| Author |
Message |
Skitt
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 3:56 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
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Alan Jones wrote:
| Quote: | Here's a sentence in Welsh, followed by the official English version:
I don't know how exact the match is between them, but it's clear that
Welsh is not a dialect of English.
"Mae'r adran hon yn esbonio sut mae'r Cynulliad Cenedlaethol yn cael
ei drefnu."
|
Gosh, maybe if I read it backwards ... hmm ... a little better, but still
incomprehensible.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/ |
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Robert Lieblich
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 4:02 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
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Skitt wrote:
[ ... ]
| Quote: | To all those who have no connection with the UK or Ireland: before
you read this thread, did you think that Welsh was a dialect (or
other relative) of English?
No.
If you are a native or fluent English speaker, would you have
expected to be able to grasp what a Welsh speaker was saying?
No.
|
What he said.
--
Liebs |
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Roland Hutchinson
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 4:09 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
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Robert Lieblich wrote:
| Quote: | Skitt wrote:
the Omrud wrote:
[ ... ]
To all those who have no connection with the UK or Ireland: before
you read this thread, did you think that Welsh was a dialect (or
other relative) of English?
No.
If you are a native or fluent English speaker, would you have
expected to be able to grasp what a Welsh speaker was saying?
No.
What he said.
|
Me, three -- and I am unanimous in that.
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it. |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 4:09 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
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Robert Lieblich wrote:
| Quote: | Skitt wrote:
the Omrud wrote:
[ ... ]
To all those who have no connection with the UK or Ireland:
before
you read this thread, did you think that Welsh was a dialect (or
other relative) of English?
No.
If you are a native or fluent English speaker, would you have
expected to be able to grasp what a Welsh speaker was saying?
No.
What he said.
|
I was actually thinking of my experience with real foreigners, not
other English-speakers, when I said "outside the British Isles": but
experience tells me this won't teach me to be more careful, I'm
afraid. But, even so, AUE readers of any nationality are likely to be
a skewed sample.
--
Mike. |
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Carmen L. Abruzzi
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 4:10 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
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Mike Lyle wrote:
| Quote: | Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
On 30 Apr 2005, Don Aitken wrote
On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 14:45:41 +0100, "John Dean"
john-dean@frag.lineone.net> wrote:
Rodney wrote:
Is the Welsh language a member of a particular language group?
I had assumed it to be a regionalised English dialect.
hence, I have recently been upbraided for suggesting it to be a
"dialect" My pocket Oxford claims English to be a West German
dialect, So what about Welsh?
It's a Celtic language, related to Cornish and Breton and more
distantly to the various Gaelics.
Here's part of the family tree:
Indo-European
|
West European
|
--------------------------
| |
Celtic Germanic
| |
------------- ---------------------------------
P-Celtic Q-Celtic West Germanic North Germanic East
Germanic
Welsh Gaelic German Danish Gothic
Cornish Manx English Swedish
(extinct) Breton Dutch
All of these are languages, not dialects.
Whilst I agree entirely, it's interesting that the OP's pocket
Oxford
defines English as a West German dialect, rather than as a
language.
It's not a dialect "rather than a language", it's a dialect in addition |
to a language in its own right.
| Quote: |
That surprised me, too. I looked in COD9, but that doesn't make the
same mistake; I have no Pocket Oxford to compare.
|
It's not a mistake; in the context of West Germanic, English is a
dialect thereof.
It's as if you were to say that Mike Lyle is a son of Mr. Lyle, and
someone were to object to this description on the grounds that Mike
Lyle is a man, not a son. |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 4:18 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
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Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
| Quote: | Mike Lyle wrote:
Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
On 30 Apr 2005, Don Aitken wrote
On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 14:45:41 +0100, "John Dean"
john-dean@frag.lineone.net> wrote:
Rodney wrote:
Is the Welsh language a member of a particular language group?
