Why isn't 'American' a Language?(bbc.com)
bbc.com
Why isn't 'American' a Language?
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20150715-why-isnt-american-a-language
13 comments
When Czechoslovakia split into Slovakia and the Czech Republic, they also split the languages into two, even though they are virtually identical.
That's not true, otherwise it wouldn't be called "Czechoslovakia" - the name itself implies there's a Czechia and a Slovakia
What isn't true? That the two languages are incredibly similar? There's less difference between them than between American and British English. Some words are pronounced differently, and they have different words for certain things, but it's no different than Americans saying elevators and British people saying lifts. Same thing.
This is actually not true. The two languages are incredibly similar but nevertheless quite different. Quite more so than American and British English. They are different to the point where many young Czechs do not actually understand Slovak very well (well, this is a bit exaggerated, however I was surprised by kids that were just staring at me until I started speaking in Czech when asking for directions). Slovak people tend to speak Czech somewhat better because they are (or at least were) exposed to the language more. At least in my time no movies, books etc. were translated to Slovak.
Czech and Slovak have also quite a lot of differences in grammar (for example Czech have one more case in their declination system).
Czech and Slovak have also quite a lot of differences in grammar (for example Czech have one more case in their declination system).
I tried to find how different they are, is this "virtually identical"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Slovak_and_Czech
Apparently "present-day standard Slovak wasn't codified until the 19th century." Then it's not something invented after the breakup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Slovak_and_Czech
Apparently "present-day standard Slovak wasn't codified until the 19th century." Then it's not something invented after the breakup.
They have different letters. It's the equivalent of British English lacking the letter "h" and American English not having "ng" as a digraph.
What kind of logic is that? Are you saying names of countries always correspond directly to distinct languages? There are thousands of languages not corresponding to country names and vice versa.
You're technically correct, the best kind of correct. But fact is, usually two distinct people will try to tell their language apart from their neighbors. See: Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian (all three based on the Shtokavian dialect, not even a different dialect of the same language)
French is also spoken very very differently in various regions of the world... Haiti, France, Quebec, Africa. German too has significant variations. Does that mean each dialect should be considered a unique language? My take is that if two people can communicate with each other in the same "language," regardless of where they are from, then it really is the "same language."
Also not that simple because of dialect continuums,
see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum
In the case of french, say:
- Metropolitan and Canadian might understand each other
- Metropolitan and Sub-Saharan too
- but Canadian and Sub-Saharan not so much
In the case of french, say:
- Metropolitan and Canadian might understand each other
- Metropolitan and Sub-Saharan too
- but Canadian and Sub-Saharan not so much
Swiss understand High German, because it is basically the language they write, but somebody from Hannover will have a hard time trying to understand somebody from Bern.
You get used to it after a while and Swiss people will try to meet you halfway and speak a bit less dialect (which then sounds strange to other Swiss people). They have some words that are different but Germans normally get. As with AE and BE, it gets funny when the same words have totally different meanings.
On that note: Swiss-German is one form of Alemannic, a dialect also spoken in South-Western Germany, varying from region to region as it does in Switzerland, but do not call it a dialect, they see it as a separate language.
You get used to it after a while and Swiss people will try to meet you halfway and speak a bit less dialect (which then sounds strange to other Swiss people). They have some words that are different but Germans normally get. As with AE and BE, it gets funny when the same words have totally different meanings.
On that note: Swiss-German is one form of Alemannic, a dialect also spoken in South-Western Germany, varying from region to region as it does in Switzerland, but do not call it a dialect, they see it as a separate language.
It's not that simple, as far as I know Hindi and Urdu are effectively the same language when spoken, with some small divergences but use a different character set. How would regard that?
I don't believe linguists consider the writing system as part of the language as such. Multiple languages have shifted writing systems for convenience or political reasons without the language itself changing.
As the same language. I believe it is uncontroversial among linguists to regard spoken Hindi and Urdu as regional dialects of the same language. Their writing systems are radically different, of course.
Depends on how colloquial you get. For fornal/poetic use, they are vastly different.
There are degrees of communication though, and degrees of distance between languages. For example, Scandinavians can typically make themselves understood with speakers of other Scandinavian languages, but they're not the same language. Same with Spanish and Italian.
