Re: [OT] Re: the Ethnologue

From: Marion Gunn (mgunn@egt.ie)
Date: Thu Sep 21 2000 - 14:12:58 EDT


Arsa Kevin Bracey:

>
> As far as I'm aware the co- prefix does mean an equal grouping. Examples that
> spring to mind are co-worker, co-conspirator, co-exist, coincidence and
> co-operative. I thought co-dialects was a cunningly concise way of saying
> that they could all be considered dialects of each other...
>

And so it is, but even the concept "peer" is misleading (some "co-dialects"
priding themselves on being "more equal" than others of their group, some
members of which they may abhor, and deprecate for legal use in their land),
which is also why I favour "allied languages", which neatly sidesteps the
question of hierarchical relationships, real, implied, or created for any
political purpose, so that Croatian-Bosnian-Serbian then become linguistic
allies for solid linguistic reasons, nothing more implied.
mg

>
> --
> Kevin Bracey

Marion Gunn
Everson Gunn Teoranta
<http://www.egt.ie>



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:21:13 EDT