From: "Four Oaks Farm" <FOFarm@worldnet.att.net>
Reply-To: exlibris@library.berkeley.edu
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 08:21:34 -0700 (PDT)
To: Multiple recipients of list <exlibris@library.berkeley.edu>
Subject: Re: Britain ...
"Consider the original question: is Scots a language, despite
the Scottish parliament's refusal to acknowledge it? From the highly
informative answers (once the confusion with Gaelic was cleared up), it
seems it is, and a lovely language at that."
The question of whether Scots is or is not a language depends upon how one defines tthe concept of a "distinct language."
The "L-simplex" view of language depends upon "mutual intelligibility"--that is, if two speakers do not understand each other, then they are not speaking the same language. By this definition, since there are plenty of English-speakers who do not understand Scots, Scots qualifies as a language distinct from English.
The definition more often espoused by modern linguists is the "L-complex" view of language, which depends upon a "chain of intelligibility"--that is if two speakers do not understand each other, yet there exists a third speaker who can understand both of them, the three speakers are speaking the same language. By this definition, then, Scots is NOT a distinct language from English.
There is a practical complication with each of these definitions, however. As a native speaker of Danish, I can understand most speakers of Norwegian, and some speakers of Swedish. The speakers of Swedish whom I can understand, can understand both me and the speakers of Swedish I can't understand. Thus Danish and Norwegian are the same language according to the L-simplex view of language, and Danish and Swedish are the same language according to the L-complex view of language. Yet, I think I would be hard pressed to find a Dane, a Norwegian, or a Swede who would accept that any combination of them speaks the same language.
"The Scottish parliament's refusal to acknowledge" that Scots is a distinct language is probablty a contrary example of this same phenomenon, with, I suppose, a contrary political/cultural/nationalist motivation.
A third definition of language holds that a person is speaking a distinct language if he says he is, and otherwise, he is not. This definition is probably the one most relied upon to define "language" by the people who actually speak them.
Poul Henningsen
New York and Copenhagen