Editing Dialect (section)

==Dialect as linguistic variety of a language==
{{Organize section|date=August 2023}}
The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as [[social class]] or [[ethnicity]].<ref name="auto9">{{Cite web |date=30 July 2023 |title=Definition of DIALECT |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dialect |website=Merriam-webster.com}}</ref> A dialect that is associated with a particular [[social class]] can be termed a [[sociolect]]. A dialect that is associated with a particular [[ethnic group]] can be termed an [[ethnolect]].

A geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolect<ref name="auto1">Wolfram, Walt and Schilling, Natalie. 2016. ''American English: Dialects and Variation.'' West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, p. 184.</ref> (alternative terms include 'regionalect',<ref name="auto2">{{citation |author=Daniel. W. Bruhn |title=Walls of the Tongue: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed |page=8 |url=http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~dwbruhn/dwbruhn_376_Dispossessed.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100612214606/http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~dwbruhn/dwbruhn_376_Dispossessed.pdf |archive-date=2010-06-12 |url-status=live}}</ref> 'geolect',<ref name="auto6">{{citation |author=Christopher D. Land |title=The Language of the New Testament: Context, History, and Development |page=250 |year=2013 |editor=Stanley E. Porter, Andrew Pitts |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i5N9VUT5Tl4C |chapter=Varieties of the Greek language |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-9004234772}}</ref> and 'topolect'<ref name="auto10">{{cite encyclopedia |year=2010 |title=topolect |encyclopedia=The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |location=Boston |edition=4th}}</ref>). According to this definition, any variety of a given language can be classified as "a dialect", including any [[standard language|standardized varieties]]. In this case, the distinction between the "standard language" (i.e. the "standard" dialect of a particular language) and the "[[nonstandard dialect|nonstandard]]" (vernacular) dialects of the same language is often [[arbitrary]] and based on social, political, cultural, or historical considerations or prevalence and prominence.<ref name="chao"/><ref name="Lyons">{{cite book |last=Lyons |first=John |title=Language and Linguistics |date=1981 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/languagelinguist0000lyon |url-access=registration |quote=language standard dialect. |page=[https://archive.org/details/languagelinguist0000lyon/page/25 25] |isbn=9780521297752 }}</ref><ref name="johnson"/> In a similar way, the definitions of the terms "language" and "dialect" may overlap and are often subject to debate, with the differentiation between the two classifications often grounded in arbitrary or sociopolitical motives.<ref name="mcworther" /> The term "dialect" is however sometimes restricted to mean "non-standard variety", particularly in non-specialist settings and non-English linguistic traditions.<ref>{{Cite book|first1=Benedikt |last1=Perak |first2=Robert |last2=Trask |first3=Milica |last3=Mihaljević |date=2005| title=Temeljni lingvistički pojmovi |url= https://www.academia.edu/819390 |language=sh|page=81}}</ref><ref name=Schilling-Estes>{{cite book |last=Schilling-Estes |first=Natalies |year=2006 |chapter=Dialect variation |editor-first1=R.W. |editor-last1=Fasold |editor-first2=J. |editor-last2=Connor-Linton |title=An Introduction to Language and Linguistics |pages=311–341 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first = Sławomir |last=Gala |title= Teoretyczne, badawcze i dydaktyczne założenia dialektologii |date=1998|publisher=Łódzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=nWEZAQAAIAAJ | page=24 |isbn= 9788387749040 |language=pl}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Małgorzata |last=Dąbrowska-Kardas |title=Analiza dyrektywalna przepisów części ogólnej kodeksu karnego |date=2012 |isbn=9788326446177 |publisher=Wolters Kluwer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DZVSAwAAQBAJ |page=32 |language=pl}}</ref> Conversely, some [[dialectology|dialectologists]] have reserved the term "dialect" for forms that they believed (sometimes wrongly) to be purer forms of the older languages, as in how early dialectologists of English did not consider the [[Brummie dialect|Brummie]] of Birmingham or the [[Scouse]] of Liverpool to be real dialects, as they had arisen fairly recently in time and partly as a result of influences from Irish migrants.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Aveyard |first=Edward |year=2022 |title=What is Dialect? |journal=Transactions of the Yorkshire Dialect Society |volume=23 |issue=122 |pages=25–36 }}</ref>

=== Difference between dialects and languages ===
{{anchor|Dialect or language}}
{{see also|Abstand and ausbau languages|A language is a dialect with an army and navy}}
There is no universally accepted criterion for distinguishing two different languages from two dialects (i.e. varieties) of the same language.<ref>Cysouw, Michael; Good, Jeff. (2013). "Languoid, Doculect, and Glossonym: Formalizing the Notion 'Language'." ''Language Documentation and Conservation''. 7. 331–359. {{hdl|10125/4606}}.</ref> A number of rough measures exist, sometimes leading to contradictory results. The distinction between dialect and language is therefore subjective{{How|date=October 2024}} <!-- Because not the same criterions are used it is arbitrary? --> and depends upon the user's preferred frame of reference.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://ispan.waw.pl/journals/index.php/ch/article/download/ch.2016.011/2342|title=Tomasz Kamusella. 2016. The History of the Normative Opposition of 'Language versus Dialect:' From Its Graeco-Latin Origin to Central Europe's Ethnolinguistic Nation-States (pp 189–198). ''Colloquia Humanistica''. Vol 5.|access-date=8 March 2022}}</ref> For example, there has been discussion about whether or not the [[Limón Creole English]] should be considered "a kind" of English or a different language. This creole is spoken in the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica (Central America) by descendants of Jamaican people. The position that Costa Rican linguists support depends upon which university they represent. Another example is [[Scanian dialect|Scanian]], which even, for a time, had its own ISO code.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/656484|title=Ethnic Protest and Social Planning: A Look at Basque Language Revival|author=Urla, Jacqueline|year=1988|journal=Cultural Anthropology|volume=3|issue=4|pages=379–394|doi=10.1525/can.1988.3.4.02a00030|jstor=656484|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name="auto7">{{Cite journal|title=Dialect, Language, Nation|first=Einar|last=Haugen|date=August 28, 1966|journal=American Anthropologist|volume=68|issue=4|pages=922–935|doi=10.1525/aa.1966.68.4.02a00040|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/30029217|title=National Languages and Languages of Wider Communication in the Developing Nations|author=Fishman, Joshua A.|year=1969|journal=Anthropological Linguistics|volume=11|issue=4|pages=111–135|jstor=30029217}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|format=PDF|title=Towards a National Indian Literature: Cultural Authenticity in Nationalism|author=Simon J. Ortiz|journal=MELUS|volume=8|date=1981|issue=2|pages=7–12|publisher=The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States|doi=10.2307/467143|jstor=467143|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/467143|access-date=8 March 2022|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

