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Science Forum Index » Languages Forum » Xenolects
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| Nathan Leahy |
 Posted: Sun Jan 18, 2004 6:55 pm |
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I was shocked to discover no mention of xenolects in sci.lang, so I'll
explain before I ask my question.
Xenolect - (Close to official definition) An artificial language
constructed from a number of dialects with features distinctive of a
number of dialects hacked together.
(My view) They are ugly. The only ones I'm aware of are Irish (I did
it, the Munster dialect is way nicer, while the Connemara dialect
which has more influence is _ugly_) IIRC standard Breton is also a
xenolect.
Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language? |
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| NimDrauG |
| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 5:11 am |
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Nathan Leahy wrote:
Quote: I was shocked to discover no mention of xenolects in sci.lang, so I'll
explain before I ask my question.
Xenolect - (Close to official definition) An artificial language
constructed from a number of dialects with features distinctive of a
number of dialects hacked together.
(My view) They are ugly. The only ones I'm aware of are Irish (I did
it, the Munster dialect is way nicer, while the Connemara dialect
which has more influence is _ugly_) IIRC standard Breton is also a
xenolect.
Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language?
Standart Frisian is made up of two major dialects spoken in Fryslân.
(Friesland in the Netherlands)
Almost every native Frisian can hear exactly where someone else has grown up
by listen to their local dialect, which are numerous.
But a Standardfrisan speaker just sounds very fake and weird.
Standard Frisian is shifting steadily towards Dutch while the archaic
features are kept in most dialects.
Alas, Standard Frisian is promoted by the media en education.
Children don't speak dialect anymore but a hideous sociolect in the cities
and undereducated Frisian on the countryside mixed up with too much Dutch.
Well, The dutch government will have it by their sneaky way, I guess ....
NimDrauG.
--
mail $(echo nxixmxdxrxaxuxgx@xexuxrxoxnxextx.xnxlx | sed 's/x//') |
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| Christian Weisgerber |
| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 5:58 am |
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Nathan Leahy <pretending2breal@yahoo.com> wrote:
Quote: Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language?
Standard German.
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber naddy@mips.inka.de |
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| Peter T. Daniels |
| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 8:28 am |
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Nathan Leahy wrote:
Quote:
I was shocked to discover no mention of xenolects in sci.lang, so I'll
explain before I ask my question.
Xenolect - (Close to official definition) An artificial language
constructed from a number of dialects with features distinctive of a
number of dialects hacked together.
(My view) They are ugly. The only ones I'm aware of are Irish (I did
it, the Munster dialect is way nicer, while the Connemara dialect
which has more influence is _ugly_) IIRC standard Breton is also a
xenolect.
Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language?
Indonesian. (Could there be a Dutch-based parallel with Frisian?)
The conlang Interlingua.
Where is this an "official" definition?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@att.net |
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| Richard Herring |
| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:13 am |
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In message <400BDB92.CBE@worldnet.att.net>, Peter T. Daniels
<grammatim@worldnet.att.net> writes
Quote: Nathan Leahy wrote:
I was shocked to discover no mention of xenolects in sci.lang, so I'll
explain before I ask my question.
Xenolect - (Close to official definition) An artificial language
constructed from a number of dialects with features distinctive of a
number of dialects hacked together.
(My view) They are ugly. The only ones I'm aware of are Irish (I did
it, the Munster dialect is way nicer, while the Connemara dialect
which has more influence is _ugly_) IIRC standard Breton is also a
xenolect.
Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language?
Indonesian. (Could there be a Dutch-based parallel with Frisian?)
Does either form of Norwegian count?
--
Richard Herring |
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| Michael Farris |
| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:29 pm |
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pretending2breal@yahoo.com (Nathan Leahy) wrote in message
Quote: Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language?
There are elements of this in a number of Slavic languages. Standard
Polish is pretty clearly not based on any one dialect, though I don't
think it was planned as a xenolect.
I've been told that standard Slovenian is cobbled together from
various dialects, but I know it well enough to say for sure.
Standard written Vietnamese seems to be a compromise between the
phonemic systems of general northern and southern speech. I don't know
if this was planned or is a historical accident.
-michael farris |
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| Yusuf B Gursey |
| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 1:55 pm |
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In sci.lang Nathan Leahy <pretending2breal@yahoo.com> wrote in <9732afb9.0401181555.63b18e66@posting.google.com>:
: I was shocked to discover no mention of xenolects in sci.lang, so I'll
: explain before I ask my question.
