I bumped into a list of 1000 “Essentialist Explanations” in the form “Language X is essentially language Y under conditions Z”.
Here are a few of my favorites:
Basque is essentially the distance between kaixo and agur.
English is essentially the language of people who think that everybody else speaks their language. French is essentially the language of people who think that everybody else should speak theirs.
Spanish is essentially a language that should be called Castilian, for the relief of Basques, Gallegos and Catalans.
Italian is essentially Tuscan dialect as spoken by a Lombard.
