“SORRY, COULD YOU REPEAT THAT, PLEASE?!” – WHERE DOES ONE END AND THE NEXT BEGIN?

Angela Kluge1 2007

CONTENT 1. Introduction 2. and dialects 3. Bilingualism, intelligibility, and bidialectism 3.1. Bilingualism 3.2. Intelligibility 3.3. Bidialectism 4. Intelligibility and affinity 5. Where does one language end and the next begin? 6. Summary 7. References

This paper considers the question of why speakers of different dialects belonging to the same language group do not always understand each other, and explores the question of how best to determine whether different speech communities belong to the same language group. In this context three pertinent issues are considered: (1) the notions of language and dialect, (2) the notions of bilingualism, intelligibility, and bidialectism, and (3) the notion of affinity (i.e. feeling of interconnectedness) and how it impacts intelligibility. The discussion of these issues demonstrates that both linguistic and nonlinguistic factors need to be taken into account when considering the boundaries of a language group, namely structural similarity, intelligibility, and affinity, with affinity being the most decisive factor as it impacts intelligibility and may override linguistic considerations. Brown’s (1998) “ethnolinguistic” or “broad standardization” model is presented as a relevant framework for considering the question of where one language ends and the next begins.. This model identifies a language group as a group of structurally related speech varieties that recognize one common variety as their transdialectal standard, or “main dialect” based on the factors of ethnolinguistic identity, intelligibility, and relatedness. The identified main dialect in turn defines the entire language group. In the context of nonstandardized language chain situations, however, it may not be possible to identify a main dialect based on these three factors of ethnolinguistic identity, intelligibility, and relatedness. Instead, the question presents itself, whether for these situations it might be more useful to consider the language identification and standardization process in terms of relatedness, affinity, and exposure time. Given the dynamic nature of language situations and the sociolinguistic changes that the standardization process is most likely to cause, the assessment process regarding which speech varieties accept and understand the main dialect also needs to be dynamic and, furthermore, ongoing.

1 Biblographical details: Kluge, Angela. 2007. “Sorry, could you repeat that, please?!” – Where does one language end and the next begin? Paper presented at the SIL-Indonesia Eastern Indonesia Malay Seminar, Sentani, 3-6 September 2007.

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 1 / 24 1. INTRODUCTION

“Sorry, could you repeat that, please?!” – Have you ever had the experience of talking to someone from an area different from your own but where people supposedly speak the same language as you and yet you did not understand what she was saying? “Sorry, could you repeat that again, please?!” A situation like that could easily happen in Germany, when someone from the Rheinland, for example from Köln, travels south and for the first time in her life meets speakers of Schwäbisch from the Schwäbische Alp south of Stuttgart or speakers of Bayrisch from the area around München. And yet, in Germany all Germans supposedly speak German. Similar situations may happen in the Anglophone world when an English speaker, for example from Cumberland in northwestern England, meets an English speaker from the Deep South (e.g. ) in the USA or this English speaker from the Deep South meets an English speaker from the Australian outback (i.e. ’s interior region). And yet, in the Anglophone world speakers supposedly speak the same . Thus, do Kölsch and Schwäbisch belong to the same language or are they, in fact, two different languages, and are Cumberland English, ‘Deep South’ English, and ‘Outback’ English also, in fact, distinct languages? Most commonly these varieties are referred to as dialects of German and English, respectively, whereas English and German would be considered different languages. So why do speakers of different dialects not understand each other although they supposedly speak the same language? What about the Kölner who do not understand the Schwaben from the Schwäbische Alp, and what about the Cumberlanders who do not understand the Deep South English speakers when they first meet? When considering the question of whether different speech communities belong to the same language group, three issues need to be examined more closely: (1) the notions of language and dialect (Section 2), (2) the notions of bilingualism, intelligibility, and bidialectism (Section 3), and (3) the notion of affinity and how it impacts intelligibility (Section 4). Following these considerations, Section 5 presents Brown’s (1998) “ethnolinguistic” or “broad standardization” model, which considers the various factors that need to be taken into account with respect to the question of where one language ends and the next begins. Section 5 summarizes the most important issues that were raised in this paper, followed by a list of references (Section 6).

2. LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS

There are a variety of usages of the terms language and dialect, not only in the popular but also in the formal linguistic realm. For some, language refers to the particular speech variety that has been chosen to be developed, that is, to be written and to serve as the standard for a whole group of dialects in terms of orthography, grammar and lexicon and, in many cases, also in terms of pronunciation, while dialects lack such standardization (see Brown 1998). Based on this point of view, Deutsch or Hochdeutsch is regarded a language since it has a standardized written form which is acknowledged by speakers of all German speech varieties, whereas Schwäbisch or Bayrisch are (nonstandardized) dialects of Deutsch. Other linguists employ the term dialect to refer to a set of speech varieties that are descendents of the same parent language with language in the superordinate position within a hierarchy of linguistic taxonomy, while dialects are in a subordinate position and considered subdivisions of languages. Based on this definition, all are regarded as dialects, that is descendants, of the Proto Germanic language. (Bussmann 2000:125)

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 2 / 24 In distinguishing language from dialect, some apply primarily linguistic criteria and focus on structural relatedness and “similarity-based” intelligibility (Simons 1979:62). That is, due to the structural similarity or genetic relationship of the speech varieties involved, speakers of different dialects of the same language can understand each other without having had to learn the other variety. Others would argue that linguistic criteria are not sufficient for making an adequate distinction between languages and dialects. Instead, the distinction needs to be based on nonlinguistic criteria which take into account socio-political, cultural, and historical factors. Based on the main criteria used to distinguish languages from dialects, different conclusions are possible in terms of language identification for a given area. Good examples for this are some of the language situations of Europe and of China. The European language situation is characterized by a number of different geographical dialect continua in which related speech varieties form dialect chains that may cover large geographical areas (see Figure 1). Figure 1: Dialect continua in Europe (Crystal 2001:9)

