On Saturday 23 July 2005 11:42, Mark Williamson wrote:
I still think that this would be an useful way of formally specifying a dialect. For example, British English would have ISO639_2 code "en" and ISO3166_1 code "uk" while Australian English would have ISO639_2 code "en" but ISO3166_1 code "au".
Even the ISO-639 codes in the table are there to connect what we are doing in the Wikipedias and other projects. As it is a standard I added it but in the database the ISO 639 fields are not compulsory, the "WMF key" is. If we "need" these ISO639_2 codes, then we would adhere to the principle that a language is a dialect with an army. Have a look at http://nl.wiktionary.org/wiki/WikiWoordenboek:Lijst_van_messages#Schrijfw ijzen_binnen_een_taal_2 and you will see how we do some of the uk and au stuff for you. This is however not a great example because it is a mix of different spelling but also vocabulary and scripts. As I was not content with this I came up with the current ERD.
Nikola, if you'll look up information on English dialects, you'll find that the division between British, Australian, American, etc. is all very exaggerated. The British, Australian, and American standard languages are all based on the same dialect.
I knew this (it's been told to me that there is much more difference in pronunciation than there is in different words), however, if there are words specific to one dialect, they should be marked as belonging to it.
For example, "to starve" is the same in British, Australian, and American standard English, while in Yorkshire dialect it's "to clem".
Similarly, "mouth", which is the same in British, Australian, and American English (as far as the standard languages go), is "flep" in Yorkshire. Incidentally, "flep" also refers to the lips.
I didn't knew that, these are interesting examples :)
This could perhaps be compared to Serbo-Croatian: Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian are all based on Stovakian, and there's not much variance
Stokavian.
between them; the real variance in Southwest Slavic is between Stovakian, Cakavian, and Kajkavian. In this example, Australian, British, and American correspond to Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian, while true dialects such as those of Yorkshire, Northumbria, or Liverpool correspond to Stovakian, Cakavian, and Kajkavian.
Congratulations! :) You just made a huge cultural faux-pas, claiming that Serbo-Croatian is in fact Croatian :)
Better comparison would be: Australian/British/American correspond to Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, while Yorkshirian/Northumbrian/Liverpoolian correspond to Vojvodinian/Slavonian/Herzegovinian (the latter are dialects of Stokavian).