: Xenolect - (Close to official definition) An artificial language
: constructed from a number of dialects with features distinctive of a
: number of dialects hacked together.
: (My view) They are ugly. The only ones I'm aware of are Irish (I did
: it, the Munster dialect is way nicer, while the Connemara dialect
: which has more influence is _ugly_) IIRC standard Breton is also a
: xenolect.
: Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
: achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
: designed and used as an official language?
classical arabic was probably such even during its formulation by medieval
grammarians. |
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| Peter T. Daniels |
| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 7:27 pm |
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Richard Herring wrote:
Quote:
In message <400BDB92.CBE@worldnet.att.net>, Peter T. Daniels
grammatim@worldnet.att.net> writes
Nathan Leahy wrote:
I was shocked to discover no mention of xenolects in sci.lang, so I'll
explain before I ask my question.
Xenolect - (Close to official definition) An artificial language
constructed from a number of dialects with features distinctive of a
number of dialects hacked together.
(My view) They are ugly. The only ones I'm aware of are Irish (I did
it, the Munster dialect is way nicer, while the Connemara dialect
which has more influence is _ugly_) IIRC standard Breton is also a
xenolect.
Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language?
Indonesian. (Could there be a Dutch-based parallel with Frisian?)
Does either form of Norwegian count?
But they didn't compromise, they ended up with two slightly different
standards?
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@att.net |
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| Torsten Poulin |
| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 7:31 pm |
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Peter T. Daniels wrote:
Quote: Richard Herring wrote:
Does either form of Norwegian count?
But they didn't compromise, they ended up with two slightly different
standards?
One of which was based on a whole host of dialects from day one.
The other one started life as written Danish.
--
Torsten |
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| Jacques Guy |
| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:17 pm |
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Nathan Leahy wrote:
Quote: Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language?
The language of Hog Harbour (Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu). It was
defined by Presbyterian missionaries ca 1900, who never got
beyond baby-talk, and then actively taught it to children
as the proper way of speaking. The language has eleven vowels,
which they confused. Some of their printed matter used
diacritics, some italics, adding to the confusion.
As a result, for instance, the word for 'my child' is
now /walDiG/ because they spelt it "walthic". That
is quite impossible; the correct word is /walDyG/
which you still hear in pagan villages, and from
very old people. The word for "my" is indifferently
/hAG/ or /hOG/ when it should be /höG/. Because,
again, they spelt it sometimes "hac" (with
italics "a"), sometimes "hoc" (with a diaeresis
under the "o").
They also taught children to speak their own
(the missionaries') baby-talk. For instance,
the village chief, Pehov, who was in his sixties,
told me how, as children, they were taught to
say /i tmjan/ instead of /i nGjan/ "go!"
(2nd p. sg. irrealis). /nGjan/ is the 2nd
sg. irrealis of /jan/ "to go", /tmjan/ is the
indefinite realis of /jan/, corresponding
to German "man geht", French "on va". So,
Pehov, and the children his age, were taught
to say "du man geht" instead of "geh". It is
a wonder any of the language survived. |
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| Jim Heckman |
| Posted: Mon Jan 19, 2004 9:50 pm |
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On 18-Jan-2004, pretending2breal@yahoo.com (Nathan Leahy) wrote
in message <9732afb9.0401181555.63b18e66@posting.google.com>:
[...]
Quote: Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language?
It could be argued that's what happened with Finnish, to a
certain extent. The standardizers in the 19th century took some
vocabulary from Western dialects and some from Eastern. I
believe they also split the difference on some of the
grammatical morphology. In the 100+ years since, the standard
has taken on a life of its own and is increasingly replacing the
dialects even as a first language, especially in urbanized
areas.
--
Jim Heckman |
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| Brian M. Scott |
| Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 3:15 am |
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On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 14:13:29 +0000 Richard Herring
<junk@[127.0.0.1]> wrote in
<news:alo2QcyJY+CAFwK+@baesystems.com> in sci.lang:
Quote: In message <400BDB92.CBE@worldnet.att.net>, Peter T. Daniels
grammatim@worldnet.att.net> writes
Nathan Leahy wrote:
I was shocked to discover no mention of xenolects in sci.lang, so I'll
explain before I ask my question.