In such language continua, or as Bloomfield designates them, dialect areas, typical communication patterns emerge (Bloomfield 2001:51): In a country like France, Italy, or Germany … every village or, at most, every group of two or three villages, has its own dialect. The differences between neighboring local dialects are usually small, but recognizable. The villagers are ready to tell in what way their neighbors’ speech differs from theirs, and often tease their neighbors about these peculiarities. The difference from place to place is small, but, as one travels in any one direction, the differences accumulate, until speakers, say from opposite ends of the country, cannot understand each other, although there is no sharp line of linguistic demarcation between the places where they live. Any such geographic area of gradual transitions is called a dialect area. The Germanic continuum, for example, covers Dutch as spoken in the Netherlands, Flemish as spoken in , and German as spoken in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 3 / 24 (see Figure 2). Within this continuum neighboring groups understand each other well – even across borders, such as the Dutch-German border. Here, on either side of the border regional dialects are spoken which belong to the Rhenisch-Maas group of dialects, namely Limburgisch (Gordon 2005). Speakers of the respective Dutch and German dialects understand each other sufficiently well and – based on linguistic criteria – could therefore be considered as speakers of the same language. In fact, German speakers from near the Dutch border may understand speakers from the Dutch side of the border much better than they understand speakers of southern German dialects, e.g. Schwäbisch from the Schwäbische Alp or speakers of Bayrisch from the area around München. However, based on nonlinguistic factors, such as socio-political, cultural, and historical factors, the dialects on either side of the border orient themselves towards distinct standard varieties as their points of reference, that is, standard Dutch and standard German which are not inherently mutually intelligible. In consequence the dialects along the border are regarded as dialects of distinct languages, that is Dutch or German. Similar cases where linguistically there is only little difference between speech varieties but nonlinguistic factors result in divisions are Spanish vs. Portuguese, French vs. Italian, Swedish vs. Norwegian, and vs. Urdu. (See Romaine 2000:14.) Figure 2: German dialect areas along the Dutch-German border and of southern Germany (Microsoft Corporation 2002)

Cases such as the Germanic dialect continuum illustrate, as Bloomfield (2001:54f) points out, the “purely relative nature” of the distinction between languages and dialects: We speak of French and Italian, of Swedish and Norwegian, of Polish and Bohemian as separate languages, because these communities are politically separate and use different standard languages, but the differences of local speech forms at the border are in all these cases relatively slight and not greater than the differences which we find within each of these speech-communities. The opposite situation can also be found, for example (see Figure 3), in China where a range of speech varieties are regarded as dialects of Chinese because speakers of these varieties share a common writing system and thus can communicate with each other in the written language. The

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 4 / 24 same speakers cannot, however, communicate with each other in the spoken language because the speech varieties involved lack structural similarity and inherent intelligibility. Thus, applying the linguistic criteria, these speech varieties would need to be considered distinct languages, whereas based on nonlinguistic criteria they are dialects of the same superordinate language. (See Romaine 2000:14.) Figure 3: Languages of China (Gordon 2005)

Situations like those described above show, as Hymes (1974:123) points out, that “what counts as a language boundary cannot be defined by any purely linguistic measure. Attitudes and social meanings enter in as well.” Therefore, in terms of distinguishing dialects from languages two aspects need to be considered: (1) intelligibility due to structural cohesiveness, and (2) socio- political, cultural, and historical affinity. Both of these aspects are taken into account, for example, by the which applies the following criteria in deciding whether speech varieties should be considered distinct languages or varieties of the same language (Gordon 2005:8): Two related varieties are normally considered varieties of the same language if speakers of each variety have inherent understanding of the other variety at a functional level (that is, can understand based on knowledge of their own variety without needing to learn the other variety). Where spoken intelligibility between varieties is marginal, the existence of a common literature or of a common ethnolinguistic identity with a central variety that both understand can be a strong indicator that they should nevertheless be considered varieties of the same language. Where there is enough intelligibility between varieties to enable communication, the existence of well-established distinct ethnolinguistic identities can be a strong indicator that they should nevertheless be considered to be different languages.

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 5 / 24 Thus, according to the Ethnologue (Gordon 2005), languages are speech varieties that are unintelligible and/or do not share a common ethnolinguistic identity, while dialects are speech varieties that are inherent intelligible and/or share a common ethnolinguistic identity. In either case, the nonlinguistic factors may take precedence over the linguistic factors and thus may determine the splitting of these varieties into distinct languages or their joining into one and the same language. The discussion regarding the notions of language and dialect has pointed out that both linguistic and nonlinguistic factors need to be taken into account when considering whether different speech communities belong to the same language group or not, namely structural similarity, intelligibility, and affinity. The following sections revisit these factors, exploring more in-depth how structural similarity and affinity impact intelligibility.

3. BILINGUALISM, INTELLIGIBILITY, AND BIDIALECTISM

In addressing the question of how structural similarity and affinity impact understanding between different speech communities, three different notions of understanding need to be distinguished: bilingualism, intelligibility, and bidialectism.

3.1. BILINGUALISM

Bilingualism is a social phenomenon that occurs as a result of language contact. Most commonly, a distinction is being made between two types of bilingualism: individual and societal bilingualism. (Appel and Muysken 1987:1) Some linguists, such as Bloomfield (2001:56) maintain that bilingualism only refers to “the extreme case of foreign language learning [where] the speaker becomes so proficient as to be indistinguishable from the native speakers round him”. Other researchers, such as Haugen (1972:309) propose a much less stringent definition, namely that bilingualism is the “knowledge of two languages” regardless of the degree of competence and without any need “for a bilingual to use both his languages.” Given this broad spectrum of definitions, Appel and Muysken (1987) submit a sociological definition that builds on Weinreich’s work (1953:5, in Appel and Muysken 1987:3): “the practice of alternatively using two languages will be called here bilingualism, and the persons involved bilinguals”. Slightly narrower definitions have been suggested by SIL’s International Sociolinguistics Department (1997) which denotes bilingualism as “the ability of an individual or speech community to control elements of two (or more) languages” and by Bussmann (2000:52) who defines bilingualism as a “speaker’s competence in two or more languages and their use in everyday communication.” These three definitions take into account the communicative needs of the speakers involved and acknowledge differing proficiency levels and differing usages of languages of bilingual speakers, rather than focusing on absolute competence levels such as “native-like command of the second language”. While the notion of individual bilingualism focuses on individual speakers and their language repertoires, societal bilingualism focuses on entire societies or speech communities and their language repertoires (Fishman 1972). To distinguish between the use of more than one language by individuals as opposed to entire societies, Fishman (1967) uses the term bilingualism when referring to individual speakers and – in broadening and redefining Ferguson’s (1959) original concept – diglossia when referring to the societal level. Fishman’s (1967) broadened definition of diglossia,

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 6 / 24 however, does not only denote the fact that a society employs more than one language, but more importantly that the respective languages are functionally separated: that is, each speech variety serves specific functions and is used in specific contexts, such as the private or family domain, public domains, literature, media, etc. Although a distinction between bilingualism and diglossia is helpful in some respects, neither exists in isolation and a clear-cut separation between both phenomena is not possible; both are interrelated. Fishman (1967) explores this relationship and presents a detailed description of the possible interactions between bilingualism and diglossia and how their interplay relates to language maintenance and shift. According to Romaine (1989:23), this “connection between individual and societal bilingualism also becomes evident when we consider some of the reasons why certain individuals are or become bilingual. Usually the more powerful groups in any society are able to force their language upon the less powerful.” The above discussion highlights the fact that bilingualism is not a unitary construct, independent of contextually variable factors, but rather a “relative notion” (Romaine 1989:22). This relativity raises some question regarding which language skills and proficiency levels are required for which usages: Language skills:

