Ietf-languages Digest, Vol 74, Issue 5

Anthony Aristar aristar at linguistlist.org
Sun Feb 22 21:34:09 CET 2009


If you are interested in what languages are included in East Germanic, 
West Germanic and North Germanic respectively, you can look at these 
three URLs:

http://multitree.linguistlist.org/trees/11435@303398
http://multitree.linguistlist.org/trees/11435@303441
http://multitree.linguistlist.org/trees/11435@303405

I would not look at the Ethnologue subgroupings, which for Germanic are 
not accepted by most scholars.  Ethnologue, for example, treats  Dutch 
and Low German as being in
the same Low Saxon/Low Franconian German Subgroup.  No Germanic scholar 
believes this. Instead they posit a group called "North Sea Germanic", 
which
includes English, Low German languages, and Frisian.  Dutch is in the 
Franconian group, which is part of the High German group.

This division may seem counterintuitive (mainly because of the massive 
borrowing and influence of High German on Low German and borrowing into 
the last language), but is based on very sound linguistic evidence

-- 
             **************************************
Anthony Aristar, Director, Institute for Language & Information Technology
  Professor of Linguistics            Moderator, LINGUIST Linguistics Program
Dept. of English                       aristar at linguistlist.org
Eastern Michigan University            2000 Huron River Dr, Suite 104
Ypsilanti, MI 48197
U.S.A.

URL: http://linguistlist.org/aristar/
             ************************************** 

ietf-languages-request at alvestrand.no wrote:
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:08:34 -0500
> From: CE Whitehead <cewcathar at hotmail.com>
> Subject: RE: Lower Saxon as a group
> To: <ietf-languages at iana.org>
> Cc: gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
> Message-ID: <BLU109-W246A05B52F2C5790E6D656B3B10 at phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>
> Hi, Gerard:
> I'm not sure where you mean to break the Low Saxon group up (and I'm not an expert on the Germanic languages anyway), but . . .
> I don't see anything else in the ISO 639-5 code list (http://www.loc.gov:8081/standards/iso639-5/en.php); I myself would like a clarification though of what East Germanic Languages [gem], West Germanic languages [gmw], and North Germanic languages [gmq] include.
>
>
> Best,
>
> C. E. Whitehead
> cewcathar at hotmail.com 
>
>
>
> Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:27:22 +0100
> Subject: Lower Saxon as a group
> From: gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
> To: ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
>
> Hoi,
> When you read the explanation about nds on Ethnologue, it becomes clear that the German linguistic entities that are encompassed in the nds code include German linguistic entities that are on a same level as the Dutch recognised languages. When you look further, nds is called "Saxon, Low" and the Dutch languages and the German nds are part of a grouping called "Low Saxon". 
>
>
> My question, is there a group for Low Saxon in the ISO-639-5 and if not, what is the best way of acquiring one?
>
> FYI this is about a practical situation in the Wikimedia Foundation.
> Thanks,
>         Gerard
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>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:22:53 +0100
> From: Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Lower Saxon as a group
> To: CE Whitehead <cewcathar at hotmail.com>
> Cc: ietf-languages at iana.org
> Message-ID:
> 	<41a006820902221122x5fdf8516t66fefc9558fd674a at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Hoi,
> If you ask me they are codes that need revision. I doubt very much that
> linguistically they are useful at all. I doubt also that the ISO-639-5 will
> prove practically useful .. I hope I am wrong ..
>
> As to the Low Saxon group, it is a group "Low Saxon" and a language "Saxon,
> Low" where it may be clear from the nds documentation that the Dutch
> languages have been treated differently from the German linguistic entities
> when it was decided how to label them. The result is that the group treats
> the German and Dutch entities in the same way.
>
> What I am looking for is a code that includes the German and the Dutch "Low
> Saxon" languages.
> Thanks,
>       Gerard
>
> http://www.ethnologue.com/show_lang_family.asp?code=nds
>
> 2009/2/22 CE Whitehead <cewcathar at hotmail.com>
>
>   
>>  Hi, Gerard:
>> I'm not sure where you mean to break the Low Saxon group up (and I'm not an
>> expert on the Germanic languages anyway), but . . .
>> I don't see anything else in the ISO 639-5 code list (
>> http://www.loc.gov:8081/standards/iso639-5/en.php); I myself would like a
>> clarification though of what East Germanic Languages [gem], West Germanic
>> languages [gmw], and North Germanic languages [gmq] include.
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> C. E. Whitehead
>> cewcathar at hotmail.com
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:27:22 +0100
>> Subject: Lower Saxon as a group
>> From: gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
>> To: ietf-languages at alvestrand.no
>>
>>
>> Hoi,
>> When you read the explanation about nds on Ethnologue, it becomes clear
>> that the German linguistic entities that are encompassed in the nds code
>> include German linguistic entities that are on a same level as the Dutch
>> recognised languages. When you look further, nds is called "Saxon, Low" and
>> the Dutch languages and the German nds are part of a grouping called "Low
>> Saxon".
>>
>> My question, is there a group for Low Saxon in the ISO-639-5 and if not,
>> what is the best way of acquiring one?
>>
>> FYI this is about a practical situation in the Wikimedia Foundation.
>> Thanks,
>>         Gerard
>>
>>     
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