response 26 of 51:

Dec 8 23:16 UTC 1994

Also re 23:
The problem is that relationships in the real world in fact don't usually
work that way.  To give a concrete and unrelated example: clearly adding
a grain of sand to a small pile doesn't make it anything but a small pile;
but from that you can't progress by induction to conclude that all sandpiles
are small (if one small pile exists).  Similarly, I'm fairly sure I'd want
to hear a *huge* amount of detail of examples like the one Marcus cited
before I'd say flatly that transitivity of "is a dialect of the same
language" holds up indefinitely.

In particular: 
It might well be that there are multiple sets of criteria, somewhat
unrelated to each other, which when satisfied in certain combinations
mean that two languages are dialects rather than separate languages.
(I guess I think this is the case.)  If so, it's at least possible (as
long as the criteria aren't fully known) that language A is a dialect
of B in view of one set of characteristics and a dialect of C in view
of another but that B and C share none of the features making *them*
dialects of a common language.  The probability of something like this
being true would go up dramatically as the number of links between increased.
 

response 28 of 51:

Dec 9 23:18 UTC 1994

Well, I guess you're going to shocked, Steve.
Spanish and Portugeuse are Romance languages, as is French.
German is a Germanic language.

There is a continuum of dialects in the Alsace-Lorraine region.
There is no clear-cut point at which one can say "O.k., different
language" -- every village is a point along the continuum.

Yet, somehow, you start out in Paris with French and wind up in 
Berlin with German.

A bald man has no hairs.  If he has one hair, he's almost bald.
If he has two hairs, he's almost bald.  One more hair than that,
he's still almost bald.  "Almost bald" is therefore a recursive
function, since it's true for i=1 and true for j=i+1.  Where does
the function stop?  10?  100?  1000?

If you don't like synchrony, try diachrony:  English traces back
to Greek, eventually.  Go back ten year, then ten more... keep going
and tell me when you reach the cliff where you stop speaking
English and start speking something else.

And I guess we're all chimpanzees, by the same logic... there's
a continuum linking us going back in time, then forward back up
the other branch.

(Not to make this into a religious argument... that last only holds,
of course, if one believes in evolution.)

response 30 of 51:

Dec 10 14:32 UTC 1994

I've always had the impression that in Alsace-Lorraine they don't speak
something half-way between, but instead they speak french & german as 2
separate languages.  Perhaps things were different in the middle ages,
but even there, I have my doubts.  Historically, while french & german
are both from PIE, they've evolved mostly independently.

It's certainly not the case that "english traces back to greek".  In the
first place, greek is not one language - modern greek is about as
different from ancient greek as french is from latin.  In the 2nd place,
english, as a distinct language, is relatively recent; and is in fact a
mix of french, german, some danish, and more than a smattering of latin.
Now, as it happens, all of those are PIE derived, as is greek, so all
share a lot of common ancestry.  But they all split off from greek
before greek became its own language, so it's no more correct to say
"english is descended from greek" than it would be to say "man is
descended from chimp".

Curiously, before the english spoke english (or latin or danish or old
german), they were celts, and spoke some sort of celt language.  While
the celts weren't educated in any sort of modern sense, they certainly
respected learning & wisdom.  One of the bits of wisdom they had seems
to be that they were closely related to the greeks.  So it would seem
irish & whelsh have a better claim on being "traced back to greek".

response 32 of 51:

Dec 11 03:26 UTC 1994

Um, Marcus, I don't think it's quite fair to say that "before the English
spoke English (or ... ), they were celts ... ".  These other languages you
mention came into the picture complete with speakers of them, often swinging
axes & swords & looking for a nice place to settle down.  The Saxons &
Normans & all have as much claim to be the English before they spoke
English as do the Celts.

response 34 of 51:

Dec 11 05:32 UTC 1994

I think that way because that was how I learned to think. It's important
for me to think very precisely in order to do my job. So that is a fact of my
personality, and there is not much I or anyone else can do about it.

Brighn, I am not questioning at all the continuity of progression as 
languages develop over time. I only questioned your definition which
relied wholly on mutual intelligibility. I didn't claim it was wrong.
In a mathematical sense definitions are incapable of being 'wrong',
but in another sense it could have been inconsistent with common usage.
There I would claim no expertise. I am only an amateur in matters of
linguistics. 

I am distressed to hear that some scholars are prepared to give up
using the term 'language' altogether, though. I see a clear analogy
between separate languages and separate species in biology.

(1) Through development, both change continuously over time. 
Stephen Jay Gould would argue that at times the rate of evolution in
species is very fast, but I doubt he would argue that it is discontinuous.

(2) Rather than being distributed about uniformly among the possibilities,
both genetic material and linguistic material clump together because of
intercourse between individuals. By clumping genetically, only individuals
from the same clump can mate, so we have species. By clumping linguistically,
only individuals from the same clump can understand each other, so we have
languages.