I'd have have to expend similar effort with someone speaking Jamaican Patois or thick Glaswegian English.
I guess my point is that it's a simple task to label languages if you apply prior knowledge of their historical context, but it might not be the most useful categorisation, either in terms of linguistic similarity or in terms of regional identity of the speaker
I'd have have to expend similar effort with someone speaking Jamaican Patois or thick Glaswegian English.
I guess my point is that it's a simple task to label languages if you apply prior knowledge of their historical context, but it might not be the most useful categorisation, either in terms of linguistic similarity or in terms of regional identity of the speaker
A better title would be: Why didn't 'American' become a language?
the printing press
Maybe 10% of the Haitian population speak French. Everybody else speaks Kreyol. There may be some Haitians who can't speak Kreyol at all but very few.
African French is very close to metropolitan French because the language is less than 200 years old in Africa. You see the same effect anywhere a language has spread recently, there's much less divergence and variation.
Most Germans are bilingual in Hochdeutsch (Standard German) and a local "dialect". The question of whether a given speech is a dialect or a language is a political one, not a linguistic one.
African French is very close to metropolitan French because the language is less than 200 years old in Africa. You see the same effect anywhere a language has spread recently, there's much less divergence and variation.
Most Germans are bilingual in Hochdeutsch (Standard German) and a local "dialect". The question of whether a given speech is a dialect or a language is a political one, not a linguistic one.
As someone from central Germany, who moved around in Southern Germany quite a bit I have to correct you: When you ignore English, French etc., most Germans are not bilingual, they are hardly monolingual.
Most people who do speak somewhat High German are unable to understand a heavy dialect. Somebody who speaks dialect is almost never able to speak acceptable let alone perfect High German. Even people who manage to suppress the accent are easily recognized, because they often build incorrect grammatical constructs (use of different pronouns, use of dative instead of genitive and so on).
Most people who do speak somewhat High German are unable to understand a heavy dialect. Somebody who speaks dialect is almost never able to speak acceptable let alone perfect High German. Even people who manage to suppress the accent are easily recognized, because they often build incorrect grammatical constructs (use of different pronouns, use of dative instead of genitive and so on).
If that constitutes bilingual to you, surely speakers of African American Vernacular English are bilingual too?
The ones who also speak High English (British English? Newscaster English? Academic English? Something along these lines...) are, yes. From what I understand, most^ just use AAVE all the time and don't learn to speak High English.
^Disclaimer: I live in Eastern Europe, I've never met a Black person (I know many dark-skinned people, but they aren't negroes, ergo not Black), I've never even met an American, I may be wrong about the "most"
^Disclaimer: I live in Eastern Europe, I've never met a Black person (I know many dark-skinned people, but they aren't negroes, ergo not Black), I've never even met an American, I may be wrong about the "most"
American English and Brittish are not different languages, 99% of the words are the same or similar.
Exactly, it's a dialect. How is this news? I thought everyone realized this.
I don't know what you think someone thinks is news, but the discussion about why American is considered a dialect (and not a separate language) is interesting. As a comparison, Danish and Norwegian was also considered (more or less) the same language at the time of the american revolution, but is today considered separate languages.
> I don't know what you think someone thinks is news,
Because it's on a news website: BBC.
Because it's on a news website: BBC.
A source for that? I would be surprised it was actually 99%.
Someone on a train once asked Paul Theroux whether he might help translate an American word. "Sure, what word?" "Huacha" as in this example sentence: "Huacha gonna do if the rains don come".
Counting differences between dialects involves a lot of boring questions about which contractions, changes of pronounciation or grammar etc. count and which don't. Does "I'm like" in the sense "I say" count? There are too many low-value questions to really get neat precise numbers.
Counting differences between dialects involves a lot of boring questions about which contractions, changes of pronounciation or grammar etc. count and which don't. Does "I'm like" in the sense "I say" count? There are too many low-value questions to really get neat precise numbers.
British English: "A source for that? I would be surprised it was actually 99%."
American English: "A source for that? I would be surprised it was actually 99%."
Maybe if you count spelling, it might be less, but it's not like 'colour' and 'color' are different words in functional terms.
