Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 August 31

= August 31 =

synchronic differences in basic word order
Do dialect continua exist that include dialects that differ in their basic word order? If so, what's the transition zone like? —Tamfang (talk) 08:54, 31 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that sprachbunds of unrelated or not-closely-related languages very often show word-order harmonization, and a dialect continuum is effectively a sprachbund among closely-related languages, so I'm not sure how that situation would be at all probable... AnonMoos (talk) 14:39, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * And yet changes of word order over time are known to have occurred, e.g. between early and late Biblical Hebrew (if I understand right), so there must have been a transitional phase. I'm hoping a spatial transition can help me understand the temporal transition. —Tamfang (talk) 09:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the situation in Welsh might be a bit like that. At least, the informal language uses VSO constructions more than the standard language does, or that's my understanding as a beginning learner. There are also north Wales /South Wales dialect differences, which might also relate to the frequency of the VSO forms. As another example, in French, the SV inversion for questions is less frequent in informal speech. So I think that what the border would look like is having more than one form in possible use, with the frequency of forms varying along the continuum. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:01, 31 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Hiberno-English and Yiddish-influenced NYC English have distinctive Yoda-like word-order constructions. Can't find any good material on this in wikipedia though. μηδείς (talk) 22:09, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * But isn't that (at least in Yiddish-English) a marked (emphatic) form rather than a basic order? —Tamfang (talk) 09:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Can't speak directly to Yiddish, but the default word order in English influenced by Pennsylvania Dutch often differs from standard English. ("Throw the horse over the fence some hay.") -- Elphion (talk) 16:32, 1 September 2012 (UTC)


 * (ec) Yes, if you are going to limit the question to simple unmarked sentences. Word order is very conservative, so I cannot imagine finding two side by side dialects that vary only from SOV to SVO.  If you had a language with free word order, I could imagine a slight preference for different default order in neighboring dialects.  I can't think of any examples, though.  Wouldn't at all be surprised if second-language speakers of Latin tend to use their mother tongue's word order when they use Latin, as with Elphion's example in Amish English. μηδείς (talk) 16:35, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * "simple unmarked sentences" are implied by the phrase "basic word order". —Tamfang (talk) 21:18, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I recognize your right to mean what you want without having to argue it. I thought my starting that sentence with yes indicated that.μηδείς (talk) 16:11, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Newfoundland English has similar word order sometimes, surely adopted from Hiberno-English. Also, for Latin, yes, at least in medieval Latin writing the word order was often affected by the author's native language. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

How can a sign language have local accents?
Hello to many people. Please excuse my poor English, I'm a Frenchy. In an episode of the American series "Bones", they have to speak with a deaf person using the American Sign Language (ASL) but later they realise that this person has a local accent from a peculiar State, this fact is important for the rest of the episode. This leads to some questions.

Q1) Is it known that there are different accents in the AFL ?

Q2) Main question: how a sign language can have different accents?

Q3) I see here that the AFL is used in many countries so if there are accents inside the USA, I guess that there could be huger differences with other countries. Right or wrong? Thank you for helping.--Joël DESHAIES (talk) 13:00, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Sign language is a real language, in the sense that, like all languages, it follows certain expected patterns of change and growth. Just like two populations which speak the same language can be seperated, and their languages diverge in different ways over time, until dialects and accents develop, the exact same process can go on in sign language.  Different dialects can use different signs for the same concept, or perhaps the exact manner in which the sign is made can vary from place to place.  The signs are formed in very exacting ways, so I don't think it is all that hard to imagine that a particular sign is made one way in California and a slightly different way in New York, and that one could recognize the difference.  Wouldn't that pretty much qualify as an accent?  The article and section Sign_language covers the ways in which sign language parallels the way in which spoken languages work, and even has some examples of Sign Language families, whereby there is a parent sign language which has evolved, over time, into distinct languages: Pretty much exactly the way that Latin evolved into French, American Sign Language evolved from French Sign Language.  In order for a language to evolve into another, there would be a time period where the differences were small; such small differences are what we could call "accents".  -- Jayron  32  13:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Apparently Auslan (Australian Sign Language) has wide dialectal variation. The article has some good information about the causes and effects of such variation. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, what a quick and useful answer, I hardly had time to read some articles about sign languages in the fr.wikipedia, I'm going to read the articles you suggested--Joël DESHAIES (talk) 13:33, 31 August 2012 (UTC)


 * See also "British Sign Language Dialects". Alansplodge (talk) 17:24, 31 August 2012 (UTC)