>Macrolanguages are “multiple, closely related individual languages that are deemed in some usage contexts to be a single language.”
>Macrolanguages were introduced into the ISO standard in order to handle cases in which varieties would be considered distinct languages by the criterion of non-intellgibility, but had already been given a code as a single language by the previously existing ISO 639-2 standard. For instance, Arabic [ara] and Chinese [zho] were already defined in ISO 639-2 on the basis of literature shared across many spoken varieties (and a shared writing system in the case of Chinese).
>Typical situations in which this need can occur include the following:
>There is one variety that is more developed and that tends to be used for wider communication by speakers of various closely-related languages; as a result, there is a perceived common linguistic identity across these languages. For instance, there are several distinct spoken Arabic languages, but Standard Arabic is generally used in business and media across all of these communities, and is also an important aspect of a shared ethno-religious unity. As a result, a perceived common linguistic identity exists
>There is a common written form used for multiple closely-related languages. For instance, multiple Chinese languages share a common written form.
>There is a transitional socio-linguistic situation in which sub-communities of a single language community are diverging, creating a need for some purposes to recognize distinct languages while, for other purposes, a single common identity is still valid. For instance, in some contexts it is necessary to make a distinction between Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages, yet there are other contexts in which these distinctions are not discernible in language resources that are in use.
http://www-01.sil.org/iso639-3/macrolanguages.asp
b8
>>56513313
waa
>>56513215
Kinda, it was in that situation but with time it evolved into a "real" language, the other languages have mostly meme status now
>>56513215
too long to grasp the comprehension.
What is the difference btw language and macrolanguage?
Explain me in a way that idiots can understand.
>>56513582
As I get it, macrolanguages are a way for speakers of different languages to communicate with a standardized one
Like if we united japan and italy and made up a language to communicate
>>56513739
People living in northern part of Japan (especially old people) have a big accent when they speak Japanese. Quite often, people living in the other part of Japan can't understand what they speak in oral.
In order to communicate with them, we need to speak standard Japanese language.
Can I consider Japanese is a macrolanguage? Because there is a huge difference between directs.
>>56513845
>diarects
>>56513215
Why is English in IPA?
>>56513215
well you could make an argument for portuguese and spanish desu
>>56513845
Sorry I got that wrong, macrolanguages are just a group of similar languages that can communicate
They fucked up by calling chinese a language so now they made up macrolanguages to name it
So I don't know whether italian is one, it's a very retarded classification imho, it's so damn blurry
>>56514491
so macrolanguage is just a language group consisting of widely various dialects?
But I still wonder why Spanish and English are not treated as marolanguage, even though they frequently differ by areas.
>>56513313
cry me a river
>>56515212
because despite accents and regionalisms they still have the same exact words everywhere and same grammatical structure, etc. it's not enough to consider different languages out of them
>>56515664
Don't know about that, many areas away from the fatherland have their own words and stopped using traditional ones, or at the contrary they stopped using most of their native language for english or spanish
The rule seems to base itself on whether they can understand each other or not, but there are clear problems with it.
Can south africans speak with anglos? Can argentinians speak with the spanish?
It's up to debate, not something you can create a rule on
And then the other side of the medal comes up
Since I can mostly understand what the spanish say, does it make spanish and italian part of a macrolanguage? Since I can't understand what portuguese say, does it make portuguese not part of it?
Mexico, you're not relevent.
>>56515974
those are regionalisms. they still understand the same words. very rarely do the regional words come from a 100% original source and even then that's not enough
>>56513739
>>56514491
>>56515212
>>56515974
>>56516237
It's a classification for a group of languages that are either ethnologically related, which includes grammar, writing systems and history.
"Macrolanguages are “multiple, closely related individual languages that are deemed in some usage contexts to be a single language.”"
The reason for this is that languages like Arabic and the various Chinese ones are going through a separation from the main "mother tongue." Much like the Romance languages split from Vulgar Latin during the medieval era. There used to be a standard Latin that the people used, as well as their own regional varieties that had influence from their particular stratum. Just as the romance languages split, the same is happening for example with Arabic, where speakers of Levantine Arabic can't understand Moroccan Arabic, North African is different and Egyptian has its own particular idiosyncratic pronunciations, vocabulary and grammar. For example the /dj/ sound in Egyptian is /g/ or in Levantine Arabic some /k/ sounds are changing into /tsh/ sounds like in Italian. So the Arabic word "kalb" (dog) is pronounced "chalb." It's so ubiquitous that for vernacular writing in some areas of Iraq and other Levantine areas, they've adopted the Persian modifications to the Arabic abjad. The situation with Chinese is even more complicated since when one speaks of "Chinese" they're actually speaking of unrelated languages that are grouped because they use the Chinese logograph system and they can all read it. The point is that they're all related in some manner, and despite becoming unintelligible they still for the time being have a common language or standard that all speakers can use to communicate (Modern Standard Arabic) like the medieval peoples from Greece to Hesperia could use Latin to communicate.
>>56516137
¬_¬