(3) Species allow for variations. These are clumps in gene-space which
are separate but can still interbreed. They belong to the same species.
Languages allow for dialects. These are clumps in linguistic-space which
are separate but still allow for mutual understanding.

OK so far I have agreed with you. You'll note the "mutual understanding
is back.

(4) Both genetics and linguistics have the same conundrum. A can 
(mate with | understand) B and B can (mate with | understand) C,
yet A cannot (mate with | understand) C. So they have to decide:
Are A and C the same (species | language) ?

I think the answer should be yes in both cases, for otherwise you would
be unable to decide which (species | language) B belonged to.
I do require them to be contemporary, however. I don't think it's useful to
decide whether (mating|understanding) is possible between non-contemporary
groups. 

If, through time, the (variation | dialect) B becomes extinct, then the bridge
between A and C is broken and this is how separate (species | languages) are
formed.

By the way, I don't consider that this analogy works so well to be remarkable.
I think it is a necessity for properties of language and genetics to be
analogous, because both by their nature are subject to the same pressure
which results from communication (of words or genetic material) between
individuals.

response 36 of 51:

Dec 12 01:12 UTC 1994

I rather thought that might be the case.  But come to that, is *that* even
clear?

response 38 of 51:

Dec 17 00:39 UTC 1994

Re #34:  O.k., I'll accept all of that.  I was snitting because of 
Aaron's attitude elsewhere, but you're ever so much nicer about it.
<*sigh*  I'm in love.>

Seriously, though, ignoring the fact that you did it again with "wrong" --
I know perfectly well that nothing in science is ever "wrong" or "right",
but it does bear repeating to anyone who might be listening in --
I'll agree with you.  What do we do with ligers and tions and mules?
Mules, after all, are sterile because they come from parents of two
different species... or do I have that wrong?  :(  Mating and reproduction
are possible, but flawed.

A true, culturally appropriate definition of language would of necessity
include a series of complex concepts and be fairly complex itself.
(both true and of necessity there are used in loose social scientific ways :)

response 40 of 51:

Dec 17 06:45 UTC 1994

No, actually, you have raised an interesting point, subtle though
it may be:  to use the example of the fox, there is a discomfort
level between geographical, politically, or economically distinct
groups who speak what is technically the same language.  The 
SerboCroations leap to mind immediately.  Serbian and Croatian 
differ only at idiomatic levels too subtle to be considered 
distinguishing.  However, *within Yugoslavia* there is the
perception that two different languages (Serbian and Croatian)
are spoken, because of political differences (now, of course,
the example is less unique, since Serbia and Croatia are separate
countries.  That is to say, a red fox given the choice would prefer
a red fox to an arctic fox, but can certainly mate with the latter;
a Serbian given the choice would prefer to talk to a Serbian,
but can certainly talk to a Croatian.

fun parallels, as long as the analogy isn't stretched too far

Yes, I just brought up tiglons and mules to indicate that the analogy
wasn't perfect, which you had already ceded anyway, but I'm having
such an enjoyable conversation...
Actually, when two languages mate, the offspring is deficient, but
by the second generation, a fully complex language has evolved,
different (but often fairly intelligible) from either parent.
The child is called a pidgin, the grandchild a creole.

response 42 of 51:

Dec 17 08:27 UTC 1994

It is an interesting conversation.

To keep the analogy honest, though, I must point out that the analogy of
zoological mating is linguistic mutual understandability. The analogy does 
not require, or even expect languages to procreate, but it does expect them 
to evolve.

response 44 of 51:

Dec 18 00:57 UTC 1994

Yeah, Chinese is how this thread got started.
Every village has its own variant pronunciations of the same words, and
as you go farther an farther you can understand less and less.
Are they different languages or different dialects of Chinese?
Brign proposed mutual understandability defined dialects.
I pointed out that it wasn't transitive so I didn't buy it.
Then we got bogged down in a lot of tangential (but interesting) stuff.

I vote that they're all (or almost all) dialects of the same language,
although that flies in the face of the mutual understandability razor.

response 46 of 51:

Dec 19 00:32 UTC 1994

In a historical sense, English is unusual in that the written language,
and the spoken language, are pretty close.  That's really a product of
universal literacy, and it produces some other odd attributes; for
instance, there's a distinct tendency for the written language to
influence the spoken language.  But that's not at all true historically;
written & spoken latin, for instance, were quite different.

Reading english aloud is largely a mechanical act; the only real art
consists in terms of intonation and rhythm.  In chinese, however, that's
not the case, and reading something aloud is not just a mechanical
activity, but requires interpreting and, basically, translating, the
words at the same time.  I think it would be more accurate to consider
written chinese as a separate language from the spoken languages.

response 48 of 51:

Dec 19 11:07 UTC 1994

Good grief; no.  Actually, it *can't* be phonetic; some speakers of
english no longer make phonetic distinctions that others still make.
What I'm saying is it's possible to write a passage that is good written
english *and* good spoken english.  That was *not* possible in imperial
rome, or in modern china.  I think modern arabic has the same
written vs. spoken divergence.