Comments on: Modern Language Association’s Interactive Website

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 10:44:51 +0000

have you give me some example about opened questionnaire about vernacular?

By: Damon

Damon — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 01:55:55 +0000

Not that anyone is likely to ever read a comment on an article this old but FTR “Chinese” is not anywhere near as “thrown-together” a group as African languages. There’s somewhere around 1500 languages native to Africa, in several groups unknown to be related at all. Whereas Chinese is a group of, what, up to a dozen (depending how you divide them) very closely related languages, that are traditionally regarded by the Chinese themselves as dialects of a single language. (The difference between dialects and languages is, of course, more of a sociocultural question than a linguistic one.)

So it’s a horribly unapt comparison. I mean, try to get basic facts right.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:08:25 +0000

والله ماعندكم ماعند جدي؟

By: Stian Haklev

Stian Haklev — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:08:43 +0000

The language Chinese, and the different languages in China, are two different things. Nobody in China would ever argue that Tibetan is Chinese, but they would agree it’s one of the languages of China. Whereas everyone in China would agree that Mandarin, Cantonese and Shanghainese are all “dialects” of Chinese. Yes, they can’t understand each other well spoken, but the written language is officially the same. (There are ways of writing “dialectal Chinese”, in the same way that you could write cockney or Texan, but there is almost nothing published in this, except for some usage in Hong Kong).

It’s certainly useful to distinguish between different spoken versions of Chinese – and I’d be interested in knowing in which parts of the country they spoke Mandarin more frequently, or Cantonese. However, saying that lumping the different Chinese dialects together (once again, leaving out Tibetan or any of the other 50+ minority languages) is on line with lumping all African languages together is quite an exaggeration. Indeed, if the government was interested in providing printed information, it would be more useful to know which groups use traditional characters (including people from Hong Kong, speaking Cantonese and using traditional characters, and people from Taiwan speaking Mandarin and using traditional characters) and which use simplified characters (including people from Beijing, using Mandarin and simplified, and people from Guangzhou, using Cantonese and simplified).

Stian

By: The Languages of America | Free Market Mojo

The Languages of America | Free Market Mojo — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 08:26:24 +0000

[...] Sociological Images (via Chart Porn) presents the different languages of America. [...]

By: Umlud

Umlud — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:25:25 +0000

… and as John points out, there are several different language groups in China, and Mandarin (and the eastern Chinese languages) belong to one of them. There are other Chinese languages that don’t belong to the same language group as Mandarin. Uyghur is a Chinese language, but is Turkic, for example. Mongolian is also a Chinese language, but is Mongolic.

By: Umlud

Umlud — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:20:19 +0000

Yes, that’s true. But as you say, it is basically political. Saying that you speak “Chinese” doesn’t help provide useful information. I have this argument with many PRC students. They say they speak Chinese. I provide them with a Chinese language. They don’t understand what’s being said. I tell them it’s Chinese. They say it isn’t Chinese. I tell them it’s Tibetan. They say it isn’t Chinese. I tell them that this is why Mandarin=Chinese is not a useful statement.

Add to this the problem of Mandarin not being the major form of Chinese that has historically been spoken in the US, and you can see why there is a problem with labeling all languages in China as “Chinese”. (I.e., this isn’t only a problem with labeling languages in the US, but also in China, which has a long history of forcing ethnocentric ideals throughout it’s borders.)

By: jfruh

jfruh — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:12:10 +0000

Definitely interesting as there are actually entire communities in the US where Yiddish is the primary language. Probably the most famous is Kiryas Yoel in Orange County, NY. According to the census data (as reported on Wikipedia), 89 precent of inhabitants speak Yiddish at home, and 46 percent spoke English "not well" or "not at all."

By: IchBinNishK'Gelt

IchBinNishK'Gelt — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 04:06:17 +0000

interesting that there is Hebrew, but not Yiddish. Hebrew is spoken by Israelis only where Yiddish is a diasporic language spoken by Ashkenazik Jews (Jews from Europe east of Germany) in the US and across Europe and South America. No surprise they didn’t include the other Jewish diasporic language, though (Ladino, spoken by Sefardic Jews from Spain, Arabia and North Africa, it’s almost a dead language…)

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:59:48 +0000

Here in China, of course, they refer to Chinese as being a single language with various dialects. It’s obviously political, but what makes a language and what makes a dialect is usually political around the edges. Which generally means Mandarin = Chinese; yes. Actual other languages doesn’t impact the name “Chinese” any more than the Basque language invalidates the Spanish or French. There’s no language that’s called “African”, there certainly is a language widely called Chinese, including by it’s native speakers.

By: Elena

Elena — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:36:54 +0000

According to the Wikipedia there are some 60,000 Basque Americans living in the USA, that's why this issue jumped at me. I do not have a dog in this fight. However, the survey lists 1277 people who speak Catalonian at their home, and 2513 speakers of Basque, so yeah.

By: Elena

Elena — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:24:19 +0000

The other factor might be that Basque does not belong to the Indo-European language family, and it would be a very minor language to feature on its own, I guess.

By: Sara

Sara — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:23:42 +0000

Good evening and greetings from Madrid,

As a disclaimer, I am estimating these numbers because the text book I read this in is at home, but I think there is something like 7.5 million Catalan speakers in the world, versus maybe 750,000 Basque speakers. (In general linguists don´t consider Valencian a language. It is a huge political issue and I don´t necessarily agree, but let´s not go there)…

…anyway, it isn´t surprising to me that they would leave Basque out. A lot of people born in raised in Basque Country don´t even speak the language at home, let alone Basque emigres in the US.

p.s. you/they also forgot Gallego, Leonese, Aragonese, Extremaduran, and some other languages from Spain that have even fewer speakers.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:07:07 +0000

Ah, thank you! I feel like there is a whole documentary’s worth of historical context here. I recently watched “Food, Inc.” and felt like the treatment of slaughterhouse workers wasn’t touched on enough, let alone the treatment of the animals. Can anyone recommend further reading/watching on the subject?

By: Jillian C. York

Jillian C. York — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 19:02:14 +0000

The “African languages” thing is weird, made only weirder by the fact that they list “Berber,” a non-language, in their list of languages. “Berber” is actually just the Western demonym for a group of languages including Tamazight, Tarifit, and Tashelheit (in Morocco; I know less about the “Berber” languages of the rest of North Africa, but there are several!)

I’m left to wonder if the same problem exists for any other languages I know less about.