I had assumed it to be a regionalised English dialect.
hence, I have recently been upbraided for suggesting it to be
a
"dialect" My pocket Oxford claims English to be a West German
dialect, So what about Welsh?
It's a Celtic language, related to Cornish and Breton and more
distantly to the various Gaelics.
Here's part of the family tree:
Indo-European
|
West European
|
--------------------------
| |
Celtic Germanic
| |
------------- ---------------------------------
P-Celtic Q-Celtic West Germanic North Germanic East
Germanic
Welsh Gaelic German Danish
Gothic
Cornish Manx English Swedish
(extinct) Breton Dutch
All of these are languages, not dialects.
Whilst I agree entirely, it's interesting that the OP's pocket
Oxford defines English as a West German dialect, rather than as a
language.
It's not a dialect "rather than a language", it's a dialect in
addition to a language in its own right.
That surprised me, too. I looked in COD9, but that doesn't make
the
same mistake; I have no Pocket Oxford to compare.
It's not a mistake; in the context of West Germanic, English is a
dialect thereof.
It's as if you were to say that Mike Lyle is a son of Mr. Lyle, and
someone were to object to this description on the grounds that Mike
Lyle is a man, not a son.
|
If I were compiling a pocket dictionary, I wouldn't be including much
about West Germanic in my entry for "English"! They don't even do it
in COD, which is maybe six times the size. And English just isn't a
West _German_ dialect as it's called in the example given: that's
plain misleading.
--
Mike. |
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M. J. Powell
Guest
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| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 4:28 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
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In message <j2Tce.9714$j54.7160@fe3.news.blueyonder.co.uk>, Alan Jones
<atj@blueyonder.co.uk> writes
| Quote: |
"Rodney" <rodney@touch88gum.com.au> wrote in message
news:427385d9$1@news.eftel.com...
Is the Welsh language a member of a particular language group?
I had assumed it to be a regionalised English dialect.
hence, I have recently been upbraided for suggesting it to be a "dialect"
My pocket Oxford claims English to be a West German dialect,
So what about Welsh?
Than you kindly for any contributions.
Here's a sentence in Welsh, followed by the official English version: I
don't know how exact the match is between them, but it's clear that Welsh is
not a dialect of English.
"Mae'r adran hon yn esbonio sut mae'r Cynulliad Cenedlaethol yn cael ei
drefnu."
"This section of the site gives details of the way the National Assembly for
Wales is organised and structured."
But English is usually spoken in Wales with a Welsh accent and a few
distinctively local expressions, and this "Welsh English" could inexactly
(and offensively, I suppose) be termed a "regionalised English dialect".
|
Would you say that a Frenchman speaking English with the rhythms and
intonations of French to be a 'regionalised English dialect'?
Mike |
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Rodney
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 4:38 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
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|
Thanks to one and all,
I think now, I am suitably informed.
esp thnks to Don Aitken for the flow chart.
Rodney
| > Is the Welsh language a member of a particular language group? |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 4:49 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
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|
Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
| Quote: | Mike Lyle wrote:
Harvey Van Sickle wrote:
On 30 Apr 2005, Don Aitken wrote
On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 14:45:41 +0100, "John Dean"
john-dean@frag.lineone.net> wrote:
Rodney wrote:
Is the Welsh language a member of a particular language group?
I had assumed it to be a regionalised English dialect.
hence, I have recently been upbraided for suggesting it to be
a
"dialect" My pocket Oxford claims English to be a West German
dialect, So what about Welsh?
It's a Celtic language, related to Cornish and Breton and more
distantly to the various Gaelics.
Here's part of the family tree:
Indo-European
|
West European
|
--------------------------
| |
Celtic Germanic
| |
------------- ---------------------------------
P-Celtic Q-Celtic West Germanic North Germanic East
Germanic
Welsh Gaelic German Danish
Gothic
Cornish Manx English Swedish
(extinct) Breton Dutch
All of these are languages, not dialects.