American English: "A source for that? I would be surprised it was actually 99%."
Maybe if you count spelling, it might be less, but it's not like 'colour' and 'color' are different words in functional terms.
It is probably even more.
Depends on how you count, if you count all words, then it would be much much more than that, like 99.99% because of very specialized words like "mononitrate" and the like.
But in common use I wouldn't be surprised if it was 98% or less
consider words like "pissed", "pants", "suspenders", "fag", "chips", "bisquit", "jelly", "pavement", etc.
they mean different things in British and American English, even though etymologically they come from the same source
But in common use I wouldn't be surprised if it was 98% or less
consider words like "pissed", "pants", "suspenders", "fag", "chips", "bisquit", "jelly", "pavement", etc.
they mean different things in British and American English, even though etymologically they come from the same source
>> But in common use I wouldn't be surprised if it was 98% or less
I would. One bit of evidence against this is the amount of the Extra's script Ricky Gervais had to rerecord for an American audience. Most of the change was for unshared cultural references (local food brands etc.) and only a couple for words (fanny).
Due to the level of exposure, I believe the difference between generic Brit and generic US is less than the dialects within the countries e.g. older generations of Yorkshire vs. Cornish, Glaswegian vs. Cockney etc. can suffer great difficulties understanding each other.
The number of unshared words is much higher, methods of denotation and sentence construction are different and even the pronunciation of shared words become unrecognisable (I'm not a linguist, so open to correction). I'm sure there are similar extremes in the US.
I would. One bit of evidence against this is the amount of the Extra's script Ricky Gervais had to rerecord for an American audience. Most of the change was for unshared cultural references (local food brands etc.) and only a couple for words (fanny).
Due to the level of exposure, I believe the difference between generic Brit and generic US is less than the dialects within the countries e.g. older generations of Yorkshire vs. Cornish, Glaswegian vs. Cockney etc. can suffer great difficulties understanding each other.
The number of unshared words is much higher, methods of denotation and sentence construction are different and even the pronunciation of shared words become unrecognisable (I'm not a linguist, so open to correction). I'm sure there are similar extremes in the US.
There's also the fact that, due AE being all the time in the TV, the average Brit can understand it much better than the other way around. A lot of americanisms are favoured by not-so-young people.
They were complains of American fans not understanding Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor, as he has a (VERY understandable) Scottish accent.
They were complains of American fans not understanding Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor, as he has a (VERY understandable) Scottish accent.
I wonder to what extent American dialects are objectively easier to understand because they are the younger result of synthesising existing languages\accents rather than a UK dialect that has diverged due to isolation.
They're easier to understand because of Hollywood. If the United Kingdom made all the movies, everyone would think American dialects are really hard to understand.
Besides, nobody understands Southerners anyway.
Besides, nobody understands Southerners anyway.
The point of the article is not that there is an American language, but that there could have been one if Americans (and the British) chose to and allowed AE to diverge significantly more from BE. People often consciously choose what words to use.
In the end practical reasons - trade, business and mutual cultural influence kept the language from splitting up.
In the end practical reasons - trade, business and mutual cultural influence kept the language from splitting up.
Considering the differences between Brazilian Portuguese and "European" Portuguese, it makes more sense to ask "Why isn't Brazilian a language". Then again, there are recent efforts to make all Portuguese languages around the globe more similar
Well, "Asian" or "European" or "African" are not languages either. Why would "American" be? ;)
The accepted English demonym for inhabitants of the United States of America is American. It has been this way for 200 years. We call ourselves American, and every English speaking country calls us American.
The only measure of correctness for language is use, and when speaking in English, American is only commonly used in one way--in English, American is almost universally unambiguous. No other country name contains the word America, and no one else commonly refers to themselves as American in English.
I don't go around telling Colombians they can't call themselves Colombians because Columbia is another name for the Americas. It's also not a problem here because we don't recognize one American continent.
Who refers to themselves by continent anyway? In what sense is it useful to identify to yourself as someone who lives somewhere in the entire western hemisphere? There is also no common language, race, ethnicity, or culture that unifies North and South America.
