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About the latest revert to the last version by Austronesier

@Austronesier: With this, you have undone all the edits which were made on this article in the last two days, something with which I cannot agree. First, my own reformulations were - of course- made for several good reasons. Second, even though I do disagree as well with the greater part of Vlaemink's edits here and on similar topics elsewhere, I think the addition/clarification "Sociolinguistically" was correct anyway here, and could easily have been kept.

So would you at least consider putting this previous version back? I ask this in particular because I don't want to revert you just this way. De Wikischim (talk) 14:06, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

No. "A group of homogenous language varieties" is meaningless. What is homogenous? South Low Franconian? That's obviously incorrect. Every source will tell you that South Low Franconian is hardly defined by any exclusively shared innovation, but rather as a traditional zone of isoglosses that link it either to other Low Franconian dialect groups or to Ripuarian and which cut right through the South Low Franconian area. Goossens (1965) gives a nice overview of it, for details there are multiple other good sources. Or are the indivdual varieties homogenous? The fact that the speech of one town is fairly homogenous is trivial, and we wouldn't mention it in any other article about a linguistic grouping. The contintental West Germanic (to the exclusion of Frisian) forms dialect continuum, and every grouping within this continuum is a "dialect group". This is most NPOV way to about it. "Refers to" is bad (see WP:REFERSTO).

The traditional assignment of SLFr dialects as dialects of either German or Dutch is not just based on sociolinguistics; that's Goossens' modern twist of it. It has largely to do with Dutch ressentments against the common German scholarly view of Dutch as part of Niederdeutsch at least in early times of Germanic studies. This ressentment deepened with the bitter experiences of WWII. It was a Belgian (Goossens) who broke the ice and paved the for cross-border studies by scholars like Giesbert and Bakker.

And is it two days or two hours? –Austronesier (talk) 14:34, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

With homogenous language varieties, I simply meant to express the fact that the diverse dialects which make up together the group linguistically referred to as "South Low Franconian" are mutually homogenous enough for this classification to be made. I do realize this may actually seem rather self-evident; yet I believe the formulation I had put down is preferable over calling it "a dialect group", which seems an oversimplification here. De Wikischim (talk) 14:56, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Drawing borders in a dialect continuum is always a simplification. It presupposes a hierarchy in the mesh of linguistic boundaries which sometimes does exist, but often not. For South Low Franconian, primacy is given to the Benrath line, and on the other side to the Uerdingen line (or the accent line in more modern approaches). It is a greater oversimplification to call this set of lects "homogenous" when "dialect group" gives due focus on its internal diversity (hence "group") and at the same time also its internal coherence (hence "group"). I gather from the first version of your comment that it is the very word "dialect" that initially triggered your aversion to the original text. –Austronesier (talk) 15:33, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Regarding this last issue: indeed, more or less. To my idea, "dialect" as a linguistic term is too often used in an improper way (for example, to denote a whole continuum of related dialects, as in this case too). Something that I think should certain be avoided is a description like "West Germanic dialect", which only creates new confusion. De Wikischim (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Improper according to whom? Every, yes, every source that takes a spatially fine-grained look at linguistic diversity uses the term "dialect". Dialects can form a dialect continuum; you can then slice the pie along territorial/political lines and get entities like Dutch, German, Luxembourgish or Limburgish, and proceed to call them "langauges", or you go by linguistic features: the ensuing clusters are called "dialect groups", regerdless of whether they cut through territorial/political lines or stay within a single territory. Central Hessian can safely be called a German dialect group, or South Hollandic a Dutch dialect group. For dialect groups like Moselle Franconian, Low Saxon and South Low Franconian, there is no such choice for a primary descriptor. Thus, the best solution is to talk about the larger entity that comprises them, i.e. the continental West Germanic dialect continuum. You can't get any more neutral than that. –Austronesier (talk) 18:09, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I don't follow. Why should the continental West Germanic dialect continuum be preferred over ″Low Franconian″? What's the problem with describing ″South Low Franconian″ as a subset of ″Low Franconian″? To me, this is like describing ″West Germanic″ as ″Indo-European″ ... Vlaemink (talk) 11:47, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Because it is a transitional area in the first place, straddling the German and Dutch diasystems. –Austronesier (talk) 12:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I still do not follow. South Low Franconian is a subdivision of Low Franconian, explicitly made obvious by the description South Low Franconian if nothing else. Now you talk about this dialect group being transitional ″within in the context of the Dutch-German diasystem″. What do you mean by that? It's typologically transitional, of course, but that goes for all dialects of the West Germanic continuum. The whole essence of the Dutch-German diasystem, is that it is not transitional at all, hence the name ″diasystem″. In fact, in a way, one could argue that the Dutch-German dialect system is the antithesis of the West Germanic continuum. So I have to ask again, not only what do you mean; but also, why oppose it being described as part of Low Franconian; as is incredibly common in the literature? Vlaemink (talk) 13:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Not "within in the context of the Dutch-German diasystem", but "straddling the German and Dutch diasystems". –Austronesier (talk) 15:36, 17

