[Foundation-l] How to dismantle a language committee

[Marcus Buck]

Tim Starling hett schreven:
> Marcus Buck wrote:
>   
>> In the Arabic world there's a prevalent POV, that Arabs form one nation 
>> united by the use of the Arabic language. But in reality Standard Arabic 
>> is something like Latin. With the difference, that Latin fell out of use 
>> to make place for the Romance languages. So Egyptian Arabic vs. Standard 
>> Arabic is like French vs. Latin. And the Egyptian VIP is like a 13th 
>> century monk. "Writing in the language of the people. How stupid... 
>> Latin is a godly language."
>>     
>
> I have heard this before, but I am not convinced, because I have heard
> conflicting things from Egyptian people. I don't suppose you have a
> credible reference where I can read more about this, and which supports
> these claims?
>
> -- Tim Starling
>   
There's no obvious or agreed-upon measure for the proximity of dialects 
or languages nor for identity attitudes. All findings are inherently vague.
What did you hear conflicting things about? About the big differences 
and problems with mutual intelligibility of Arabic dialects or about the 
notion of "one Arabic nation"?
Well, that Arabic has a wide variety of different dialects, is obvious, 
if we look at the basic facts. Arabic is spoken over an area that spans 
thousands of kilometers. Arabic spread from its central area in Arabia 
in the 7th century due to the spread of Islam. Since then the dialects 
developed different from the standard that didn't change much since then 
due to it's liturgical character (just like Latin). Latin was in vulgar 
use since about the 1st century. So Latin Vulgar had 2000 years to 
change and Arabic Vulgar only 1300 years. Therefore Latin Vulgar should 
be roughly 50% more diverse than Arabic Vulgar (Please put the emphasis 
on "roughly" cause language change is of course not linear). [English is 
spread over a very wide area too and does not show that much variation. 
But English spread from England only 400 years ago and most of the 
speakers shifted to English only in very recent times. So outside of 
England there are no real dialects (and even England is no country with 
a pronounced dialectal landscape). Therefore the whole subject of 
"dialects" is a very obscure thing to many speakers of English.]
The notion of the "one Arabic nation" is even more vague. We have to 
keep in mind, that mentalities do not necessarily differentiate between 
different identity-building elements. Identity can be based on 
ethnicity, on language, on religion, on common history, on citizenship 
or on arbitrary mixtures of these aspects. The most important connecting 
element for people in the Middle East is religion. The Islam. The Islam 
connects them to people with entirely different languages too. But the 
Standard Arabic language  is connected to the Islam also, cause it's the 
liturgical language of the Islam. Saying, that Arabic is a macrolanguage 
can easily touch religious feelings. That's irrational, but happens. So 
there are many different levels of identity and interconnections between 
those levels of identity. It's possible, that you talked to Egyptians 
and they said "those damned Syrians" or otherwise showed few "Panarabic 
loyalty". But that doesn't mean there is no common identity. I'm sure 
you will easily find New Yorkers saying "those damned New Jerseyians" or 
US Americans saying "those damned Canadians". It's normal to have 
animosities with the people you know best, your closest neighbors (cause 
there's few reason to be angry about people you have no contact to). But 
if it comes to identity or loyalty, New Yorkers and New Jerseyians, 
Americans and Canadians, and Egyptians and Syrians will stand close and 
stick together.

Marcus Buck