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Q.
In your study of languages, do you distinguish between what is commonly referred to as British English and American English? If so, how do you apply that distinction in terms of assessing the health of a spoken language? I am also thinking of various forms of French, Spanish, and German that are not considered regional dialects. – Henry Krawitz
A.
The existence of various forms of a spoken language can both prove its health and bear signs of its split. Due to continuous relationships across the Atlantic, the American form of English has not become a language entirely different from British English, even though many phonetic, lexical, and, to a lesser extent, grammatical features are not the same on both sides of the Atlantic, and make it possible to assign a certain way of speaking either to British or to American English.
This evolution is less likely in the case of French and Spanish. The reason for that is not far to seek. There is no established norm of English, that would be imposed, whether after the British or the American model, on all those who express themselves in this language.
But at the same time, the spread of a language in many parts of the world can generate increasingly diverging forms. The English spoken in India, in Thailand, in the Philippines, to take three Asian examples, and the English spoken in Uganda, Tanzania and Nigeria, to take three African examples, are different enough to have given rise to a new discipline within linguistics, namely the study of N(on) N(ative) V(arieties) of E(nglish). It is not ruled out that these Englishes might some day become as many different languages.
As opposed to that, other languages which also have an international vocation are much more unified. Such is the case of French, which is official or widely used in the 70 countries of the OIF (Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie). Forms of French that are not considered regional dialects, like those used in Quebec, southern Belgium or Romance Switzerland, are more or less modelled of Parisian French, even though there are phonetic and lexical differences between them. This is largely due to the permanent communication between the speakers of these forms of French. Similarly, lexicographers and grammarians from all the countries which speak Spanish, in Europe and Central and South America, gather regularly in order to establish a common norm for this language, even in its spoken form.
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