@Austronesier: Let's not devolve into semantics. I'm asking you two things: 1) what do you mean, concretely, when you say that the "dialect of the West Germanic continuum" is preferred due to these dialects "straddling the German and Dutch diasystems" and 2) why do you seemingly oppose classifying South Low Franconian as part of Low Franconian? Vlaemink (talk) 18:39, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@De Wikischim: Just a trifle, but this is a nice'n compelling stylistic argument that turns the whole thing into a c/e-matter. –Austronesier (talk) 12:37, 17 October 2024 (UTC) October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Austronesier, sorry but could you perhaps explain a little better what you mean exactly? Do you just disagree with the use of "subgroup" in the definition? Anyway you've left this unchanged thus far. De Wikischim (talk) 12:46, 17 October 2024 (UTC) OK, seen everything well now after all. Hereabove you wrote ... is a nice'n ...., not: .. isn't a nice ... or something similar. Thanks as well for giving the compliment. De Wikischim (talk) 14:51, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

No it is just my contrived way to say that I'm fine with it ;) –Austronesier (talk) 13:05, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I cannot help but ask how the above relates to your comments here, where you urge consensus before everything else and berated me for implementing changes to the article when 2/3 of the editors were involved? How is this any different from what it seemingly happening here? The discussion on what wording to use in the lead is clearly not over, yet you seem to be fine with De Wikischim changing it already. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, wouldn't you agree? Vlaemink (talk) 14:15, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to honestly contest it for reasons that you also would have applied if the edit had been made by someone of the Guild of Copy Editors and not @De Wikischim. Because this is exactly how I have approached the edit in spite of the fact that I have lengthily argued in favor of "dialect group" before. Also, both of you haven't edit-warred over this page as vehemently as you have done in Limburgish, so some friendly micro-tuning on the fly is certainly good as long as it doesn't completely run counter WP:BRD. –Austronesier (talk) 15:35, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier:If you implore me to assume good faith, then please, do not question my honesty or suggest that I only contest this matter merely because De Wikischim is involved.

My comment concerned you and your choices, not his. I was clearly not on board with your changes and was clearly still engaged in discussing these matters — as I still am — and I was asking you to hold yourself to your own standards when it comes to achieving consensus. I am asking youto bring into practice what you preach, consistently, not merely when you are trying to assert moral high ground in a heated debate. I do not think that is an unreasonable request — and if you think it is, then please remember that I'm repeating your own words.Vlaemink (talk) 18:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to contest it. I haven't seen yet that you do. And if you contest it, then hopefully for reasons ... . –Austronesier (talk) 19:09, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Well I've already been doing that by asking you several critical questions , but I also made my argument in another section . Vlaemink (talk) 19:53, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Subgroup of Low Franconian or Continental West Germanic dialect continuum

The present introductory text gives South Low Franconian (SLF) as a subgroup of the Continental West Germanic dialect continuum (CWGDC), instead of Low Franconian, which I think isn't the best possible or most common definition.

Because, while South Low Franconian indisputably forms a transitional area between Low Franconian and Central German, this does make SLF an ″additional main category″ within the historical West Germanic dialect continuum, which are traditionally either given as either comprising of ″Low Franconian, Low Saxon, Central German and Upper German″ or as ″Dutch, Low German and High German″. In other words, by omitting that South Low Franconian as being a subgroup of Low Franconian by mentioning the CWGDC instead, a taxonomic ″tier″ (if you will) is being skipped. This is problematic for a number of reasons:

• The taxonomy in the article does show South Low Franconian as a subgroup of Low Franconian.
• For the average reader this wording can be confusing, possibly prompting the question why South Low Franconian isn't part of Low Franconian as a whole — when it is.
• The literature doesn't seem to support this, to name a few:

Goossens (1984) explicitly positions South Low Franconian on a micro-level, whereas Low Franconian is described as existing on the macro-level.

Boersma (2017) in a paper on Franconian tone is interesting, because he also mentions the dialect continuum in his definitions, writing:

In continental West-Germanic, a contiguous group of Low Franconian dialects (″Limburgian or “Southern Low Franconian”) and Central Franconian dialects (Ripuaric and Moselle Franconian) exhibit a binary lexical tone contrast on long vowels and diphthongs, which interacts with the intonation contour of the sentence.″

• I haven't been able to find any publication which explicitly positions South Low Franconian outside of the larger Low Franconian grouping; or which positions SLF as an equal category to Low Franconian, Low Saxon, Central German and Upper German.

With this in mind, I propose describing Southern Low Franconian as a subgroup of Low Franconian.Vlaemink (talk) 19:52, 17 October 2024 (UTC) Vlaemink (talk) 19:52, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

1. J.J. Goossens: Die Herausbildung der deutsch-niederländischen Sprachgrenze, 1984, pp. 4.
2. Paul Boersma: The history of the Franconian tone contrast, 2017 pp. 27.

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