The only measure of correctness for language is use, and when speaking in English, American is only commonly used in one way--in English, American is almost universally unambiguous. No other country name contains the word America, and no one else commonly refers to themselves as American in English.
I don't go around telling Colombians they can't call themselves Colombians because Columbia is another name for the Americas. It's also not a problem here because we don't recognize one American continent.
Who refers to themselves by continent anyway? In what sense is it useful to identify to yourself as someone who lives somewhere in the entire western hemisphere? There is also no common language, race, ethnicity, or culture that unifies North and South America.
>Who refers to themselves by continent anyway?
satori99 Waves hello from Australia :)
satori99 Waves hello from Australia :)
Ha :) But are you really referring to yourself as being from the continent or the country?
By the way, do people from New Guinea get on your case about calling yourselves Australian (since it is part of the continent), like South Americans do to us?
By the way, do people from New Guinea get on your case about calling yourselves Australian (since it is part of the continent), like South Americans do to us?
I haven't ever met anyone from PNG, but I'll be sure to ask when I do!
Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Hahah!
Vocabulary constitutes a language "façade" and it is often interpreted as the key differentiating factor between languages. Most linguists agree that the language is based in grammar and rules for creating sentences.
That being said, official AE and BE are pretty much identical and the same rules apply on both sides of the Atlantic. It is only logical that different words are used, because of the different contexts that people live in, but that doesn't mean that AE and BE are distinct languages.
That being said, official AE and BE are pretty much identical and the same rules apply on both sides of the Atlantic. It is only logical that different words are used, because of the different contexts that people live in, but that doesn't mean that AE and BE are distinct languages.
There are minor differences in spelling and vocabulary between British and US English, but there are also differences in grammar, so I consider en_US and en_GB to be quite different - enough that I always push for translations for applications, where the differences in grammar are as important as those in spelling and vocabulary.
Here are some excellent examples:
http://www.onestopenglish.com/grammar/grammar-reference/amer...
Here are some excellent examples:
http://www.onestopenglish.com/grammar/grammar-reference/amer...
Slightly related: Is the Oxford comma mostly a BE thing or just a style thing that's used by x% of the English speakers everywhere?
It's mostly a thing used by people who don't like ambiguity.
The oxford comma does not guarantee a list to be unambiguous. [0]
> But the serial comma can also create ambiguity. Consider the following adjusted version of the dedication [discussed in the preceding paragraph]: To my mother, Ayn Rand [,] and God. With the serial comma, the reader could understand the dedication as meaning either that the book is dedicated three ways or that the book is dedicated to the writer’s mother, who happens to be Ayn Rand, and to God. Omitting the serial comma makes the latter meaning less likely.
[0]: http://www.adamsdrafting.com/the-serial-comma-can-cause-ambi...
> But the serial comma can also create ambiguity. Consider the following adjusted version of the dedication [discussed in the preceding paragraph]: To my mother, Ayn Rand [,] and God. With the serial comma, the reader could understand the dedication as meaning either that the book is dedicated three ways or that the book is dedicated to the writer’s mother, who happens to be Ayn Rand, and to God. Omitting the serial comma makes the latter meaning less likely.
[0]: http://www.adamsdrafting.com/the-serial-comma-can-cause-ambi...
That's not a particularly good example, since you have the same ambiguity between the use of commas to set off non-restrictive appositives and the use of commas to separate list items, it still occurs in lists where the ambiguity is between four (or more) elements with no appositive or three (or more) elements, one of which has a non-restrictive appositive attached.
You can't really eliminate that source of potential ambiguity in isolated excerpts, only in larger works or bodies of work by adopting consistent practices that go beyond whether or not you use the Oxford comma (mostly, structuring sentences so that if one or more items in a list needs a non-restrictive appositive, it is either just the last item -- which is already set off with a conjunction whether or not it also has the Oxford comma preceding it, so the following appositive is unambiguously not a list item) or using parentheses rather than commas for non-restrictive appositives attached to list items (which is clearer even for two item lists, where item-separating commas, Oxford or otherwise, don't actually come into play.)
