That exception makes sense. Both because their prescription isn’t in the dictionary itself, but rather in their choice of scope for it, and because it’s trying to protect a threatened variety, instead of just creating some meaningless division (like plenty prescriptions do).
Language! High German may have an army but we have the fleet.
More seriously if you class Low Saxon as a non-standard variety of Standard German and then have a look at the family tree you’d have, for the sake of consistency, call English a German variety. Sure they’re all West Germanic languages but we need taxa for the taxonomy god: Low Saxon is more closely related to the Anglo-Frisian languages than to the Allemannic/Bavarian line, which is where Standard German stems from.
“Variety” doesn’t imply status as a dialect or as a language; it’s neutral in this regard, that’s why I used it.
More specifically, I see it as an Ingvaeonic variety; yes, like English, it’s also an Ingvaeonic variety. I agree with you that “nesting” it within Standard German would be incorrect.
we need taxa for the taxonomy god
While this doesn’t apply in this specific case, since Low Saxon is clearly sitting within its taxon, keep in mind that the taxonomy god is still Armok - it still demands blood. The blood of people furiously arguing if some variety belongs to taxon A or taxon B, when the variety shows intermediate traits.
I see this all the time when people talk about the Romance varieties, trying to lump Aragonese into either Ibero-Romance or Gallo-Romance; or Venetan into either Gallo-Italic or Italo-Dalmatian.
That exception makes sense. Both because their prescription isn’t in the dictionary itself, but rather in their choice of scope for it, and because it’s trying to protect a threatened variety, instead of just creating some meaningless division (like plenty prescriptions do).
Language! High German may have an army but we have the fleet.
More seriously if you class Low Saxon as a non-standard variety of Standard German and then have a look at the family tree you’d have, for the sake of consistency, call English a German variety. Sure they’re all West Germanic languages but we need taxa for the taxonomy god: Low Saxon is more closely related to the Anglo-Frisian languages than to the Allemannic/Bavarian line, which is where Standard German stems from.
“Variety” doesn’t imply status as a dialect or as a language; it’s neutral in this regard, that’s why I used it.
More specifically, I see it as an Ingvaeonic variety; yes, like English, it’s also an Ingvaeonic variety. I agree with you that “nesting” it within Standard German would be incorrect.
While this doesn’t apply in this specific case, since Low Saxon is clearly sitting within its taxon, keep in mind that the taxonomy god is still Armok - it still demands blood. The blood of people furiously arguing if some variety belongs to taxon A or taxon B, when the variety shows intermediate traits.
I see this all the time when people talk about the Romance varieties, trying to lump Aragonese into either Ibero-Romance or Gallo-Romance; or Venetan into either Gallo-Italic or Italo-Dalmatian.