 Both oral (speaking and listening) and written (writing and reading) skills or either one of them?  Both productive (speaking and writing) and receptive (listening and reading) skills or either one of them? Proficiency levels and their components:

 Native-like control or partial control of two or more languages?  Equal or unequal fluency in the different components of language proficiency, such as comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, and accent? Language usages:

 Domain-specific communication or communication across all social domains of everyday life? Of equal importance is the question of which factors influence language competence and to what extent. Bilingualism is a social phenomenon that occurs as a result of language contact, that is increased levels of language contact result in increased L2 proficiency levels. As a learned behavior, bilingualism is dependent on a variety of contextually variable factors. While these factors may differ from one society to another, a number of factors have been identified that are the most common ones, such as age, gender, education levels, religious affiliation, geographic region, and travel patterns. Thus, the various subgroups within a speech community may differ in terms of their L2 abilities due to varying degrees of exposure to the second language, and these differing proficiency levels are in turn directly related to the pertinent second-language contact factors. (See Rensch 1991 and Webster 1993.) The questions regarding language skills, proficiency levels and influencing factors are especially relevant when it comes to language extensibility issues. The most pertinent question in such contexts is whether and to what extent literature (written or oral) in a given language, for example a language of wider communication (LWC), can appropriately be extended for use by vernacular language speakers, or in other words, whether local speech communities have adequate access (both

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 7 / 24 in terms of comprehension and language attitudes) to materials in a second language. This issue of adequate access raises the question though, how language competence levels can be measured. In the 1950s, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) of the U.S. Department of State was asked to create a set of standard second language proficiency definitions and design a test instrument to measure second language proficiency. The subsequently developed set of definitions and test instrument (the Oral Proficiency Interview – OPI) allows one to distinguish between and assess six levels (0-5) and five components (fluency, accent, grammar, vocabulary, and comprehension) of L2 proficiency. Since then, the FSI proficiency level definitions and descriptions as well as the FSI testing procedures have been widely used and became the accepted standard for L2 proficiency evaluation. (DLIELC n.d.) In 1973, a network of agencies and organizations involved in L2 proficiency evaluation, called the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR), was established. By 1985, the Interagency Language Roundtable had refined the FSI proficiency level descriptions, now distinguishing between speaking, reading, listening, and writing skills. Since then, the L2 proficiency level descriptions have become known as the “ILR Scale” or the “ILR Definitions” (Herzog n.d., Interagency Language Roundtable, n.d. a,b). The FSI OPI and the ILR skill level descriptions assume test-takers to be literate, while SIL International mainly works among preliterate societies. Therefore, in 1987, SIL International made some minor adjustments to the FSI OPI instrument and developed the Second Language Oral Proficiency Evaluation (SLOPE) (SIL 1990). This oral interview investigates five components of language proficiency, namely comprehension, discourse, structure, lexicalization, and fluency, and is especially suited to evaluate the bilingual abilities of preliterate people. SLOPE’s proficiency levels descriptions are adopted from the 1986 Interagency Language Roundtable Skill Level Descriptions and focus on spoken language use. Since the changes to the ILR level descriptions and testing technique are comparatively minor, “it is assumed that the validity and accuracy of SLOPE is sufficiently equivalent to the ILR level descriptions and the FSI OPI” (Bergman 2004). SLOPE is a diagnostic type of test that provides an in-depth evaluation of the individual’s strengths or weaknesses in the second language in question. While this methodology is suitable for testing individuals, it is also quite time-consuming (30-60 minutes per interview) and expensive (the initial training and the re-certification for test administrators) and therefore not suitable for large-scale assessment of entire language groups. With regard to the above-mentioned extensibility issues, however, one of the major concerns is whether and to what extent an entire speech community has adequate access to literature materials in a second language. To address these concerns, large numbers of people must be tested to obtain an overall profile of L2 proficiency levels throughout an entire speech community. For these purposes, SIL developed a Sentence Repetition Test (SRT) (Radloff 1991). This methodology requires subjects to repeat verbatim 15 carefully selected, tape-recorded sentences of increasing length and difficulty in the language under investigation. The SRT is not a direct measure as SLOPE is, but an indirect one; that is, an SRT measures relative and not absolute L2 proficiency. Therefore, during the design stages, any given SRT has to be calibrated against an external standard (SLOPE, FSI-OPI, or RPE2) and during actual testing subjects’ scores need to be evaluated in light of this standard. In contrast to SLOPE, the SRT methodology is not a diagnostic type of test, but a screening type of test. As such it does not provide a detailed picture of an individual’s L2 proficiency levels but instead allows “an objective, general assessment of a person’s proficiency in a second language, fitted for the purposes of a sociolinguistic survey … when the survey goals encompass obtaining an overall profile of the second-language proficiency levels of an entire community” (Radloff 1991:8). (See also Hanawalt 2007, Showalter 1993, and South 2005.)

2 RPE = Reported Proficiency Evaluation (see Radloff 1991 for more details).

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 8 / 24 In light of the variety of test instruments that have been developed in the past, some question still remains regarding which competence levels are required for which language usages. More specifically, what proficiency level is required so that a local community can adequately benefit from literature (written or oral) in a second language? During the first SIL International Language Assessment Conference in 1989, a number of recommendations on language assessment criteria were outlined and subsequently “approved for general use as administrative guidelines by the SIL Area Directors and Vice Presidents on November 8, 1989”, some of which deal directly with the question of how extensibility conclusions can be drawn (ILAC 1991:27f): The pattern of bilingual proficiency within a language group is assessed by testing a representative sample of the speakers of a language. Where well-translated Biblical materials in the second language are available, comprehension of these may also be tested. Where measurements indicate that a significant number of the speakers have not achieved level 3 three proficiency, a project is generally considered desirable on grounds of comprehension. If 3 a significant number of people have level three or higher, more testing needs to be done, and additional sociolinguistic factors will need to be taken into account. At present we lack sufficient experience to know how to interpret the functional comprehension level of translated material by someone with bilingual skills at level three. A high level of bilingual ability for some members of a group does not mean that a project may not be undertaken for the benefit of those with lower ability. These guidelines, among other sources, have informed current efforts by SIL International- Indonesia at establishing a policy on language project planning in multilingual settings. Taking into account both acceptability (i.e. attitudes) and accessibility (i.e. understanding) issues, the most current version of ‘Towards an IDB Policy on Language Project Planning in Multilingual Settings’ (Sanders and IDB Academic Team 2004) suggests that a speech community be regarded as having adequate access to literature in the second language, if:

 the language community has adequate attitudes towards the second language, and  80% or more of a cross-section of the language community (age 20-45) speaks a second language (L2) at a proficiency level of 3+ or above and this second language is used in a sustainable manner. In this context, proficiency level 3+ specifically refers to spoken language use and is defined by the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale of language proficiency as General Professional Proficiency, Plus, or S-3+. At this level, according to the Interagency Language Roundtable (n.d. c), a person is “often able to use the language to satisfy professional needs in a wide range of sophisticated and demanding tasks” and “comprehends most of the content and intent of a variety of forms and styles of speech pertinent to professional needs, as well as general topics and social conversation” (for more details see Interagency Language Roundtable n.d. a,c). The above-discussion described bilingualism as a social phenomenon that occurs as a result of language contact and is not necessarily evenly distributed throughout a society but impinges on the members of a speech community in different ways. As such the concept of bilingualism is closely related to the concept of language. In contrast, the notion of intelligibility is closely related to the notion of dialect.

