Plautdietsch Language - Status

Status

There is disagreement whether Plautdietsch is a language or a dialect. Some classify it as a dialect of Low German (Plattdüütsch) based on mutual intelligibility. Others classify it as a language based on socio-linguistic reasons.

Arguments for a dialect:

  1. It is primarily a spoken, not written language;
  2. It shares grammatical and lexical similarities with other varieties of Low German;
  3. It is intelligible to other Low German speakers after some acquaintance;
  4. Until at least 1750 it was in strict contact with the other Low German dialects along the North Sea and Baltic coasts, forming a consistent dialectal continuum of one proper language. (Saxon/Low German)

Arguments for classifying it as a language of its own:

  1. It has many developments and sound shifts not found in any other Low German dialect;
  2. It has many borrowings from other languages completely adapted into Plautdietsch phonetics, which would not be understood by a speaker of other dialects;
  3. It has many idiomatic expressions of its own and usages of particular words different from the ones in Northern (Low Saxon, Mecklenburgic) and Southern (Westphalian, Eastphalian, Märkisch) Low German. Many idiomatic expressions of Northern/Southern Low German are not used nor understood by a Plautdietsch speaker.

Read more about this topic:  Plautdietsch Language

Famous quotes containing the word status:

    “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
    —A.J. (Arthur James)

    “Anthropologists have found that around the world whatever is considered “men’s work” is almost universally given higher status than “women’s work.” If in one culture it is men who build houses and women who make baskets, then that culture will see house-building as more important. In another culture, perhaps right next door, the reverse may be true, and basket- weaving will have higher social status than house-building.”
    —Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen. Excerpted from, Gender Grace: Love, Work, and Parenting in a Changing World (1990)

    “At all events, as she, Ulster, cannot have the status quo, nothing remains for her but complete union or the most extreme form of Home Rule; that is, separation from both England and Ireland.”
    —George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)