To you, what’s the difference between a language and a dialect? (1 Viewer)

[Ahsoka]

 

[velvet]

Interesting question that still gets a lot of debate:

languages are systems and arts of communication. Dialects are different channels of languages where there may be one shared element between one dialect or another but other elements are contrasted. For example a way that Scottish and Australian English are different is that Scottish has 7 vowel sounds whilst Australian has 20.

I think a big misconception is that if you can speak one language you can understand all the dialects, but that isn't true. Cantonese and Mandarin are different dialects but (I believe) a speaker of one of these wouldn't be able to understand the other and vice versa.

 

[Ahsoka]

Interesting question that still gets a lot of debate:

languages are systems and arts of communication. Dialects are different channels of languages where there may be one shared element between one dialect or another but other elements are contrasted. For example a way that Scottish and Australian English are different is that Scottish has 7 vowel sounds whilst Australian has 20.

I think a big misconception is that if you can speak one language you can understand all the dialects, but that isn't true. Cantonese and Mandarin are different dialects but (I believe) a speaker of one of these wouldn't be able to understand the other and vice versa.

With those definitions, are dialects and languages mutually exclusive? Just based off the definitions you gave I don’t see mutual exclusivity so I’m curious Or could 2 languages also be 2 dialects of a given language?

 

[velvet]

With those definitions, are dialects and languages mutually exclusive? Just based off the definitions you gave I don’t see mutual exclusivity so I’m curious Or could 2 languages also be 2 dialects of a given language?

No, dialects and languages are not mutually exclusive. Theoretically there can be one language with one dialect but a lot of the times through geographic distribution, cultural groups shifting, etc, dialects develop.

And I don't think I know enough of linguistics to really answer the second question but to my knowledge no. We wouldn't call spanish and french dialects of latin since they both evolved separate from one another (french having a lot more germanic influence). for a dialect to really evolve into a different language it needs to have heavy influence from contrasting language trees. Don't quote me on this though, these questions get especially harder when talking about sign languages.

 

[uran]

I havent thought about this but for the way i understand dialects based on the dialects spoken inside finland. Is that they are based on the main language of the country but with their own words.
in finland we have 7 dialects and i dont really understand everything that people from different parts of finland are saying but they are clearly still finnish with the same rules and writing style and pronounciation

 

[Willow]

Swiss German are dialects of German, despite that a lot of German natives can't understand those

 

[anemoia]

language is language and dialect is a diff version of the language

 

[Nina]

I actually get confused about this sometimes because the differences between dialects vs differences in some language families are too similar.
But then there are some dialects that just sound like a completely different language. Does this make sense?

Dialects do have an accent distinction tho so there's that.

 

[Ahsoka]

I actually get confused about this sometimes because the differences between dialects vs differences in some language families are too similar.
But then there are some dialects that just sound like a completely different language. Does this make sense?

Dialects do have an accent distinction tho so there's that.

Yeah I used to think it was about mutual intelligibility but then realized that some different languages are mutually intelligible while some dialects aren’t. Culture and politics play a big role too.

 

[Selfmate]

The word language is more general, while the word dialect is used to refer specifically to a particular variant of one language. Additionally, a language includes the written form of communication, while the word dialect is often used specifically to refer only to a spoken variety of a language.

 

[alo]

not much, i believe, though i'm no expert in linguistics

 

[RandAlThor]

i would say dialect is typically spoken but the language is the written version.

for example in shows when there is dialect written in Korean is still Korean but with guide how to accent.
and of course words can mean different things.

ie in the US a napkin is most commonly something to wipe your mouth/hands while eating, but other places its a covering for a baby's bio functions :)