Languages

Let me start this discussion again and try to express myself more clearly.

I posted a submission in Limburgan Lewieke and asked the question as to the existence of Limburgan, Limburger and Limburgisch in the list of languages.

This has now been corrected and we have only Limburgan.

Canary suggested to me yesterday that this submission should be altered to Dutch being a Dutch/Flemish dialect rather than a language in its own right.

As I take selfish pride in making submissions in Limburgan and Frisian I replied that, maybe, the list of languages should be expanded so that German becomes Swiss-German, Austrian German, Platt, Bavarian, Cologne dialect, etc.

I say that because I have friends here in Germany and I play them a cover in Austrian https://secondhandsongs.com/submission/101362 and they ask what language it is.

I know that Low German is a possibility in the list of languages but that is more a time-based criterion akin to Middle High German.

Then we get onto Chinese - Canton, Mandarin, etc.

Last edit: 2020-10-25 06:36:59 UTC by Scousedave

Hello Dave,

I already told you my opinion: I think all those languages would lead us too far.

There are at least 50 varieties of Limburgan. My Limburgan (Sint-Truiden) is not the same as the Limburgan of Hasselt or Maaseik (or cities in Belgian Limburg) and certainly not the same as the different dialects from Dutch Limburg.

Greets.

We use the standard ISO 639-1 list. It seems adequate to me. Dialects can be mentioned in comments.

sebcat

I cannot access that list.

Does Limburgan appear on it?

Quote from Scousedave

sebcat

I cannot access that list.

Does Limburgan appear on it?

The list is easy to find via google.

Canary

Limburgan is an option in our language dropdown because... it's a language!

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburgs

Contrary to West-Flemish for example, which is "only" a dialect:

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/West-Vlaams

So it seems Scousedave does have a point.

The difficulty of course is that, if it's a language, you (Dave) will also need an author for the new lyrics.

Last edit: 2020-12-10 15:43:57 UTC by Bastien

This is what I wrote before: "There are at least 50 varieties of Limburgan. My Limburgan (Sint-Truiden) is not the same as the Limburgan of Hasselt or Maaseik (or cities in Belgian Limburg) and certainly not the same as the different dialects from Dutch Limburg".

Officialy Limburgan may be a language, but since I live in Limburg I should be able to understand this. But unfotunately I do not understand what someone from Kerkrade or Geleen (both Holland) sing.

The fact that Limburgan is in the list, does not qualify for me.

Greets, Canary

Bastien

Authors are - for once - relatively easy because there is an excellent website - https://www.limburgslied.nl/

Makes a pleasant change.

This website is only about Dutch Limburgan songs, not about Belgian Limburgan songs. That means it is far from complete.

Quote from Canary

Officialy Limburgan may be a language, but since I live in Limburg I should be able to understand this. But unfotunately I do not understand what someone from Kerkrade or Geleen (both Holland) sing.

I doubt that people from Antwerp would've understood my grandmother Kortrijk's dialect Still, both are dialects of the same language.

Quote from Canary

The fact that Limburgan is in the list, does not qualify for me.

Why debate when we can outsource our decision to linguists who have studied and classified this?

PS: Purely intuitively, I would have classified Limbourgan as a dialect as well, certainly if West-Flemish is "only" a dialect.

I recall seeing this thread earlier, but it wasn't of much personal interest. sebcat brought it back to my attention due to my related thread:

https://secondhandsongs.com/topic/76478

From what I read, my fears seem justified:

https://secondhandsongs.com/message/206178

To recap my thoughts on the larger question, I suspect that our language dropdown is a standard internet tool and we shouldn't add or delete any languages to maintain global uniformity; however, we should consider adding sub0categories under languages for the most common dialects on site.

My primary concern is drawing the line between which dialects deserve a sub-category and which only get a comment on the entry. I would suggest we start with the Disney soundtrack rule, namely if Disney releases 2+ versions of a major soundtrack in different dialects of the same language, those dialects get a sub-category.

I think adding the ability to pick certain dialects would be a good thing. I'm sure our users from Hong Kong would like to sort out Cantonese, vs the Mandarin spoken in Beijing, for instance. This language/dialect thing can be complicated. There are no hard-and-fast rules to distinguish them.