3 The numbers in this document are intended to serve as general guidelines which individual field entities will need to evaluate for their local context.

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 9 / 24 3.2. INTELLIGIBILITY

The term intelligibility is used in various ways in the literature, and a number of distinctions and specifications are made, namely , inherent intelligibility, and acquired intelligibility. In the most general terms, the notion of intelligibility is identical to the notions of understanding or comprehension, with intelligible being defined as “capable of being understood or comprehended” (Merriam-Webster Online 2007). Thus, “dialect intelligibility refers specifically to the degree to which speakers of one dialect understand the speech of another dialect” (Simons 1979:2). Traditionally, intelligibility, or more specifically, mutual intelligibility, has been the principle criterion for distinguishing dialects from languages. The notion of mutual intelligibility implies reciprocal understanding and suggests a symmetric “intelligibility relation between a pair of dialects” (Casad 1974:73). With respect to the language-dialect dichotomy, it is assumed that speech varieties that are mutually intelligible are dialects of the same language, while speech varieties that are not mutually intelligible are distinct languages. Following this tradition, Bussmann (2000:125) defines a dialect as a linguistic system that “shows a high degree of similarity to other systems so that at least partial mutual intelligibility is possible.” Likewise, Campbell (1998:193) in his Historical linguistics denotes mutual intelligibility as the “principle criterion for distinguishing dialects of a single language from distinct languages (which may or may not be closely related). Entities which are totally incomprehensible to speakers of other entities clearly are mutually unintelligible, and for linguists they therefore belong to separate languages.” Along similar lines, although without specifically referring to mutual intelligibility, the Ethnologue (Gordon 2005:11) considers as dialects of one language those speech varieties “which are functionally intelligible to each other’s speakers because of linguistic similarity.” Some researchers, such as Gutt (1980:58), use the terms mutual intelligibility and intelligibility interchangeably. However, given that mutual intelligibility implies reciprocity which intelligibility does not imply, the two terms, as Simons (1979:3) points out, are not identical; instead mutual intelligibility is a “special case of intelligibility” that applies “if, and only if, the degree of understanding is the same in both directions.” Such a language situation, characterized by mutual intelligibility, is represented in Figure 4 with the bi-directional arrows indicating mutual (inherent) intelligibility (Brown 1998:8). Figure 4: Mutual intelligibility within a language group (Brown 1998:84)

While theoretically perhaps still regarded as the decisive factor to distinguish between dialects and languages, the criterion of mutual intelligibility does not always apply and speech varieties that are regarded as dialects of the same languages are not necessarily mutually intelligible, as is the case with the English or German languages and their respective dialects. A number of studies have, in fact, shown that intelligibility is not a reciprocal but a directional phenomenon. Examples for this phenomenon of non-reciprocal intelligibility between closely related speech varieties are the

4 Brown’s (1998:8) label for this figure is: “Mutual inherent-intelligibility model of language.”

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 10 / 24 Gurage speech varieties of central (Gutt 1980 and Ahland 2003), the Kaansé, Kpatogoso, Dogosé, and Khisa varieties of southwestern Burkina Faso (Showalter 1994), the Mazatec and Trique speech varieties of southwestern (Casad 1974:76ff), as well as a number of speech varieties of southern (Wolff 1959). Among the factors that have been identified as contributing to non-reciprocal intelligibility among closely related varieties are both “nonsymmetric linguistic relations” as well as “nonsymmetric social relations” (Simons 1979:67ff). Some examples of these relations include phonological differences in the language systems, implicational patterns for connatural changes, interference from a third language, language awareness, language attitudes, ethnic identity, and interaction and contact patterns (Ahland 2003, Casad 1974, Milliken and Milliken 1996, Showalter 1994, Simons 1979, and Wolff 1959). These examples of non-reciprocal intelligibility suggest that the construct of mutual intelligibility is not the most useful one to serve as the decisive criterion in distinguishing dialects from languages. Therefore, Casad (1974:73) suggests that rather than using the term mutual intelligibility “in most cases it would be more accurate to simply say that intelligibility exists among a set of dialects or languages in varying degrees.” The above examples also indicate that both linguistic and nonlinguistic factors contribute to intelligibility. Taking both into account, Simons (1979:62) maintains that “intelligibility can be viewed as comprised of two components: a linguistic, or similarity-based, component, and a social, or contact-based, component” with “total intelligibility = similarity-based intelligibility + contact- based intelligibility”. A similar position is taken by Casad (1974:5) who concludes that “intelligibility is determined by degree of linguistic similarity and by sociological factors such as the degree of contact between a pair of language groups.” Other researchers propose a narrower definition of intelligibility that excludes sociological factors and only takes into consideration linguistic factors, specifically the genetic relationship between speech varieties. Following this view, Sankoff (1969) restricts the use of the term intelligibility to situations where members of a speech community have had no prior exposure to the speech variety in question. Intelligibility is then the theoretical expected degree of understanding that such speakers have of the other speech variety. Along the same lines, Milliken and Milliken (1996:16) define intelligibility as “a property of languages (or more precisely, a property of the relationship between the phonological systems of two dialects)” and emphasize that unlike bilingualism it is not a “sociological property of individuals in speech communities.” Meanwhile Simons (1979:3) employs the term inherent intelligibility to distinguish similarity-based intelligibility from total intelligibility, delineating inherent intelligibility as “the theoretical degree of understanding between dialects whose speakers have not had contact”. Inherent intelligibility is represented in Figure 5: the uni-directional arrows indicate inherent, but not mutual, intelligibility between one dialect (E) and all the other dialects of the language group (Brown 1998:11).

