Talk:Abstand and ausbau languages

message: In case Decius still wishes to revert, I've decided to add something here in case a real debate should develop, with people who actually know anything about linguistics.
"An Ausbausprache (also called an ausbau language) is a language which has a standard spelling, a standard grammar and a relatively wide and clear vocabulary (and is thus almost identical with a standard language). Two language forms that allow easy mutual communication can nevertheless be regarded as two different languages if they are each an Ausbausprache according to this definition."
So, to fit the definition...
Does it have a standard spelling? Romanian -- yes. Moldovan -- yes.
Does it have a standard grammar? Romanian -- yes. Moldovan -- yes.
Does it have a relatively wide and clear vocabulary? Romanian -- yes. Moldovan -- yes.
:: Yeah - to all 3. It just happens that the spelling is identical, the grammar is identical, and the vocabulary is as similar as similar can be. And that the Moldovan Constitution says that 'Moldovan' is how it calls Romanian within its territory. So, I'll correct the article.2.80.220.87 (talk) 00:29, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, whatever I know about linguistics, at least I don't spell ridiculous as rediculous (repeat offense on your part proves that it's not a typo). I'll get back to this later. Decius 05:56, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A misspelling. How exactly is the significant to the topic at hand? Your English is certainly not perfect. --Node 06:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

text: And also don't forget that you are the one representing a fringe view here, not me. The Ethnologue report and the majority of linguists around the world do not refer to Moldovan as a language. In sight of this fact, my linguistic experience (though I'm sure you suck at linguistics) is not relevant here. ---Decius 06:06, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: These are the things which make our discussions hostile: "though I'm sure you suck at linguistics". Your linguistic experience IS relevant, because I've pretty much proven that you don't have the knowledge to argue against what I've said, except to tell me it's a fringe view. Do you have any better response? Or do you have no idea what any of it means?? --Node 06:59, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

text: I'd prefer to review more references than just a Wikipedia article before I begin my argument. And on that note I once again encourage you to find more references for your edits, which support the aforementioned fringe view.  Decius 07:07, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Romanian and Moldovan 

message: Ok node, can you tell us again why American English is not ausubau? It also "fits the definition", as you say, so what makes their situation different from the Romanian/Moldovan one? --Gutza 16:17, 4 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "tell us again" means I've already told you. Go read it again. I don't want to waste my time. --Node 11:56, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

text: "American and British English are different in their official forms, as well. Are they ausbau languages? john k 20:40, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, I've advocated that all along, as you would know if you'd been following the talk on mo.wiki. If there was really a standard Bucharestian language called by a different name than Romanian, I see no problem with an article as you mention, and I would certainly except it as a vald NPOV encyclopedic article. --Node 05:43, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

text: I don't understand why that's in there, as there's not really such a thing as a "relatively wide and clear vocabulary". That is, a language won't be usable at all if it doesn't have a "wide and clear vocabulary". But what it means is that each of them consists of words for many things relating to many topics, and that the words have clear meanings. --Node 11:56, 5 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  American English vs. British English 

message: Could someone please provide a source where the term Dachsprache was introduced? Only the terms Ausbausprache and Abstandsprache were coined by the sociolinguist Heinz Kloss. If there will be no source, I will request this page to be moved to Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache. The term Dachsprache is not mentioned by either of the weblinks, nor does it occur in the Metzler Lexikon Sprache , one of the major German linguistics dictionaries. -- j. 'mach' wust | ‽ 10:28, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is mentioned in the German wikipedia, as you seem to understand German you should ask them at the discussion page of :de:Dachsprache. All these terms are anyway used in sociolinguistics, a subdivision of sociology, not in linguistics. There are few scientific occurrences of the term attested on the Net, but this is not a criterion, there should be a word-search in sociolinguistics scientific magazines: 
*Wilson McLeod (University of Edinburgh), Linguistic pan-Gaelicism: a dog that failed to bark : (...) there have been no significant movements in modern times to bring the two forms closer together, or to create some kind of Dachsprache (...). 
*Mulajcic, Zarko. 1989. Uber den Begriff Dachsprache. In U. Ammon (ed.), Status and Function of Languages and Language Varieties, pp. 256-277. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter--Pylambert 20:14, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Sources for "Dachsprache"