You can't really eliminate that source of potential ambiguity in isolated excerpts, only in larger works or bodies of work by adopting consistent practices that go beyond whether or not you use the Oxford comma (mostly, structuring sentences so that if one or more items in a list needs a non-restrictive appositive, it is either just the last item -- which is already set off with a conjunction whether or not it also has the Oxford comma preceding it, so the following appositive is unambiguously not a list item) or using parentheses rather than commas for non-restrictive appositives attached to list items (which is clearer even for two item lists, where item-separating commas, Oxford or otherwise, don't actually come into play.)
This seems the counter-example to the old "What's the difference between a language and a dialect? A language has a navy" observation.
There is no precise and official way to identify something as a "language" rather than a "dialect".
For example: there are five major dialects of Hindi, some of which are mutually unintelligible -- yet few people call them separate languages. On the other hand, standard Hindi is mutually intelligible with Urdu -- they use different writing systems, but as spoken languages are roughly as close as American and British English -- yet they are considered different languages. Similarly, China has a vast diversity of mutually unintelligible languages -- or, rather, what outsiders call "languages", and what the Chinese government insists are merely dialects of a single language: "Chinese".
What's going on here? Max Weinreich's quip that "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy" seems to hit the mark. If Britain and America had not become allies in the late 19th century, then the ongoing antipathy between them would have required their speaking systems to be classified as "languages". But that would have been a political necessity, not a linguistic one.
As an aside -- as somebody who grew up in America and emigrated at age 31 to Britain -- I must say that the oft-cited differences in spelling and pronunciation are the least important areas of divergence. Much more significant (and confusing) are the idiomatic divergences. For example: in the UK, people commonly say "are you alright?" as a greeting, equivalent to the American "how do you do?" or "what's up?". But in American, "are you alright?" is an expression of serious concern -- something you might say to somebody walking around in a state of confusion with an apparent head injury. It was extremely disconcerting when people kept asking me this -- I thought I must be acting/looking really strange to provoke such continual concern!
For example: there are five major dialects of Hindi, some of which are mutually unintelligible -- yet few people call them separate languages. On the other hand, standard Hindi is mutually intelligible with Urdu -- they use different writing systems, but as spoken languages are roughly as close as American and British English -- yet they are considered different languages. Similarly, China has a vast diversity of mutually unintelligible languages -- or, rather, what outsiders call "languages", and what the Chinese government insists are merely dialects of a single language: "Chinese".
What's going on here? Max Weinreich's quip that "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy" seems to hit the mark. If Britain and America had not become allies in the late 19th century, then the ongoing antipathy between them would have required their speaking systems to be classified as "languages". But that would have been a political necessity, not a linguistic one.
As an aside -- as somebody who grew up in America and emigrated at age 31 to Britain -- I must say that the oft-cited differences in spelling and pronunciation are the least important areas of divergence. Much more significant (and confusing) are the idiomatic divergences. For example: in the UK, people commonly say "are you alright?" as a greeting, equivalent to the American "how do you do?" or "what's up?". But in American, "are you alright?" is an expression of serious concern -- something you might say to somebody walking around in a state of confusion with an apparent head injury. It was extremely disconcerting when people kept asking me this -- I thought I must be acting/looking really strange to provoke such continual concern!
To your "dialect with an army and a navy" point, don't forget that in the US a language is taught called "Serbo-Croatian." In Serbia, it's "Serbian" and is its own language. In Croatia, it's "Croatian" and it is also a separate language locally despite being almost entirely mutually intelligible with speakers of the Serbian form.
(To add to the fun, in the UN it's called "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian", but who's counting?)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_language#Sociopolitic... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_standard_Bosnian...
(To add to the fun, in the UN it's called "Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian", but who's counting?)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_language#Sociopolitic... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_standard_Bosnian...
My wife studied this language once. The department she was studying it in called it "BCS" (for Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian); she eventually just took to calling it "Bosnifuckit".
Absolutely, a great example! I was just on holiday in Sarajevo (a lovely place -- I'd highly recommend going there before they resume shooting at each other). It's full of insignificant little differences which really drive this point home. Where the UK/US split can create a figurative minefield of idiomatic confusion, the Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian split has created literal minefields. Annoying!
> Much more significant (and confusing) are the idiomatic divergences
There are a bunch of Janus words and phrases. Things like "table a motion" mean totally different things.
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/to-...