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 11 / 24 Figure 5: Inherent intelligibility within a language group (Brown 1998:115)

According to Milliken and Milliken (1996), however, a certain amount of learnability is also involved with respect to inherent intelligibility. Exploring the impact of phonological differences on inherent intelligibility, they submit that two basic factors contribute to inherent intelligibility: initial intelligibility and inherent learnability. “Initial intelligibility is … the degree of intelligibility existing for listeners upon first hearing another dialect spoken,” while inherent learnability refers to the ease with which listeners can adjust to the other speech variety (Milliken and Milliken 1996:16). Or in other words, if upon first hearing initial intelligibility is blocked due to phonological differences between the two systems and an incorrect analysis as to how the two systems relate to each other, inherent learnability denotes “the extent to which the relationship between the two sound systems promotes or impedes the transition from the initial incorrect analysis to the correct analysis” and is therefore “the most important aspect of intelligibility” (Milliken and Milliken 1996:16). The authors conclude, that if after initial problems the required adjustment is easy, overall levels of intelligibility will be high; however, if the required adjustment is difficult, an increase of intelligibility due to inherent learnability may not be possible and “listeners may have to study the dialect as they would a foreign language in order to achieve effective communication” (Milliken and Milliken 1996:16). In summarizing the above, it is assumed that the greater the degree of genetic relationship between two speech varieties, the greater their degree of inherent intelligibility. Moreover, inherent intelligibility is expected to equally affect all members of a speech community, or in other words, speech communities are expected to be homogeneous with respect to inherent intelligibility. (See for example Blair 1990, Gutt 1980, and O’Leary 1994.) To distinguish, then, similarity-based intelligibility from contact-based intelligibility, some researchers employ the term acquired intelligibility for the latter, which Blair (1990:2) defines as “the degree of understanding a speaker of one speech variety has of another speech variety because of the degree of previous exposure to it.” Other researchers denote contact-based intelligibility as “passive bilingualism” (Sankoff 1969:840), “a special case of bilingualism” (Casad 1974:187), or “bilingual ability” (J. Grimes 1995:19), while B. Grimes 1988:57) and Blair (1990:2) employ the term comprehension. However, since the notions of comprehension and bilingual ability do not distinguish between the understanding of linguistically related and unrelated speech varieties, B. Grimes (1986:19) employs the term “bilingual overlay” for the kind of acquired intelligibility that “can occur between dialects of a single language as well as between closely related languages,” while J. Grimes (1995:19) uses the expression “dialect-to-dialect bilingualism.” In contrast to inherent intelligibility, acquired intelligibility is not expected to equally affect all members of a speech community, but depending on the degree of contact, various subgroups of a speech community are expected to display varying degrees of intelligibility of the speech variety in

5 Brown’s (1998:8) label for this figure is: “A narrow standardization model: One dialect is mutually inherently intelligible with all others.”

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 12 / 24 question. Thus, speech communities are expected to be heterogeneous with respect to acquired intelligibility. Traditionally, the distinction between inherent and acquired intelligibility has been regarded as crucial in terms of identifying language and dialect boundaries and centers; that is, those speech varieties that are inherently intelligible to each other have been regarded as dialects of the same language (for example, see J. Grimes 1995:19). However, as has already been discussed (Section 2 ‘Languages and dialects’), nonlinguistic criteria which take into account socio-political, cultural, and historical factors also need to be considered when defining language or dialect boundaries. Moreover, inherent intelligibility has been considered a prerequisite with respect to the question of how widely a given speech variety can be understood and whether and to what extent literature (both oral and written) in this variety can be used by members of related speech varieties. Although in this context the distinction between inherent and acquired intelligibility may be possible on theoretical grounds, the question presents itself whether and to what extent this distinction is possible on practical grounds, if it is useful, and, in fact, valid, especially if contact between two related speech communities is widespread and pervasive. The most common test instrument, at least within SIL International, for measuring dialect intelligibility has been recorded text testing, as developed by Casad (1974). A Recorded Text Test, or RTT, “consists of a short text spoken by a mother-tongue speaker of the second language being tested. A subject listens to the text one time. The subject then hears the text a second time, with questions about the text interspersed in appropriate places throughout the text. The questions are dubbed into the text following the portion which contains the answer to the question. These questions are in the subject’s mother tongue. A test has ten questions. If a subject is unable to respond to a question on the first hearing, no second chance is given.” (Blair 1990:73) The method, as developed by Casad (1974:1), was designed to identify language and dialect boundaries and determine those dialects that could serve as reference dialects for a larger area. As already mentioned above, Casad (1974) acknowledges that not only linguistic but also sociological factors contribute to intelligibility and therefore he did not specifically aim at measuring inherent intelligibility. Other researchers, however, such as Blair (1990) and J. Grimes (1995) advocate the RTT methodology for measuring inherent, as opposed to acquired, intelligibility. This attempt though to measure inherent and not acquired intelligibility by eliminating contact effects is problematic, as O’Leary (1994) points out. Based on her observations from South Asia, she notes that “in the vast majority of real speech communities, it is almost impossible to find subjects who have not been directly or indirectly influenced by acquired intelligibility effects (that is, contact). This problem is especially pronounced when the passively acquired linguistic variety is inherently related to the native variety and is spoken by a speech community in close proximity and regular contact with the target community” (O’Leary 1994:52). Along the same lines, Boone (2005:16) notes “that structural considerations play a large role in intelligibility, but it is often difficult to determine what portion of the observed comprehension is immediate (without learning).” Also Sankoff (1969:840), who investigated intelligibility patterns among the Buang speech communities of northeastern New Guinea, acknowledges that in “situations involving structurally similar languages” it is a problem “to attempt to separate two components in the observed data of comprehension: that which results from structural similarity of the codes in question, and that which results from learning.” She concludes “that in many cases, including that of the Buang, intelligibility phenomena are heavily masked by acquired passive competence” (Sankoff 1969:848). B. Grimes (1986:19) comes to a similar conclusion and notes that “when the second language is related to the first, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish what understanding is