message: Is Serbo-Croatian actually a "Dachsprache" or an "Ausbausprache" of the Croatian and Serbian language? It would be perplex to assume that Croatian and Serbian are "Ausbausprachen" of the Serbo-Croatian language. Serbo-Croatian is actually a "Dachsprache" of the Croatian and Serbian language, as the name already says, if I assume right. From the mid 19th century there have been attempts about moving these two languages closer to each other. Systematic linguistic policies have been used to achieve this goal, supported by political and linguistic unification tendencies. The Croatian standard e.g. already existed before the creation of a so-called "Serbocroatian" language. Please provide an answer and change existing definition. --Neoneo13 23:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: From what the relevant wikipedia articles say, there seems to be little doubt that currently the Croatian language and the Serbian language are to be considered independent Ausbausprachen (though very definitly not Abstandsprachen). I have to admit that I'm only familiar with the concepts of Ausbausprache and Abstandsprache (see my above question to the respect), whereas I'm not so certain about Dachsprache (basically, I fail to see the difference between the concepts of Ausbausprache and of Dachsprache), but from what I understand, the Serbo-Croatian language was indeed intended to be a Dachsprache for all of Yugoslavia. However, the attempt has failed, and Serbo-Croatian is widely believed not to exist any more, if it ever has. Croatian and Serbian are closely related languages, but not the same language in terms of Ausbausprache. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 10:11, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Amen to that. I'd say that the Serbocroatian/Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian situation is the classic example of the framework, so much that the article seems like written to describe it exactly. Duja 20:34, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Serbocroatian" - Dachsprache or Ausbausprache of Croatian and Serbian 

message: Should this page be split out into Ausbausprache, Abstandsprache and Dachsprache? I know they are all related, but the title is definately odd in Wikipedia terms. - FrancisTyers 00:09, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I support it. While it's ok to have all the stuff on one place, it's goddam difficult to link to, and the title is plain ugly. I'd prefer having three separate articles, even with the same intro word for word. Autonomous language should also find its place somewhere in this category. Duja 20:36, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure - it seems to me that the concepts can better be explained together, so any split-up article would contain a hell of a lot of duplication. As for linking, I think all the three terms currently have redirects, and redirects are cheap, so you can simply say "Ausbausprache" (Ausbausprache) anywhere in an article; there's no need for a clumsy piped "Ausbausprache" (Ausbausprache) or anything like that (although that too does work). Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:43, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I've heard the concepts in general being referred to as Ausbau linguistics, perhaps this could be the name for the page. I think Ausbau is the most frequently reference term (at least in the Abstand/Ausbau pair). - FrancisTyers 08:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Ausbau linguistics" would be okay, although it doesn't seem all that common as a collocation (actually has 0 google hits). "Ausbau sociolinguistics" is a label used by Trudgill in two or three articles, and as such it has some currency. I'm not aware that others (including Kloss himself) ever coined a name for the approach as such. I agree that "ausbau" is the more prominent member of the pair - it's just the more interesting from the sociolinguistic perspective, I guess. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, you're right Ausbau sociolinguistics, obviously not got my brain on this morning... :) - FrancisTyers 09:19, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Page name

message: I would like to request that there be further explanation of the three terms - Asubauspache, Abstandsprache, and Dachsprache. I am thinking of explanation in the form of more examples, and specifically examples constrasting each term against the other two, as much as possible. My reasoning is that even after reading the whole page, and looking through some of the examples given, I was still confused on how each term relates to and constrasts each other. For example, there's the section on 'Interrelation of Ausbausprache and Abstandsprache', which I found helpful because it contrasted Ausbausprache and Abstandsprache. But I'm confused on where Dachsprache fits into the continuum. Thanks. Jclu (talk) 19:36, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  request for further explanation of the terms 

message: Hi, all - While I do not pretend to be a linguist, I have a definite interest in the subject so perhaps if my question has been thoroughly answered elsewhere, be patient with me.
My concern regards the term Abstandsprache as described on this page.  Most of the examples of abstand languages given on this page (many in the section about Dachsprache) are languages that are not mutually intelligible to a high degree (Mandarin vs Cantonese, Low vs High German, etc.).  However, in all cases but one mentioned on this page, the abstand languages described are at least closely related (I've never seen anyone argue that Mandarin and Cantonese are from different families).  Also, the repeated use of the term 'variety' seems to imply a close relationship between the two (or more) languages in question.
The lone exception to the above is the pair actually mentioned in the Abstandsprache section of this page as a "typical" example of abstand languages - Basque vs. Spanish.  My understanding is that Basque is a language isolate, and not related in the slightest to Spanish (or, for that matter, to any other known language, Indo-European or otherwise).  Is the relationship between Basque and Spanish truly one to be described by the term abstand?  Can two abstand languages be completely, utterly unrelated?  Or am I misinterpreting something (quite possible)?  beerslayer (talk) 09:58, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: "Abstand" just means that the languages are patently different from each other. One important consequence arising from this is that the standard language has to be acquired like a foreign language. Whether the genetic relationship is simply remote or nonexistent (or unrecoverable) is unimportant. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:08, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need clarification on point regarding Abstandsprache 

