Llengua i dialecte

by Manuel Sifre

Quan els conceptes són complexos i estan carregats de connotacions, sol ser perquè tenen una història llarga darrere. És per això que en aquesta aproximació als conceptes llengua i dialecto hem volgut presentar-los com s'entenen en el present i, d'una manera específica, repassem la gestació de les varietats lingüístiques que avui considerem llengües i quina és la relació que mantenen amb els dialectes. Evidentment, en aquestes qüestions hem atorgat una atenció especial a la situació del valencià.

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fairly elementary analysis of the concepts of "language" and "dialect," though not useless. The reason I read it is precisely because it is written in Catalan and I was curious to see how the very polemical language question of Catalonia might influence the perspective of the author. Naturally, if it had been intended for a wider, more international audience, it would have been written in Spanish. The very fact that authors sometimes write in a language that is similar to their own but not their own to reach a wider audience is somewhat of an indication that their language is "secondary" in that society (a dialect?); and the Catalans are aware of that and so have invested a lot in creating a body of contemporary literature and academic work in Catalan so as to legitimize their claim that their language is a bona fide language (linguists really would never think of calling Catalan a dialect, but in the popular perception some people would). In this book, the author in fact cites Spanish very little, even when talking about other Romance languages -- he usually talks about Catalan alongside French, Italian, etc. without mentioning Spanish. The last part of the book is dedicated to the dialect areas within the Catalan domain.