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 13 / 24 inherent because of linguistic closeness, and what is learned through contact;” as mentioned above, B. Grimes (1986) refers to these kinds of situations as “bilingual overlay.” The problem of distinguishing between inherent and acquired intelligibility becomes especially pronounced when considering situations where degrees of initial intelligibility are marginal or low but increase and become adequate after a certain amount of exposure. Hockett (1958:326-327) reports such situations for certain parts of West Africa, where local members of a given speech variety may refer to the speech variety of an adjacent villages as a “two-day” dialect and to the variety of a village further away as a “one-week” dialect: “What is meant is that in the first case two days of working towards the goal are enough to establish a basis for easy intercommunication about practical matters, whereas in the second case the adjustment requires a week.” Kamp (1992:40) describes a similar situation for the Karao people of the northern . The findings of Kamp’s (1992:40) research on Karao intelligibility patterns with respect to Ibaloi, a closely related speech variety, indicate that every Karao person “understands a certain amount and is able to produce somewhat similar speech due to linguistic similarity. Others have considerably improved their ability to comprehend the second language but have not been motivated to develop verbal skills. Still others have built upon the linguistic similarity and have become fully bilingual in all of the language skills.” Some authors refer to these kinds of situations as special cases of bilingualism, e.g. passive bilingualism (Sankoff 1969), bilingual overlay (B. Grimes 1986), or dialect-to-dialect bilingualism (J. Grimes 1995). Kamp (1992:40), in contrast, denotes the Karao situation as “learning-modified inherent intelligibility,” thus classifying it as a special case of intelligibility. A similar approach is taken by Karam (2000) who discusses the importance of acceptable variation in intergroup communication. As long as the differences between the speech varieties in question are perceived as acceptable variations from the norm, speakers develop a tolerance for differences between their own speech variety and other varieties “such that the individual’s area of acceptable variation, the threshold range of intelligibility increases” (Karam 2000:123). Thus, variation or diversity in itself is not the major factor that impedes or promotes intelligibility, but listeners’ perceptions thereof. Karam (2000:123) gives some examples which, although not directly related to interdialectal communication, illustrate how the intelligibility threshold range increases due to listeners’ perceptions: garbled voice radio transmissions, words and sentences uttered by small children, and utterances by hospitalized patients who have an oxygen tube inserted in the mouth and throat. To listeners who are inexperienced with such communication situations, the utterances of radio transmissions, small children, and certain patients may be unintelligible while to those who are familiar with them they are completely meaningful. These examples highlight the important role perceptions and familiarity play with respect to intelligibility. Thus Karam (2000:125) concludes that with regard to intergroup communication “the tolerance of speech differences, with a widening of the area of acceptable variation, may lead to their modification as the interlocutors suppress their localisms for features that are more commonly known.” These observations are especially pertinent with respect to language chain situations, where adjacent dialects are intelligible to each other while intelligibility decreases as the distance between dialects along the chain increases. As a result, as Karam (2000:126) points out, the speakers of dialects at opposite ends of the chain will not understand each other “at first encounter … due to the dissimilarities between their respective language systems.” However, increased exposure to the other dialect would result in speakers’ “expansion of their area of acceptable variation” which in turn would result in an increase of intelligibility between the speech varieties in question (Karam 2000:126).

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 14 / 24 In light of these difficulties to distinguish inherent from acquired intelligibility, Brown (1998:20) concludes that this “distinction is largely just a convenient fiction.” Instead, to avoid the ambiguities involved in this terminology, Brown (1998:17) proposes the term bidialectalism which he defines as “the ability to communicate with speakers from one or more different dialects which are related to the speaker’s own dialect.”

3.3. BIDIALECTISM

The notion bidialectalism implies learning, however, as Brown (1998:17) points out, “bidialectalism is not consciously learned any more than is the ‘mother tongue’.” In fact, as J. Grimes (1993:8) observes, it is “achieved by stretching one’s native command of one’s own dialect, not by a separate learning experience.” Instead of denoting this “stretching of one’s native command” as bidialectism, though, J. Grimes (1995:19) employs the above-mentioned term “dialect-to-dialect bilingualism.” As has already been noted, terminology such as “dialect-to-dialect bilingualism” (J. Grimes 1995), “passive bilingualism” (Sankoff 1969), or “bilingual overlay” (B. Grimes 1986) associates bidialectal communication with bilingualism which in turn is closely associated with the notion of distinct languages. Bidialectism, in contrast, more appropriately associates bidialectal communication with the notion of related dialects. In addition to these basic associations with the language-dialect dichotomy, there are a number of other distinct features with respect to the acquisition and communication patterns involved, as identified by Brown (1998), that differentiate bidialectism and bilingualism as quite distinct phenomena. As far as acquisition is concerned, for example, a “bilingual person has usually learned the second language from the ground up” while a “bidialectal person has merely extended his or her knowledge of the mother tongue to include features of the other dialect”. With respect to communication patterns, “both speakers use the same language” in bilingual conversation, whereas “each speaker usually uses his or her own dialect” in bidialectal conversation (Brown 1998:19). Such a language situation in which bidialectism is prevalent is represented in Figure 6. The solid circles and oval represent closely related speech varieties. Among this set of speech varieties, one variety, represented by the solid oval, is inherently intelligible to all the other closely related varieties. With some of these varieties, the “oval” dialect shares reciprocal, or mutual, intelligibility (indicated by the bi-directional arrows) while with some of the other varieties intelligibility is non- reciprocal (indicated by the uni-directional arrows). The solid squares represent dialects which are less closely related to the circled and oval dialects and not inherently intelligible with the “oval” dialect. These varieties have a bidialectal relationship with the “oval” dialect, that is, their speakers are bidialectal in it. (See also Brown 1998:14.) Figure 6: Bidialectism within a language group (adapted from Brown 1998:14)

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 15 / 24 In terms of intelligibility between various speech varieties, the above idealized representation of a language situation suggests the oval dialect as the central dialect for the entire group of speech varieties. The model further suggests that neither reciprocal nor inherent intelligibility are prerequisites in terms of identifying one speech variety that is intelligible to a larger group of more or less closely related speech varieties. In this context, the following question presents itself: which factors facilitate understanding and communication among more or less closely related speech varieties? As has been pointed out, linguistic factors, such as structural similarity and similarity-based intelligibility play an important role. However, the above discussion has also indicated the likewise important role played by nonlinguistic factors such as language awareness, language attitudes, ethnic identity, and interaction and contact patterns. These nonlinguistic factors are closely related to the notion of affinity, that is, the feeling of identification and interconnectedness with other members of the same language group. This relationship between affinity and intelligibility is the focus of the following section.

