[Ltru] Alemanic & Swiss German

[Peter Constable]

Martin’s comment is somewhat vague: varieties spoken on either side of the border are very similar, et “as soon as you cross the border it’s very clearly no longer Swiss German”. Does that mean that what is spoken across the border is clearly a different language, or that the label “Swiss German” is clearly not used?
 
 
Peter
 
________________________________

From: Mark Davis [mailto:mark.davis at icu-project.org] 
Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2006 9:00 AM
To: Håvard Hjulstad; iso639-2 at loc.gov
Cc: LTRU Working Group; zaiitov at gmail.com; ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee; ietf-languages at iana.org; iso639 at dkuug.dk
Subject: [Ltru] Alemanic & Swiss German
 
ISO 639-2 (on http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_list.php) lists the following:

gsw             Alemani; Swiss German      alémanique 

However, there is a "c" missing from Alemanic, and Swiss German is not the same as Alemanic: Swiss German is a type of Alemanic, but there are other types that are not the same as Swiss German.

Quoting Martin Duerst: 

"Yes, Swabian is clearly Alemanic. Alemanic and Swiss German are not
the same. There are very close similarities between some dialects in 
the north of Switzerland and across the border in Germany, but as
soon as you cross the border, it's very clearly no longer Swiss
German. A label such as "Alemanic; Swiss German", assuming that 
both are the same, is clearly wrong. If it's something like
"Alemanic; includes Swiss German", that would be okay."

Can this be corrected so that it does not continue to mislead people? 

Mark Davis
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