I own such dictionaries for Cantonese, Hakka, Taiwanese and Xiang and
such a phrase book for Shanghainese. Adam

On 4/22/12, Peter Cyrus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I don't think I've ever seen a Chinese-Cantonese dictionary (or Chinese-any
> other "dialect"), nor Arabic-Maghrebi, for example. On the other hand, I
> own a British-American Language Dictionary, which admittedly only has
> entries where the two differ, but it's not small.
>
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 1:42 AM, Adam Walker <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> The Hakka are very conscious of the fact that they have their own
>> language and that it is as different from Mandarin as Taiwanese or
>> Cantonese. The still call it a dialect, but the Chinese word basically
>> means any unwritten language. And Hakka will happily discuss dialectal
>> variation within Hakka ~ mountain vs. sea, etc. Adam
>>
>> On 4/22/12, Peter Cyrus <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> > I think it has traditionally been Charlemagne (about 800CE) who is given
>> > credit for recognizing aloud that the language he was trying to learn
>> > (so
>> > that he could speak to the Gallo-Romans whom the Franks had conquered in
>> > 486) was no longer "Latin", but I think it was not until Martin Luther
>> > (about 1500CE) that any non-Latin Romance language was written.
>> >
>> > Neither step has yet been taken by Arabic speakers: the popular
>> > languages
>> > are all still called "Arabic", and none of them is written. Same is
>> > true
>> > of Chinese, although Yue (Cantonese), Min (Fujienese/Taiwanese, and Wu
>> > (Shanghaiese) get some recognition as more than just bad putonghua. In
>> > both cases, I would point to the writing system as a major factor for
>> > conservatism.
>> >
>> > Hey, Americans still think they speak "English"!
>> >
>> > On Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 11:36 PM, Peter Collier
>> > <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
>> >
>> >> With Arabic today we have a dachsprache, MSA, and a continuum of
>> >> not-universally-intelligible regional dialects. If we were going to
>> >> compare
>> >> this current diversity in Arabic to the historical development of the
>> >> Romance languages in Europe; whenabouts, roughly speaking, might the
>> >> Arabic
>> >> of today be placed on a timeline of the Romance languages?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> How conservative/innovative are the Arabic dialects? If we projected
>> >> the
>> >> Arabic dialects forward the same distance in time (i.e. gave them the
>> same
>> >> amount of time to develop and diverge as the Romance languages have had
>> up
>> >> to know), then all other things being equal might we expect to see a
>> >> similar
>> >> degree of separateness, or more, or less?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> P.
>> >>
>> >
>>
>