A dialectology primer and some questions

My friends, family, and acquaintances all know that there are two things in life that I care -- and TALK -- about most: jewellery and language. I am sure this bores everyone a whole lot, but the topic of language, at the very least, should be of immediate interest to everyone. It is an essential part of being human and at the root of many issues and problems that concern us.

First off, though, I'd just like to clarify a few things about dialects and language in general. (I feel at least a little qualified to do this because I minored in lingusitics at uni and my specific area of research for a special project my final year was dialectology.) Human language is split up into units called "languages." Languages are made up of different varieties. Regional varieties of a given language are called "dialects." There is a kind of human language we call the French language and there are many regional varieties (dialects) of French, for instance, Parisian French (the Standard) and Quebecois, the dialect of French spoken in Quebec.

Even those briefest and simplest of definitions are subject to much debate and give rise to great controversy. How do we define what is a language and what is a dialect? Two ideas, "mutual intelligibility" and political boundaries, come into play.

1) Danish speakers can understand Swedish, for the most part. Denmark and Sweden are separate countries. Danish and Swedish are separate languages.

2) Chinese is a language. Mandarin and Cantonese are two dialects of Chinese, but are not mutually intelligible.

Why are Danish and Swedish considered separate languages? Why are Mandarin and Cantonese dialects of the same language?

A second controversial topic is outlined in the example I gave for dialect. How is the standard determined? Why is Parisian the standard version of French that we learn in school? Why not Quebecois? Or, closer to home, why do we traditionally revere the English of Dan Rather and revile the speech of the natives of Alabama? I'd love to hear what people think about this.

Finally, I want to leave you with an example of language betraying community sensibilities (or lack thereof). Many people bemoan what is seen as today's politically correct culture. In my 25 years there have been some pretty marked changes in how we talk about sensitive topics. We used to say "handicapped" to describe someone confined to a wheelchair. Now we say "disabled," but there is a push to change that to "differently-abled." We used to say "Indian" for someone from the First Nations. Then we said "American Indian." Then we said "Native American." The New York Times says "American Indian" still, as far as I know. In Canada, we say "Native" or "First Nations" or "Aboriginal." In Florida, "eskimo" is acceptable when talking about natives of the far north. In Canada, it is generally taboo. We try to tailor our language and neutralize discriminatory terminology. We make room for acceptance (at least that's the idea) and attempt to revise our thinking through our speech. How far along is cultural sensitivity in other places? How do we compare these things, anyway? Is it offensive that our Scottish relatives go out for Chinese food and describe it as a "wee chinkee"? Are they wrong to say that? How about this...

Back in 1999-2000 I was living in Germany. We had a number of familiar US products available and my host family, in particular, were big fans of McDonald's. Just like in the US, McDonald's is constantly coming up with new deals, new prices, and new products to keep the Germans coming in to their stores. And, yes, they do have something called a Royale (with cheese). While I was there they introduced -- for a limited time only! -- a special sandwich with Asian flair called...

"Chicken McFu"

I kid you not. That struck me as both offensive and incredibly funny. And then I started seeing the billboards. There is a stereotype of Asians speaking Western languages that involves them confusing the sounds "l" and "r." There is a perfectly reasonable phonetic explanation for this problem, which I won't go into now. Suffice it to say that the Germans have noticed this quirk as well. Three of the Chicken McFu billboards read as follows

"LIESIG"
"GLOSS"
"SUPEL"

Each of these words is misspelled. In each, the "l" replaces the correct "r." They should read "riesig" ("huge"), "gross" (big), and "super" ("super").

I was absolutely scandalized seeing these things out on the Autobahn and pasted on the walls of the bus station. Again, what do YOU guys think? Does this reflect poorly on the Germans? Could you see an American firm getting away with this? (Abercrombie and Fitch tried something similar a few years back with a shirt that advertized a Chinese drycleaner: "Two Wongs can make it white".)

ETA: I haven't mentioned lexical variation at all (eg, "coke" vs. "pop" vs. "soda"), but if you are interested in that topic and are a NATIVE speaker of NORTH AMERICAN English, check out this survey: http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/linguistics/faculty/boberg/survey.htm . That's a project my former prof and advisor runs with his sociolinguistics classes and he can always use more data.