Re: A language by any other name
On 28 Sep 2001, John Hasler wrote:
> David N. Welton writes:
> > A lot of people in Latin America seem to refer to Spanish as Castillan -
> > I'm not sure why.
> Because that is the dialect of Spanish usually taught outside Latin
> America.
The language of Spanish origin, rather -- it's referred to as 'Castillian' to
distinguish it from other languages of the Iberian peninsula which enjoy a
linguistic history independent of Castillian Spanish. (Galician is more
closely related to Portuguese, and Catalan has enough differences to be
considered a much-maligned sibling to Spanish/French/Italian, rather than a
dialect. Oh, I suppose Basque could be considered a dialect -- of Hungarian,
maybe. :)
> Is there a Catalonian locale?
ca_ES
> Andalusian?
Nope (Andaluz is considered a dialect and doesn't enjoy much recognition)
> Galician?
gl_ES
> Which one are you going to make Spanish an alias for?
Hmm, hrr... well if the word used is 'Spanish', then it's safe to point to
es_ES, because for all intents and purposes this is what that word is taken to
mean in English. If the alias name is 'español', you'll start to push your
luck. :)
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer
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