4. INTELLIGIBILITY AND AFFINITY

In a study of “intelligibility and inter-ethnic attitudes” among a variety of speech communities of southern Nigeria (all of them Niger-Congo languages), Wolff (1959) makes a number of observations that illustrate the importance of nonlinguistic factors for intergroup understanding and communication. In one example, Wolff (1959) refers to the Nembe-Kalabari language situation of the eastern Niger Delta. Both, Nembe and Kalabari belong to the same linguistically homogeneous language group, that is Ijaw, and are linguistically very closely related. This linguistic relationship, however, is not reflected by their intergroup intelligibility and attitudes. The Nembe people, who are despised by the Kalabari people for being poor and living in a remote place, report that their own speech variety is very similar to Kalabari and that they can understand the Kalabari variety. In contrast, the Kalabari people, who constitute a flourishing community, maintain that their own speech variety is very different from Nembe and that they, but for a few words, cannot understand the Nembe variety. (See Wolff 1959:36.) In another example, Wolff (1959) discusses the Urhobo, Okpe, and Isoko speech varieties of southwestern Nigeria, which belong to the southwestern Edoid language group. Okpe and Isoko are linguistically very closely related, while both of them are rather different from the Urhobo varieties. In spite of these differences though, both Okpe and Isoko speakers used to agree that their own speech varieties were mutually intelligibility with Urhobo. Wolff (1959) noted though that more recently the Isoko people stated that their own speech variety is different from Urhobo and that intelligibility between these two speech varieties is not adequate for normal communication. This claim, as Wolff (1959:37) notes, “coincided with Isoko demands for greater political autonomy and ethnic self-sufficiency.” In contrast, the Okpe people continued to report that their own speech variety was mutually intelligible to Urhobo and that they were part of the larger area. A third example to be considered here, are the Kaingang speech varieties (Macro-Ge ) of , discussed by Wiesemann (1989). Kaingang has five dialects, namely Paraná Kaingang, Central Kaingang, Southwest Kaingang, Southeast Kaingang, and Sao Paulo Kaingang. In the 1950s, when Wiesemann first began language development work among the Kaingang people, intercomprehension between these groups was rather limited due to linguistic differences and limited contact between the various dialect groups. Therefore, when the was first developed, separate primers sets were developed in the Paraná, Central, Southwest, and Southeast Kaingang dialects. (Due to even more pronounced linguistic differences, the Sao Paulo variety was at that time excluded from the language development efforts.) Initial teacher training,

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 16 / 24 which took place in the Paraná area and was mainly based on the Paraná dialect, promoted some interdialectal contact. Moreover, some of the trained teachers were assigned to dialect areas other than their native dialect areas which also exposed some of the otherwise rather isolated groups to other Kaingang dialects. Initially, each dialect area was supposed to receive formal education based on the primers in their respective dialects. Due to distribution problems, though, the various dialect groups received primers in dialects other than their own. However, since at that time no other materials were available, these primers were used to teach the Kaingang people to read and write their language. One result of this unplanned interdialectal contact with respect to the written language was that in 1975 when new primers were to be made, the teachers themselves “requested that one set of primers be made for the whole area” (Wiesemann 1989:7) At the same time, other materials, mainly based on the Paraná dialect, were published and distributed. According to Wiesemann (1989), all of these materials came to be used in all Kaingang dialects (except for the Sao Paulo dialect). Moreover, Wiesemann (1989) noticed that when she revisited all four dialect areas more recently intercomprehension between the Kaingang groups had improved and that where formerly understanding had been difficult, there were no difficulties now. Wiesemann (1989:9), thus, concludes that the language standardization process has led, over time, to a certain reduction in dialectal differences which in turn enhanced intergroup intelligibility without, however, completely leveling dialectal differences. These examples illustrate that high degrees of linguistic similarity do not necessarily imply high degrees of intelligibility, nor that high degrees of intelligibility are necessarily due to high degrees of linguistic similarity. Instead, the examples suggest that the decisive factors for intelligibility are not linguistic but nonlinguistic ones, namely affinity or ethnolinguistic identity. Affinity or shared ethnolinguistic identity can facilitate intelligibility even between more distantly related groups, while disaffinity or a lack of ethnolinguistic identity may impede intelligibility, even between closely related groups. In addition, the Kaingang example draws attention to the role exposure time may play with regard to intelligibility and language attitudes.

5. WHERE DOES ONE LANGUAGE END AND THE NEXT BEGIN?

The preceding discussion has highlighted three factors that need to be taken into account when considering the question whether different speech communities belong to the same language group or not: linguistic structural similarity, intelligibility, and affinity or ethnolinguistic identity. Brown (1998) presents a language group model that takes into account all three factors, the “ethnolinguistic” or “broad standardization” model. In this model, a language group is denoted as a “group of related dialects, one of which serves as the transdialectal medium of communication for speakers of other dialects who accept it and understand it” (Brown 1998:3). What unites such a language group and keeps it united is, according to Brown (1998:13,14), primarily ethnolinguistic identity and not so much linguistic relatedness.” Ethnolinguistic identity, in this context, is defined as “the sense people have of belonging to the same language group, of identifying with the language group as people who share a common language, and of accepting the main dialect as a standard for transdialectal speech as well as for ” (Brown 1998:15). (See Figure 7, adapted from Brown 1998:14)

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 17 / 24 Figure 7: Language group with main dialect and peripheral dialects (adapted from Brown 1998:14)

In this model the transdialectal variety, or main dialect, defines the larger language group and serves as the reference variety for all other varieties, or peripheral dialects, belonging to the same group. The defining characteristics for such a language group are (Brown 1998:13ff): 1. Structural relatedness of the varieties in question 2. An (inherent or bidialectal) intelligibility relationship of the peripheral dialects with the main dialect 3. Shared ethnolinguistic identity of the peripheral dialect groups with the main dialect group; that is, the peripheral dialect groups accept the main dialect as “a standard for transdialectal speech as well as for literacy” (Brown 1998:15) Thus, within such a language group it is not necessary that there exists an intelligibility relationship of the main dialect with the peripheral dialects, or that the main dialect group identifies ethnolinguistically with its peripheral dialect groups. Neither is it necessary that there exists an intelligibility or ethnolinguistic relationship between the peripheral dialects. This model provides a good explanation for some of the language situations that have previously been mentioned, for example with respect to the Germanic dialect continuum. Following this model, standard Dutch and standard German define the Dutch and German languages, respectively, and serve as the transdialectal varieties for these language groups, while the various Dutch and German speech varieties constitute the peripheral dialects of their respective language groups. This also explains why within the German or English language group speakers from some of the respective dialects may not understand each other and yet regard themselves as speaking the same language: as peripheral dialects they understand their respective standards while not necessarily understanding each other. However, given enough exposure and time, be it “two days” or “one week,” following Hockett’s (1958) observations, these dialect groups will most likely develop an intelligibility relationship, namely a bidialectal one. Thus, for these language groups a number of observations apply that have been discussed throughout this paper: 1. All speech varieties are structurally related. 2. All peripheral dialect groups recognize the main dialect as their point of reference that defines the entire language group. 3. All peripheral dialects have an intelligibility relationship with their main dialect; for some of these dialects this intelligibility is inherent, for others it is bidialectal.