Whilst I agree entirely, it's interesting that the OP's pocket
Oxford
defines English as a West German dialect, rather than as a
language.
It's not a dialect "rather than a language", it's a dialect in
addition
to a language in its own right.
That surprised me, too. I looked in COD9, but that doesn't make the
same mistake; I have no Pocket Oxford to compare.
It's not a mistake; in the context of West Germanic, English is a
dialect thereof.
It's as if you were to say that Mike Lyle is a son of Mr. Lyle, and
someone were to object to this description on the grounds that Mike
Lyle is a man, not a son.
|
There are several meanings of "dialect," some of which can be in
opposition to others. When I say the Queen of England speaks a standard
dialect of English, the ordinary Englishman is likely to object that
she speaks the Queen's English, not a dialect, which he would take to
be a nonstandard variety of the language. Then there is "dialect" as
opposed to "language" as used by those people who identify "dialect" as
any form of speech which has no standardized written form. (Compare the
way the French use "patois," a sense which English has adopted to an
extent.) In this sense, before the Europeans came to Hawaii, the
Hawaiians spoke a dialect but not a language. Then there is the sense
of "dialect" as a variety of a language. In this sense, Hawaiian, which
linguists consider to be a language, itself has dialects. Finally, and
this is the sense which was presumably what the editors of the pocket
Oxford were using, there is the meaning of "dialect" as a language
naturally descended from another language, so that French, Italian,
Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan, and Romansh would be dialects of
Latin, while the artificial languages of Esperanto and Interlingua,
however much they might resemble a Romance language, would not be
considered dialects of Latin.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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Aaron Davies
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 7:11 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
the Omrud <usenet.omrud@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Mike Lyle put finger to keyboard in this fashion:
the Omrud wrote:
Adrian Bailey put finger to keyboard in this fashion:
"Rodney" <rodney@touch88gum.com.au> wrote:
Is the Welsh language a member of a particular language group?
I had assumed it to be a regionalised English dialect.
A common misconception.
This surprises me. Is it really common to think this? Where?
Widespread outside the British Isles, I've found.
Let's see.
To all those who have no connection with the UK or Ireland: before you
read this thread, did you think that Welsh was a dialect (or other
relative) of English? If you are a native or fluent English speaker,
would you have expected to be able to grasp what a Welsh speaker was
saying?
|
No, neither. Welsh is no more closely related to English than either of
the Gaelics. Perhaps someone's confusing it with the Germanic tongue
called Scots, which is either a dialect of English or its nearest
relative, depending on who you ask.
--
Aaron Davies
Opinions expressed are solely those of a random number generator.
"I don't know if it's real or not but it is a myth."
-Jami JoAnne of alt.folklore.urban, showing her grasp on reality. |
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Carmen L. Abruzzi
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 7:11 am
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
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Mike Lyle wrote:
| Quote: | Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
Mike Lyle wrote:
Whilst I agree entirely, it's interesting that the OP's pocket
Oxford defines English as a West German dialect, rather than as a
language.
It's not a dialect "rather than a language", it's a dialect in
addition to a language in its own right.
That surprised me, too. I looked in COD9, but that doesn't make
the
same mistake; I have no Pocket Oxford to compare.
It's not a mistake; in the context of West Germanic, English is a
dialect thereof.
It's as if you were to say that Mike Lyle is a son of Mr. Lyle, and
someone were to object to this description on the grounds that Mike
Lyle is a man, not a son.
If I were compiling a pocket dictionary, I wouldn't be including much
about West Germanic in my entry for "English"! They don't even do it
in COD, which is maybe six times the size. And English just isn't a
West _German_ dialect as it's called in the example given: that's
plain misleading.
West _German_?!! Good Lord, I missed that! Kerfluffle! |
You're absolutley correct. It's absolutely sloppy.