message: In some instances, ausbau languages have been created out of dialects for purposes of nation building. This applies for instance to Luxembourgish vis-a-vis German. Other examples of ausbau languages are Persian of Iran and Afghanistan (cf. Dari), Serbian and Croatian, Bulgarian and Macedonian, Malaysian and Indonesian, Hindi and Urdu and to some extent Tamil and Malayalam.
I think the example of Tamil and Malayalam is somewhat misleading in this context. While Tamil and Malayalam are certainly very similar, Malayalam has significant differences with Tamil on all linguistic levels (not just lexical choices or minor differences in pronunciation), and its status as a different language does not ever seem to have been controversial. It also has a separate literary tradition dating back to the 12th–14th centuries, and started to diverge from Tamil in the 9th century (the beginning of the Middle Tamil period) according to Krishnamurti 2003, with which our articles on Malayalam and Tamil language#Classification agree. Therefore, Malayalam cannot be thought of as an artificial modern national standard. In fact, it cannot be the result of nationalism based on arbitrary colonial divisions in the first place, as the separateness of the Malayalis as an ethnic group (who are traditionally not only found in Kerala) has been long recognised before the modern state of Kerala was founded, and it was based on the distinct Malayali identity (which is in turn based on the use of the Malayalam language) rather than the other way round. While it is difficult to measure language similarity or mutual intelligibility objectively, Malayalam and Tamil are not extremely similar or even virtually identical at their core (grammar and basic vocabulary), just very similar, and Malayalam differs from Tamil in some significant aspects. Also, the long separate tradition has to be kept in mind. Compare Danish vs. Swedish.
Therefore, Malayalam is fully legitimate as a separate language, and its status as such is not doubtful due to its distinctive structure; hence listing it among these examples along with Malaysian and Indonesian (two different national) standards based on the same literary Malay variety, and more comparable to American vs. Australian English) misleads the reader into thinking that this example is just another division based on tiny or non-essential differences. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:31, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tamil and Malayalam 

message: This does not seem like a great translation. Google Translate lists 10 translations including "elaboration" and "cultivation" but not "upgrade". --JWB (talk) 22:30, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree it's not ideal, though upgrade is in fact a possible translation and I am not sure how to say it better. An ausbau language isn't so much upgraded (suggesting one discrete step) as developed continuously. But development doesn't come with the necessary connotations of improvement and extension. Elaboration obviously doesn't fit, and cultivation, while describing it quite well, has a very different tone. Hans Adler 23:07, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

text: What about "expanded" or "standalone"? I agree that "upgrade" is not the best, since it's somewhat missing the point of the ausbau language as an independent developing language as compared to a dialect. Kate (talk) 18:39, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

text: Despite that 'upgrade' is one of the senses of the German word, it's a quite wrong translation in this context. A related observation is that this article was scantily sourced, and that includes the definitions of Kloss's terms. I have rectified this in large part. This is really shocking, that in over six years, a variety of editors, including native speakers of German, have not cited more sources. There are abundant expositions in English, Frnch, or German by Kloss, Goebl, and Muljacic. In general, this article was poorly researched and poorly composed. Also, the presentation of the German vernacular examples was careless, because German dialectology is complicated and obscure, so its presentation to a lay audience requires more — and better — explanation than was given before I started editing within the last several days. Dale Chock (talk) 15:14, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ausbau = upgrade?? 

message: 81.11.218.228 (talk) 20:40, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  lede=unclear:(( 

message: Is enveloping language used as a synonym for Dachsprache in English? Purodha used it as such above and in this edit, but he was not a native speaker of German, so I hesitate ...
By the way, I wonder why Envelop redirects to Envelopment, as does Envelope (military), when envelop(e)/envelopment clearly has many more meanings than the military one, and Envelope (military) (or more correctly Envelop (military) or Envelopment (military), I'd say) would be a more logical title. —Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:34, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: IMHO, the best translation for Dachsprache (assuming there isn't an existing established term in English) would be umbrella language. (Dict.cc in fact has exactly that for "Dachsprache".) In general, the German prefix "Dach-" in compound nouns translates to "umbrella" in English, e.g. "Dachverband"  = "umbrella organization". — tooki (talk) 21:48, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Enveloping language = Dachsprache? 

message: My understanding is that much of the MI of the Scandinavian languages is acquired, so that may not be a good example for the lead even if it's common in the lit. Serbo-Croatian, Hindi-Urdu and Malaysian-Indonesian are all clearly appropriate, as pluricentric languages, but there may be other cases we could use where MI is high without them being the same dialect. — kwami (talk) 18:31, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: That's my understanding too, though the Scandinavian example is certainly commonly cited, including by Kloss himself.  Other examples Kloss gives of mutually intelligible varieties considered different languages by ausbau are Czech and Slovak, or Bulgarian and Macedonian.  He treats pluricentric languages as a different concept.  Kanguole 19:40, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scandinavian as example in lead 

message: The description of roofing sounds a lot like the relationship Mandarin Chinese has to the other (not mutually intelligible) Chinese languages. Do linguists consider this an example of roofing or is it different in some way? 14.203.77.150 (talk) 13:27, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on what's on the article, probably -- however, the term "roof" is used by one particular school of linguists, and would not be widely understood among English-speaking academic linguists.  (It's certainly not included in the 5th edition of David Crystal's "Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics").  By contrast, the term diglossia is widely known among linguists. AnonMoos (talk) 05:21, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Mandarin Chinese a roofing language?