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Re: [Ltru] Does 'de' really mean "only standard German"?

"Randy Presuhn" <randy_presuhn@mindspring.com> Thu, 29 May 2008 18:31 UTC

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From: Randy Presuhn <randy_presuhn@mindspring.com>
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Subject: Re: [Ltru] Does 'de' really mean "only standard German"?
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Hi -

As a technical contributor...

> From: "John Cowan" <cowan@ccil.org>
> To: "Randy Presuhn" <randy_presuhn@mindspring.com>
> Cc: "LTRU Working Group" <ltru@ietf.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 11:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [Ltru] Does 'de' really mean "only standard German"?
>

> Randy Presuhn scripsit:
> 
> > I cannot agree with saying that "de" somehow *is* "standard German".
> 
> Well, no actually extant variety *is* Standard German, strictly speaking:

Violent agreement.

> Standard German (as defined, say, in Duden) doesn't *exactly* match
> anybody's idiolect.  However, what's described there is close enough
> to many other idiolects that we can collectively call them all "de"
> without crossing any mutual-intelligibility barriers.

This seems a slight over-statement.  Consider, for example, regionalisms
in vocabulary.  I don't think it's terribly useful to regard them as loan words
from some other language, even if they happen to be the same in a local
dialect which enjoys a language code of its own.

...
> By being mutually intelligible with it, and therefore in some sense
> part of it. 

Sorry, I just can't make sense of that "in some sense part of it".  "Part of"
to me implies a subset / superset relationship, and what I'm sure we're
talking about is set intersection.  (The extent of that set intersection is a
factor in making mutual intelligibility is possible.)

I'm in complete agreement with the idea of treating the mythical Hochdeutsch
in a manner analogous to a "focal color".  What I have a problem with are
descriptions that lead to readings like "stuff tagged 'de' is Standard German"
rather than "stuff tagged 'de' should be some kind of German which would be
mutually intelligible with Standard German."

Randy

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