Beyond dialects and 方言

[Ah-Bin]

In other threads the war over dialects and languages has been fought with as much bitterness as 吳 versus 越 or 劉邦 versus 項羽.

I'd been debating the same thig for years, until I had tried to find the academic definitions for "language" "dialect", "語言" and "方言" and found that someone had solved the problem of definition in a different way.

The debate that goes on in these pages is basically because the difference between "language" and "dialect" cannot be measured empirically, so we can go on quoting examples from different parts of the world to justify one viewpoint or another and never get anywhere.

The best solution I've found for the argument is to scrap the terms "language" and "dialect" altogether and use Peter Trudgill's (1974) concept of heterogenity and homogenity instead.

In this concept "language" is a generic term for all spoken and written language and is subdivided into many "varieties"

Autonomous varieties are

“independent, standardized varieties of language, with, as it were, a life of their own”

and heteronomous varieties

"look to some other autonomous variety as a standard."

This can be found in his book "Sociolinguistics", which has also been translated into Chinese, (I think) as 社會語言學 there is definitely a Japanese translation of this book too.

Now the interesting part is the way to determine what is heteronomous and what is autonomous:

Standardizing changes in a heteronomous variety of language will cause the variety to move closer to some other autonomous variety.

So, here we have something measurable and have moved beyond the differences in meaning in "dialect" and "方言".

If we look at the variety of language spoken in Shanghai, for example, younger speakers (so I have heard) have tended to use words that are cognate with Mandarin in place of older terms that are composed of different characters (maybe someone who knows more about this can provide examples). In Cantonese as well, 最好has started to replace 至好 as the standard shifts towards Mandarin usage. This process even has a name, in German it is called Verdachung (=moving towards a roof?)

As an example of the move from heteronomous to autonomous, there is standard Norwegian, which was once heteronomous to Danish, but now develops according to its own standard.

Will this solve the argument about languages and dialects? We shall see....

[Ferno]

I don't really see where there could be any debate.

dialects are supposed to have mutual comprehensibility. Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghaiese do not. They're different languages. Heteronimity to autonimity has a long way to go. The real dialects would be varieties of the languages - like Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangdong Cantonese.

The only reason there is confusion is because 1) confusion over the usage of the "fangyan" translations and 2) politics: it's difficult to develop your own national identity when you're told everyone is speaking the same language.

[nipponman]

dialects are supposed to have mutual comprehensibility. Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghaiese do not. They're different languages. Heteronimity to autonimity has a long way to go. The real dialects would be varieties of the languages - like Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangdong Cantonese.

True dat. Another point that I think is fairly obvious but not well mentioned is that fact that when it comes to Mandarin and Cantonese, Wu and Hakka, none of these is truly a language, but a dialect from a mother language, middle chinese. The mother language happened to die off and now we are left with many dialects of that language. So, since the mother language is gone, and all of these dialects have evovled into completely different languages, I think we should call them just that, languages. Considering that they have dialects themsevles, this is not such a large leap I think.

[Ah-Bin]

The reason why he wanted to do away with "language" and "dialect" in the first place was because the "mutual intelligibility" argument is flawed. Hindi and Urdu, Zulu and Xhosa, Malay and Indonesian, Serbian and Croatian are examples of pairs of "mutually intelligible" varieties which are referred to as discrete "languages" but each one of these develops according to its own standard.

The other problem with the "mutual intelligibility" argument is that in some cases varieties of language are unidirectionally intalligible, for certain reasons, so speakers of one variety may understand the other simply because they have more exposure to a certain variety.

Example: American television sometimes gives subtitles for speakers of varieties of English which are not widely understood (Scottish and Geordie), but speakers of such varieties have no problem understanding American films or TV programmes.

Using the heteronomy/autonomy paradigm does not necessarily support the idea that "dialects" are heteronomous to "Mandarin". It can also be argued that certain varieties of language are moving towards autonomy as their speakers develop more widely understood ways of committing them to writing and deciding what is "correct" and "incorrect" usage.

In this case, Cantonese leads the way for writing. Written Cantonese has certain standards (not imposed by any government, but through common usage) which most people try to conform to to make themselves understood on paper. Southern Min does not, as yet have such widely recognised standards. I thionk the situation will change for Southern Min and Hakka in Taiwan, though, as these are taught in primary schools with textbooks written in a style which reflects these spoken varieties. if these styles of writing catch on, then

[Lu]

dialects are supposed to have mutual comprehensibility. Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghaiese do not. They're different languages. Heteronimity to autonimity has a long way to go. The real dialects would be varieties of the languages - like Hong Kong Cantonese and Guangdong Cantonese.

I think I used this argument before: Schweizerdeutsch (Swiss German) is apparently at least as unintelligable to speakers of Standard German as Dutch, and therefore, according to your definition, Schweizerdeutsch is a language while Dutch is a dialect of German (or the other way around).

The fangyan of the place I come from (in the east of the Netherlands) is pretty much incomprehensible to people from the west of Holland. Yet no-one ever calls it a language, it's a dialect. On the other hand there is the Frisian fangyan, which I can mostly understand, with some effort. Yet it is officialy a language.