Xenolect - (Close to official definition) An artificial language
constructed from a number of dialects with features distinctive of a
number of dialects hacked together.
[...]
Quote: Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language?
Indonesian. (Could there be a Dutch-based parallel with Frisian?)
Does either form of Norwegian count?
Nynorsk certainly does.
Brian |
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| Helmut Richter |
| Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 3:16 am |
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In article <100p5ru3v5auob9@corp.supernews.com>, Jim Heckman wrote:
Quote: On 18-Jan-2004, pretending2breal@yahoo.com (Nathan Leahy) wrote
in message <9732afb9.0401181555.63b18e66@posting.google.com>:
Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language?
It could be argued that's what happened with Finnish, to a
certain extent.
As I am living in a country with a "xenolect" in this sense (German),
and I find the process quite natural that the common language of a
larger region crystallises out from the material of multiple dialects
spoken there.
But I find the term "xenolect" very misleading. What is "foreign" in a
xenolect? When I read the headline, I spontaneously thought about
dialects of foreigners, e.g. the dialect of German-born "native"
Turkish speakers. (Yesterday I overheard two Turkish girls talking.
They did not use this dialect, which is more typically used by males,
but they switched languages permanently: about 80% Turkish and 20%
accent-free German. Mostly they switched between sentences but
sometimes also in the middle of a sentence, but constantly at a rate
of tens of switches per minute. Is this a normal phenomenon among
young people grown up in a foreign country?)
Helmut Richter |
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| benlizross |
| Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 3:26 am |
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Jacques Guy wrote:
Quote:
Nathan Leahy wrote:
Does anyone know of a case where rather than one dialect of a language
achieving official status nad being taught as "proper" a xenolect was
designed and used as an official language?
The language of Hog Harbour (Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu). It was
defined by Presbyterian missionaries ca 1900, who never got
beyond baby-talk, and then actively taught it to children
as the proper way of speaking. The language has eleven vowels,
which they confused. Some of their printed matter used
diacritics, some italics, adding to the confusion.
As a result, for instance, the word for 'my child' is
now /walDiG/ because they spelt it "walthic". That
is quite impossible; the correct word is /walDyG/
which you still hear in pagan villages, and from
very old people. The word for "my" is indifferently
/hAG/ or /hOG/ when it should be /höG/. Because,
again, they spelt it sometimes "hac" (with
italics "a"), sometimes "hoc" (with a diaeresis
under the "o").
They also taught children to speak their own
(the missionaries') baby-talk. For instance,
the village chief, Pehov, who was in his sixties,
told me how, as children, they were taught to
say /i tmjan/ instead of /i nGjan/ "go!"
(2nd p. sg. irrealis). /nGjan/ is the 2nd
sg. irrealis of /jan/ "to go", /tmjan/ is the
indefinite realis of /jan/, corresponding
to German "man geht", French "on va". So,
Pehov, and the children his age, were taught
to say "du man geht" instead of "geh". It is
a wonder any of the language survived.
What, they actually came around to their houses and tried to teach
people to speak the language that way? That's truly weird.
Ross Clark |
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| Ruud Harmsen |
| Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2004 4:10 am |
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20 Jan 2004 08:16:38 GMT: Helmut Richter
<a282244@mail.lrz-muenchen.de>: in sci.lang:
Quote: But I find the term "xenolect" very misleading. What is "foreign" in a
xenolect? When I read the headline, I spontaneously thought about
dialects of foreigners, e.g. the dialect of German-born "native"
Turkish speakers. (Yesterday I overheard two Turkish girls talking.
They did not use this dialect, which is more typically used by males,
but they switched languages permanently: about 80% Turkish and 20%
accent-free German. Mostly they switched between sentences but
sometimes also in the middle of a sentence, but constantly at a rate
of tens of switches per minute. Is this a normal phenomenon among
young people grown up in a foreign country?)
Seems to be. I hear that a lot too, with young Turks and Moroccans
here in the Netherlands.
Most often it is more like 80% Dutch and 20% their own language, with
fewer switches. The Dutch they speak is often with a strong accent,
but it is very rapid, very apt, very rich in expression and
vocabulary. Clearly they learned the language at a very early age.
--
Ruud Harmsen, http://rudhar.com/ |
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