On 9/1/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Well, why would they talk to you in Murcian, unless they thought you spoke it?
Sure. But I never ever heard them talk in murcian among them, either. I've heard people of Euzkadi, Valencia, Baleares, Cataluña and even Asturias talk in their languages and/or dialects right in front of me.
And why would they talk to you about Murcian, unless you indicated an interest?
They know full well that I would be interested. Though I'm a computer programmer, every one of my friends knows I'm a linguistics aficionado. So if any of my murcian friends thought of murcian as a language, rest assured, they *would* have mentioned the fact to me. We've often discussed the valencian/catalan issue and other for similar languages/dialects in several other parts of Spain (like Asturias, León and Aragón).
Anyway: ask any random Spanish whether they've ever heard of bable, and most will say "yes". Ask them whether they know there's a "murcian language", and they will, mostly, look puzzled.
So that's exactly what I am, now: puzzled.