Some Chinese fangyan (Wu is an example) have varieties that are mutually unintelligible, so that one village can barely understand someone from the next village. Yet it would be going a bit too far calling all those varieties languages.

I could go on and on. Add to this Ah-Bin's examples, and I'd say that there is most definately a debate. Which Ah-Bin may now have ended.

[Ian_Lee]

Ah Bin:

Cantonese influences Mandarin more than the other way does. In fact, I have listed many terms previously like computer, ride taxi, shaver,....etc which Mandarin has adopted the Cantonese terms (actually terms coined in HK first) than the other way around.

最好 and 至好 are both commonly used in Cantonese. This obviously is not a good example.

[Ah-Bin]

I am not sure about Cantonese having more influence on Mandarin than the other way around, although I am aware of the vocabulary items borrowed into Mandarin. Have these managed to oust the original Mandarin terms in standard and official use as well? Do the terms for "taxi" and "wife" and so on appear in official documents and educated discourse as well?

It seems unlikely to me that there is a greater shift in Mandarin usage towards Cantonese than the other way around. Although I base my belief solely on the fact that Hong Kong children are forced to read and write a variety of Chinese that approximates Mandarin at school, while those in the north of China are not required to learn any variety that is approximates spoken Cantonese.

I based my argument on vocabulary change in Cantonese o the following article

http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/view/5/500060.pdf

Even if Mandarin usage is shifting towards Cantonese do it still does not harm the basic argument that we should stop trying to class varieties of language into "languages" and "dialects" "語言" or "方言" when these terms cannot be clearly defined.

If Cantonese and Mandarin becoming more similar to each other through mutual influence, it harms the heteronomy vs. autonomy argument only by bringing into question which variety it is to which other varieties are heteronomous?

Maybe it could be argued that all varieties of Chinese are heteronomous to the written form of "Modern Standard Chinese", which may pick up vocabulary items from regional varieties. In this way the heteronomy of spoken varieties of Chinese to the written standard is similar to that of spoken varieties to written Classical Chinese in the past.

[gato]

How about calling them independent vs. affiliated languages instead autonomous vs. heteronomous? "Independant" and "affiliated" are words that are already familar to the general public, and they mean pretty much the same thing as what you are talking about here. "Heteronomous," particularly, is not a word that the lay public would ever adopt.

[Ah-Bin]

A very good idea, although I didn't invent the names in the first place, so I thought it best to present them as they were and acknowledge where they came from.

However, it is important to remember to call them (independent or affliliated) "varieties of language" and not (independent or affiliated) "languages" in themselves.

Using the term "language" in the phrases "an independent language" or " an affiliated language" allows a return to the old argument, as it still allows people to make distinctions between "affiliated languages" and "affliated dialects" and so on, which defeats the original purpose of the new classification.

[Ferno]

I think I used this argument before: Schweizerdeutsch (Swiss German) is apparently at least as unintelligable to speakers of Standard German as Dutch, and therefore, according to your definition, Schweizerdeutsch is a language while Dutch is a dialect of German (or the other way around).

nope, in that case swiss german is a language, dutch is a language, and german is a language.

The fangyan of the place I come from (in the east of the Netherlands) is pretty much incomprehensible to people from the west of Holland. Yet no-one ever calls it a language' date=' it's a dialect. On the other hand there is the Frisian fangyan, which I can mostly understand, with some effort. Yet it is officialy a language.[/quote']

interesting - holland is pretty small, i'm surprised it could have that much linguistic diversity.

is there a "standard dutch"?

[Lu]

nope, in that case swiss german is a language, dutch is a language, and german is a language.

Except that Swiss German is not considered a language by anyone, including the Swiss themselves.

interesting - holland is pretty small, i'm surprised it could have that much linguistic diversity.

is there a "standard dutch"?

Yes there is, Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (ABN), 'General Civilized Dutch', it sounds a bit weird in translation.

[kaichengbugong]

I think I used this argument before: Schweizerdeutsch (Swiss German) is apparently at least as unintelligable to speakers of Standard German as Dutch, and therefore, according to your definition, Schweizerdeutsch is a language while Dutch is a dialect of German (or the other way around).

I don't mean to split hairs, mainly b/c Swiss German and Chinese dialects are two different cups of tea... but although Schwiizerdütsch may be less intelligible to speakers of Hochdeutsch than Dutch, Dutch has lost many German grammatical features, and thus would logically be a separate language (and it has legal recognition as such.) Schwiizerdütsch, by comparison, has divergent vocabulary, but maintains German case distinction (no genitive, but whatever), and thus has less of a "split", in terms of syntax, from High German.

Thus, I think the mutual intelligibility argument is flawed- rather, similarities in grammar, and recognition as a language (ie the language of the state) should be used to determine what is a language and what is a dialect. Although this is still rather unhelpful when attempting to classify Chinese languages/dialects.

Except that Swiss German is not considered a language by anyone, including the Swiss themselves.

I agree, just from observation, very few German-speaking Swiss consider it a language, or really a dialect - it's just a method of speaking. The fact that most can speak both comfortably leads to less of a schism.