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 18 / 24 4. The main dialect group may or may not have an intelligibility and ethnolinguistic relationship with the peripheral dialect groups. More importantly though, Brown’s (1998) model provides a relevant framework when considering language groups that have not yet undergone large-scale language standardization efforts. Language standardization, according to Ferguson (1968:31) “is the process of one variety of a language becoming widely accepted throughout the speech community as a supradialectal norm – the ‘best’ form of the language – rated above regional and social dialects, although these may be felt appropriate in some domains.” This process of standardization may or may not include “the introduction of writing”. Thus, in assessing nonstandardized language groups, key objectives are to identify the (potential) main dialects and the peripheral dialects linked to each main dialect. Brown (1998:28-31) presents a listing of pertinent characteristics of main and peripheral dialects, some of which are listed below, which can serve as guidelines for the assessment process (see also Sadembouo 1990): Main dialects:

 Held in prestige and identified with administrative or commercial centers  Used as languages of wider communication  Supplanting peripheral dialects while spreading Peripheral dialects:

 Structurally related to the main dialect  Share ethnolinguistic relationship with main dialect  Share intelligibility relationship with main dialect  May speak the main dialect or may adopt certain of its features in certain domains or circumstances  Prefer and accept main dialect over the other peripheral dialects as the standard for transdialectal speech and literacy In this context the dynamic nature of language situations must be highlighted. The selection of one specific variety within a language group and subsequent development and standardization of this variety will have a direct impact on the sociolinguistic make-up of the larger group. Therefore, the identification process needs to be dynamic in order to take into account the changing sociolinguistic make-up of the language group as the standardization process proceeds. In consequence, language assessment, which can only provide a limited snapshot of a broad situation that by nature is very dynamic, needs to be ongoing and, as Brown (1998:28) points out, the initial identification of the peripheral dialects be but temporary: The selection of a particular dialect for standardization and development will generally cause that dialect to spread more rapidly and can also increase the number of affinitive dialects that associate with it into the same language group … For this reason, the initial assessment should try to determine both the present composition of the cluster, that is, the peripheral dialects included in the initial language group, and also the likely future composition of the cluster, once literacy, literature, and audio materials have spread in the new “standard.” In summary, Brown’s (1998:27) ethnolinguistic or broad standardization model suggests that the “the formation of a distinct language group depends on three important factors: ethnolinguistic identity, intelligibility, and relatedness” with ethnolinguistic identity being the most crucial factor.

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 19 / 24 Brown’s (1998) model is especially useful when considering language groups for which indeed one speech variety can be identified with which the remaining varieties of the language group have an intelligibility and ethnolinguistic relationship. The situation may be less straight forward though in language chain situations that have not yet undergone large-scale language development efforts. As has previously been pointed out, in language continua, intelligibility decreases as the distance between dialects along the chain increases, resulting in unintelligibility between the dialects at sufficient distance between each other along the chain. Moreover, as Brown (1998:29) himself acknowledges, in “some language chains and continua there are no dominant dialects around which others are clustering.” Thus, the various speech communities of a language continuum may have distinct ethnolinguistic identities although they may acknowledge that neighboring speech varieties are very similar to their own variety. In such situations, it may therefore not be possible to identify a main dialect with which all other dialects of the continuum have an intelligibility and ethnolinguistic relationship. Thus, a number of questions need to be investigated more in-depth when considering language identification and standardization in the context of nonstandardized language chain situations, namely with respect to (1) the notion of ethnolinguistic identity, (2) the role of intelligibility, and (3) the role of time. Regarding the notion of ethnolinguistic identity, the question presents itself whether the requirement of a shared ethnolinguistic relationship, defined as “the sense people have of belonging to the same language group, of identifying with the language group as people who share a common language” (Brown 1998:15), is too restrictive. Or in other words, rather than limiting the underlying notion of affinity to ethnolinguistic identity, would it be more useful to consider the notion of affinity in the most general terms, such as socio-political, cultural, and historical affinity? Concerning the role of intelligibility, Brown (1998) considers this factor as one of the three factors that, together with relatedness and ethnolinguistic identity, contributes to the formation of distinct language groups. So far though, the findings of the discussion on intelligibility do not appear to indicate intelligibility as a separate factor in addition to relatedness and ethnolinguistic identity. Instead, it appears that intelligibility is highly dependent on relatedness and affinity. Therefore, one can ask whether intelligibility should indeed be considered an independent factor such as relatedness or affinity, or be considered a function of relatedness and affinity. With regard to the role of time, it has already been mentioned, that language situations are dynamic so that, as pointed out by Brown (1998), over time, more distantly related speech varieties may come to accept and understand the identified main dialect. Although in Brown’s (1998:28) ethnolinguistic model time plays an important role in the formation of distinct language groups, it is not regarded as decisive a factor as ethnolinguistic identity, intelligibility, or relatedness. However, in view of the language standardization history of European language continua and also in light of more recent observations as reported by Hockett (1958) or Wiesemann (1989), it appears that increased exposure over time impacts intelligibility and attitudes as much as relatedness or affinity do. Therefore, one could ask whether the time factor should be regarded as an independent factor as relatedness and affinity are. In conclusion, this paper has addressed the question of where one language ends and the next begins. In the context of language chain situations the question presents itself what the decisive factors for the language formation process are. Or more specifically, whether it might be more useful to consider the language identification and standardization of distinct language groups in terms of relatedness, affinity, and exposure time, rather than, as suggested by Brown (1998) in terms of ethnolinguistic identity, intelligibility, and relatedness.

Kluge_A_2007_Where does one language end and the next begins.doc p. 20 / 24 6. SUMMARY

This paper has considered the question of why speakers of different dialects belonging to the same language group do not necessarily understand each other and how to determine whether different speech communities belong to the same language group. In this context three pertinent issues were discussed: (1) the language-dialect dichotomy, (2) three different aspects of understanding, and (3) how understanding is affected by affinity issues. The discussion has indicated that both the linguistic and nonlinguistic factors of structural similarity, intelligibility, and affinity need to be taken into account when considering whether different speech communities belong to the same language group or not. The discussion has further shown that nonlinguistic factors, namely affinity, may take precedence over the linguistic ones, in that affinity or ethnolinguistic identity can facilitate intelligibility even between more distantly related language groups, while lack of affinity or ethnolinguistic identity may impede intelligibility, even between closely related groups. Brown’s (1998) ethnolinguistic model is a language group model that takes into account all three factors while at the same time acknowledging the critical role of ethnolinguistic identity when considering the question of where one language ends and the next begins. This model also provides a relevant framework for the assessment of language groups and the consideration of standardization issues, in that it recognizes the central role of the main dialect in defining the entire group. This identification process, however, needs to be a dynamic one that takes into account the changing sociolinguistic make-up of the language group as the standardization process proceeds. Thus, assessment regarding which more distantly related speech varieties may also, over time, accept and understand the main dialect has to be ongoing. In the context of nonstandardized language chain situations, though, it may not be possible to identify a main dialect based on the three factors of ethnolinguistic identity, intelligibility, and relatedness. Thus, when considering in such situations where one language ends and the next begins, an apparent question would be whether it might be more useful to consider the language identification and standardization processes in terms of relatedness, affinity, and exposure time.

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