Editing Dialect continuum (section)

{{short description|Geographic range of dialects that vary more strongly at the distant ends}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2018}} 
{{more citations needed|date=May 2016}}
{{linguistics}}

A '''dialect continuum''' or '''dialect chain''' is a series of [[Variety (linguistics)|language varieties]] spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are [[Mutual intelligibility|mutually intelligible]], but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varieties may not be.<ref>{{cite book |title=A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics |given=David |surname=Crystal |publisher=Blackwell |edition=6th |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-405-15296-9 |page=144 }}</ref> This is a typical occurrence with widely spread languages and language families around the world, when these languages did not spread recently. Some prominent examples include the [[Indo-Aryan languages]] across large parts of [[India]], [[varieties of Arabic]] across north Africa and southwest Asia, the [[Turkic languages]], the [[varieties of Chinese]], and parts of the [[Romance languages|Romance]], [[Germanic languages|Germanic]] and [[Slavic languages|Slavic]] families in Europe. Terms used in older literature include '''dialect area''' ([[Leonard Bloomfield]])<ref>{{cite book |given=Leonard |surname=Bloomfield |author-link=Leonard Bloomfield |title=Language |year=1935 |publisher=George Allen & Unwin |location=London |page=51}}</ref> and '''L-complex''' ([[Charles F. Hockett]]).<ref>{{cite book | given = Charles F. | surname =Hockett | author-link = Charles F. Hockett | title = A Course in Modern Linguistics | url = https://archive.org/details/courseinmodernli0000hock | url-access = registration | publisher = Macmillan | location = New York | year = 1958 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/courseinmodernli0000hock/page/324 324–325] }}</ref>

Dialect continua typically occur in long-settled agrarian populations, as innovations spread from their various points of origin as [[wave model|waves]]. In this situation, hierarchical classifications of varieties are impractical. Instead, [[Dialectology|dialectologists]] map variation of various language features across a dialect continuum, drawing lines called [[isogloss]]es between areas that differ with respect to some feature.<ref>{{cite book
  | last1 = Chambers | first1 = J.K. | author-link1 = Jack Chambers (linguist)
  | last2 = Trudgill | first2 = Peter | author-link2 = Peter Trudgill
  | title = Dialectology
  | publisher = Cambridge University Press | edition = 2nd | year = 1998 | isbn = 978-0-521-59646-6
  | pages = 13–19, 89–91
}}</ref>

A variety within a dialect continuum may be developed and codified as a [[standard language]], and then serve as an authority for part of the continuum, e.g. within a particular political unit or geographical area.
Since the early 20th century, the increasing dominance of [[nation-states]] and their standard languages has been steadily eliminating the nonstandard dialects that comprise dialect continua, making the boundaries ever more abrupt and well-defined.