, etc.) borrowed words mixed in. Many of the place names like Oaxaca are not Spanish, but native. Spanglish is a pidgin, a blended language with it's own structures. Afrikaan is a creole, a pidgin language that evolves to having native speakers, i.e. people born into the language group who use it as a primary language. If people start speaking Spanglish from birth, it will be a creole language. All languages borrow to some degree (even French, to the horror of the Academe d'Francais). One last note on pre-printing language drift. In the early 1700 there was a parasite infestation that destroyed much of the Great Southern Bison herd in North America. The Cheyenne were starving and broke into two bands to better survive, the southern branch moving down into Arapaho country, the norther branch moving up to stay with the LaKota (Sioux). Thirty years later the two bands met and they could hardly understand one another their languages had been so influenced by those they lived with. The tribes never reunited. The Norther Cheyenne rode with Sitting Bull against Custer, while the Southern Cheyenne refused do. A language is a living, evolving thing, and could change rapidly before it became "fixed" by print. Best, R.E.F. ---- www.crydee.com Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