But see also moot point which is used similarly in both places, but which also has a specific and different English usage.
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2006/11/moo...
There are a bunch of Janus words and phrases. Things like "table a motion" mean totally different things.
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/to-...
But see also moot point which is used similarly in both places, but which also has a specific and different English usage.
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2006/11/moo...
I hadn't run across the concept of "Janus words/phrases" before. It's very apt! Here's another fun musing on the subject, which I read years ago:
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/upandup.html
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~nunberg/upandup.html
In the Chinese case I read there are political implications for using "language" vs "dialect". Chinese is a very diverse country (geographically, ethnically, linguistically) and keeping the whole country unified is the role of the government. Thus this one use the terms dialect which implies all this languages are of in fact one with little differences rather than language that implies big differences. Even the name of the standard language is subject to connotation with 7 different words for it.
And this trick is also played in France (my country). Alsatian is called a dialect (insinuating a dialect of French) whereas is it linguistically related to German; and indeed it doesn't have a fixed written form and Standard German (Hochdeutsch) orthography is often used for it. Same goes for Flemish, etc. While now France's dialect policy is a complete turnabout of his old one (repression), the dialect word is still used in place it shouldn't technically be.
And this trick is also played in France (my country). Alsatian is called a dialect (insinuating a dialect of French) whereas is it linguistically related to German; and indeed it doesn't have a fixed written form and Standard German (Hochdeutsch) orthography is often used for it. Same goes for Flemish, etc. While now France's dialect policy is a complete turnabout of his old one (repression), the dialect word is still used in place it shouldn't technically be.
I remember seeing a documentary of US origin which had interviews with Scots that were subtitled, despite the fact that they were speaking English (and as an Australian, perfectly intelligible to me).
So I took that as some evidence that not all English dialects are mutually intelligible.
So I took that as some evidence that not all English dialects are mutually intelligible.
The show Trawlermen which was shown in the UK was subtitled for native audiences since the accents on some of the men were so thick & unintelligible (at least to my friends' & my own ears in S England).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trawlermen_(TV_series)
Edit: Further article on the subtitling and the reactions to it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5244738.stm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trawlermen_(TV_series)
Edit: Further article on the subtitling and the reactions to it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5244738.stm
The first time I came to the UK, I remember sitting across from some rather loud Scots on the tube. I think they were talking about work; I wasn't sure, because the only word I could clearly understand was "fookin'" (an adjective which can apparently mean almost anything). Definitely not mutually intelligible to my California-trained ears.
There are always people with varying degrees of dialect usage.
This fellow[0] is quite, but not totally unintelligible to my English-as-a-second-language ears and there are Scottish where you recognize their origin in the first sentence but still understand them 100%.
Same with Bavaria, really. Most of us from Munich have a very light dialect that's really not that difficult compared to many people from the countryside.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrLjsCCGnuo
edit: The Bavarian dialect also has quite a few grammatical quirks, whereas the Saxons just pronounce German very different, but the grammar is very standard.
Same with Bavaria, really. Most of us from Munich have a very light dialect that's really not that difficult compared to many people from the countryside.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrLjsCCGnuo
edit: The Bavarian dialect also has quite a few grammatical quirks, whereas the Saxons just pronounce German very different, but the grammar is very standard.
For the same reason that Argentinian, Mexican, Colombian, Canadian, Ghanaian, Singaporean, Australian, Ivorycoastian, Nigerian, Brazilian, etc are not languages, but dialects.
Regardless of what Max Weinreich may have said (which was more of a political/philosophical statement than an academic one, and he didn't even coin the phrase), the variation between english dialects is not enough to call it a language.
Some pidgins are considered languages: they're spoken as lingua franca by large populations and is quite different from English.
Regardless of what Max Weinreich may have said (which was more of a political/philosophical statement than an academic one, and he didn't even coin the phrase), the variation between english dialects is not enough to call it a language.
Some pidgins are considered languages: they're spoken as lingua franca by large populations and is quite different from English.
From my limited knowledge Brazilian Portuguese seems to be a lot more different from European Portuguese than AE differs from BE.
I dont know about English, but there was not common French language until 20th century. Several dialects were united during WW I and latter with radio and television.