I find it odd that the mutually intelligible Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are considered separate "languages," while Schwabian or Bavarian are just "dialects" of German, or that the language they speak in Jordan and the one in Algeria are both "Arabic," even if a Jordanian and Algerian can't understand each other without resorting to MSA.
--- Jim Devine <jdevine03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Chris Doss: >s Napoleon (I think) once said, "a
> language is a dialect
> with an army and a navy."<
>
> [from
>
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Linguistics/armynavy.html,
> with a nice coda.]
>
> Language in Society 26:3 (1997), p.469
> by WB -- William Bright
>
> "A LANGUAGE IS A DIALECT WITH AN ARMY AND A NAVY."
>
> This saying, long part of oral tradition among
> sociolinguists, was
> quoted in a review by Alan Kaye in _LiS_ 26:484
> (1996). In his
> manuscript, Kaye had attributed the quote to Max
> Weinreich; the editor
> of this journal changed the attribution to Uriel
> Weinreich [from whom
> I first heard it in 1957 -- WB]. However, it has
> also been attributed
> to Joshua Fishman. Recent e-mail correspondence
> involving Christina
> Paulston and Ellen Prince, as well as Kaye and
> Fishman, has brought
> out the following points:
>
> (a) Some scholars believe that the saying is an
> expansion of a quote
> from Antoine Meillet, to the effect that a language
> is a dialect with
> an army.
>
> Up to now the source has not been found in the works
> of Meillet. Can
> any readers provide information on this?
>
> YES HERE IT IS FOUND and scanned by Source
>
> (b) The earliest documentation of the saying is in a
> publication in
> Yiddish by Max Weinreich. The following is a
> translation (by Ellen
> Prince) of a posting on "Mendele", a Yiddish e-mail
> list, by Yoshua
> Fishman on Oct. 28, 1996:
>
> Avrohom Novershtern (Jerusalem) found for me the
> source of Max
> Weinreich's saying that _A shprakh iz a diyalekt mit
> an armey un a
> flot_ ['A language is a dialect with an army and a
> navy.'] This is
> found in Weinreich's "YIVO and the problems of our
> time,"
> _Yivo-bleter_, 1945, vol. 25, no. 1, p. 13.
>
> Weinreich attributes this formulation to a young man
> who came to his
> lectures, and he decided, "I must bring to a large
> audience this
> wonderful formulation of the social fate of
> Yiddish." Congratulations
> to our good friend Novershtern and to all
> Mendele-subscribers who
> helped look for the largely forgotten source of a
> famous saying that
> is relevant to Yiddish and to all "one-down"
> languages.
>
> (c) Joshua Fishman believes that he may have been
> the young man who,
> as a student of Max Weinreich, originated the
> saying. It is clear, in
> any case, that the dictum derives from the tradition
> of Yiddish
> linguistics, and that it was made familiar by the
> Weinreichs and by
> Fishman. Further information from readers will be
> welcome. [end of
> quote]
>
> From: Cary Karp Director of Internet Strategy and
> Technology, Swedish
> Museum of Natural History 9/05
>
> "The attribution of the army-navy statement to
> Joshua Fishman is
> unlikely to be correct. In his 1945 article, Max
> Weinreich says that
> his informant immigrated to the USA as a child.
> Since Prof. Fishman
> was born there, he does not fit that part of the
> description. He was
> also no older than 18 at the time and in school
> elsewhere, thus not
> likely to be a teacher at a Bronx high school.
> Finally, the unnamed
> source of the saying knew little about the history
> and linguistic
> status of Yiddish. Joshua Fishman's knowledge of
> both was already
> significant."
>
> What is the Difference Between Information and
> Propaganda? -
>
> Answer . . .
>
> Military's Information War Is Vast and Often
> Secretive
> By JEFF GERTH
>
> The media center in Fayetteville, N.C., would be the
> envy of any
> global communications company.
>
> In state of the art studios, producers prepare the
> daily mix of music
> and news for the group's radio stations or spots for
> friendly
> television outlets. Writers putting out newspapers
> and magazines in
> Baghdad and Kabul converse via teleconferences.
> Mobile trailers with
> high-tech gear are parked outside, ready for the
> next crisis.
> The center is not part of a news organization, but a
> military
> operation, and those writers and producers are
> soldiers. The
> 1,200-strong
> psychological operations unit based at Fort Bragg
> turns out what its
> officers call "truthful messages" to support the
> United States
> government's objectives, though its commander
> acknowledges that those
> stories are one-sided and their American sponsorship
> is hidden.
>
> "We call our stuff information and the enemy's
> propaganda," said Col.
> Jack N. Summe, then the commander of the Fourth
> Psychological
> Operations Group, during a tour in June. Even in the
> Pentagon, "some
> public affairs professionals see us unfavorably,"
> and inaccurately, he
> said, as "lying, dirty tricksters."
> --
> Jim Devine / Bust Big Brother Bush!
>
> "To be positive: To be mistaken at the top of one's
> voice." --
> Ambrose Bierce, Devil's Dictionary.
>
> ___________________________________
>
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>
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