But I suppose those OED compilers were just taken with linguistic
pedigrees at the time,
thus leading them to describe English in relation to its relations. |
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the Omrud
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 2:46 pm
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
Mike Lyle put finger to keyboard in this fashion:
| Quote: | Robert Lieblich wrote:
Skitt wrote:
the Omrud wrote:
[ ... ]
To all those who have no connection with the UK or Ireland:
before
you read this thread, did you think that Welsh was a dialect (or
other relative) of English?
No.
If you are a native or fluent English speaker, would you have
expected to be able to grasp what a Welsh speaker was saying?
No.
What he said.
I was actually thinking of my experience with real foreigners, not
other English-speakers, when I said "outside the British Isles": but
experience tells me this won't teach me to be more careful, I'm
afraid.
|
You have to remember that I am extremely literal, because of my
extreme male brain (see Baron-Cohen).
| Quote: | But, even so, AUE readers of any nationality are likely to be
a skewed sample.
|
That is true and had occurred to me. I will take votes from Friends
of Friends.
--
David
=====
replace usenet with the |
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the Omrud
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 2:48 pm
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
Harvey Van Sickle put finger to keyboard in this fashion:
| Quote: | On 30 Apr 2005, the Omrud wrote
Mike Lyle put finger to keyboard in this fashion:
the Omrud wrote:
Adrian Bailey put finger to keyboard in this fashion:
"Rodney" <rodney@touch88gum.com.au> wrote in message
news:427385d9$1@news.eftel.com...
Is the Welsh language a member of a particular language group?
I had assumed it to be a regionalised English dialect.
A common misconception.
This surprises me. Is it really common to think this? Where?
Widespread outside the British Isles, I've found.
Let's see.
To all those who have no connection with the UK or Ireland:
before you read this thread, did you think that Welsh was a
dialect (or other relative) of English?
A good question -- it struck me as odd, too.
If you are a native or fluent English speaker, would you have
expected to be able to grasp what a Welsh speaker was saying?
But I think that's an entirely different -- and virtually unrelated --
question.
I don't think that the definition of a "dialect of language X" involves
the graspability of the dialect by native/fluent speakers of the
standard version -- is it not a great deal more technical than that?
|
Not to me. Dutch, Swedish and Danish are all closely related to
German, and fluent German speakers can make some sense of all those
other languages. Ditto Spanish and Portuguese.
--
David
=====
replace usenet with the |
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Veronika Fischer
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 5:03 pm
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 21:47:49 GMT, the Omrud <usenet.omrud@gmail.com>
wrote:
| Quote: | Let's see.
To all those who have no connection with the UK or Ireland: before
you read this thread, did you think that Welsh was a dialect (or
other relative) of English?
|
No. Thinking back to my school days I remember the textbook briefly
covering Wales. I am not sure if it was explicitly stated that Welsh
is of Celtic origin, but the students certainly left with the
impression that it is not merely an English dialect. After a quick
consultation with my father it seems that he agrees with that notion.
Veronika
Germany |
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Chris Malcolm
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 7:48 pm
Post subject: Re: Welsh~ a general query. |
|
|
the Omrud <usenet.omrud@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | Mike Lyle put finger to keyboard in this fashion:
the Omrud wrote:
Adrian Bailey put finger to keyboard in this fashion:
"Rodney" <rodney@touch88gum.com.au> wrote in message
news:427385d9$1@news.eftel.com...
Is the Welsh language a member of a particular language group?
I had assumed it to be a regionalised English dialect.
A common misconception.
This surprises me. Is it really common to think this? Where?
Widespread outside the British Isles, I've found.
Let's see.
To all those who have no connection with the UK or Ireland: before
you read this thread, did you think that Welsh was a dialect (or
other relative) of English? If you are a native or fluent English
speaker, would you have expected to be able to grasp what a Welsh
speaker was saying?
|
If the Welsh dialect of English was being spoken, yes. If the Welsh
language was being spoken, no. Both of these are referred to sometimes
simply as "Welsh".
--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk +44 (0)131 651 3445 DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/] |
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