"A language is a dialect with an army and navy", sometimes called the Weinreich witticism,[1] is a quip about the arbitrariness of the distinction between a dialect and a language.[2][3][4][5] It points out the influence that social and political conditions can have over a community's perception of the status of a language or dialect.[6] The facetious adage was popularized by the sociolinguist and Yiddish scholar Max Weinreich, who heard it from a member of the audience at one of his lectures in the 1940s.
It has often been facetiously remarked... the falsity of this quip can be demonstrated...
A recurrent joke in linguistics courses ... is the quip that ...
Weinreich...pointing out the arbitrary division between [dialect and language]
Fundamental notions such as 'language' and 'dialect' are primarily social, not linguistic, constructs, because they depend on society in crucial ways.
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