Principles of Operation (was: LANGUAGE SUBTAG REQUEST FORM, Erzgebirgisch)

[Randy Presuhn]

Hi -

Have any linguists who actually speak German or any of the
modern dialetcs argued for putting Erzgebirgisch under sxu?

I poked around a bit, and haven't found anything that would
seem at all persuasive for putting it under sxu.  On the
contrary, there seems to be a clear pattern of looking at
Erzgebirgisch as distinct from sxu, though sxu has had an
influnce, rather than having a direct genetic relationship.
(Wellentheorie rather than Stammbaumtheorie for you old
linguists.)

Though not exactly a scholarly resource, the web page at
http://www.westerzgebirge.com/htm/erzgebirge-sprache.htm
seems pretty clear that the speakers do not consider their
tongue to be a variety of Upper Saxon:

"Kennzeichnend für die westerzgebirgische Mundart ist ein
ostfränkischer Einfluss, aber auch viele eigenständige Wörter.
Im Osterzgebirge ist dagegen ein Übergang zum Obersächsischen
hörbar."  Roughly: (A east franconian influence characterizes the
western Erzgebirgisch dialect.  In contrast, in the eastern
Erzgebirge a transition to upper saxon is audible.)

Likewise the  Wikipedia source
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erzgebirgisch says:
"Aufgrund der hohen Mobilität der Bevölkerung und des damit
verbundenen starken Kontakts zum Obersächsischen, der großen
Abwanderungsrate und nicht zuletzt auch aufgrund seiner
geringen Verständlichkeit gegenüber anderen Dialekten
verringert sich die Sprecherzahl immer mehr."  Roughly:
(Due to the high mobility of the populace and the consequent
heavy contact with upper saxon, the high rate of emigration,
and its low intelligibility in comparison to other dialects,
the number of speakers is still decreasing.)

Likewise http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/verlag/dipl/lohmann/kap-04.html
treats Erzgebirgisch as distinct from any kind of Sächsisch.

>From this little bit of research, it looks to me like the
case for using sxu as the prefix here is pretty weak.

Randy