=== Linguistic distance ===
{{main|Linguistic distance}}
An important criterion for categorizing varieties of language is [[linguistic distance]]. For a variety to be considered a dialect, the linguistic distance between the two varieties must be low. Linguistic distance between spoken or written forms of language increases as the differences between the forms are characterized.<ref name="Tang 709–732">{{Cite journal|last1=Tang|first1=Chaoju|last2=van Heuven|first2=Vincent J.|date=May 2009|title=Mutual intelligibility of Chinese dialects experimentally tested|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2008.10.001|journal=Lingua|volume=119|issue=5|pages=709–732|doi=10.1016/j.lingua.2008.10.001|issn=0024-3841|hdl=1887/14919|s2cid=170208776 |hdl-access=free}}</ref> For example, two languages with completely different syntactical structures would have a high linguistic distance, while a language with very few differences from another may be considered a dialect or a sibling of that language. Linguistic distance may be used to determine [[Language family|language families]] and language siblings. For example, languages with little linguistic distance, like [[Dutch language|Dutch]] and [[German language|German]], are considered siblings. Dutch and German are siblings in the West-Germanic language group. Some language siblings are closer to each other in terms of linguistic distance than to other linguistic siblings. French and Spanish, siblings in the Romance Branch of the Indo-European group, are closer to each other than they are to any of the languages of the West-Germanic group.<ref name="Tang 709–732"/> When languages are close in terms of linguistic distance, they resemble one another, hence why dialects are not considered linguistically distant to their parent language.

=== Mutual intelligibility ===
One criterion, which is often considered to be purely linguistic, is that of [[mutual intelligibility]]: two varieties are said to be dialects of the same language if being a speaker of one variety has sufficient knowledge to understand and be understood by a speaker of the other dialect; otherwise, they are said to be different languages.<ref name="Comrie2018">{{cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lR9WDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT24|title=The World's Major Languages|last=Comrie|first=Bernard|publisher=Routledge|year=2018|isbn=978-1-317-29049-0|editor=Bernard Comrie|pages=2–3|chapter=Introduction}}</ref> However, this definition has often been criticized, especially in the case of a [[dialect continuum]] (or dialect chain), which contains a sequence of varieties, where each mutually intelligible with the next, but may not be mutually intelligible with distant varieties.<ref name="Comrie2018" />

Others have argued that mutual intelligibility occurs in varying degrees, and the potential difficulty in distinguishing between intelligibility and prior familiarity with the other variety. However, recent research suggests that there is some empirical evidence in favor of using some form of the intelligibility criterion to distinguish between languages and dialects,<ref>{{cite journal |title=Taking taxonomy seriously in linguistics: Intelligibility as a criterion of demarcation between languages and dialects |first=Marco | last=Tamburelli |journal=Lingua |year=2021 |volume=256 |page=103068 |doi=10.1016/j.lingua.2021.103068 |s2cid=233800051 |url=https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/researchoutputs/taking-taxonomy-seriously-in-linguistics-intelligibility-as-a-criterion-of-demarcation-between-languages-and-dialects(7e404197-2caf-420c-84c5-258b31df3297).html |language=en}}</ref> though mutuality may not be as relevant as initially thought. The requirement for mutuality is abandoned by the ''Language Survey Reference Guide'' of [[SIL International]], publishers of the ''[[Ethnologue]]'' and the [[registration authority]] for the [[ISO 639-3]] standard for [[language code]]s. They define a ''dialect cluster'' as a central variety together with all those varieties whose speakers understand the central variety at a specified threshold level or higher. If the threshold level is high, usually between 70% and 85%<!-- So over 85 %, same language, but different dialects? Under 70 % > different languages? -->, the cluster is designated as a ''language''.<ref>{{cite book |title=Language Survey Reference Guide |given=Joseph Evans |surname=Grimes |publisher=SIL International |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-88312-609-7 |page=17 }}</ref>{{Clarify|date=August 2023}}

=== Sociolinguistic definitions ===
[[File:West Germanic dialect diagram.svg|thumb|right|upright=2|Local varieties in the West Germanic dialect continuum are oriented towards either Standard Dutch or Standard German depending on which side of the border they are spoken.{{sfnp|Chambers|Trudgill|1998|p=10}}]]
Another occasionally used criterion for discriminating dialects from languages is the [[sociolinguistic]] notion of [[autonomy and heteronomy (sociolinguistics)|linguistic authority]]. According to this definition, two varieties are considered dialects of the same language if (under at least some circumstances) they would defer to the same authority regarding some questions about their language. For instance, to learn the name of a new invention, or an obscure foreign species of plant, speakers of [[Westphalian language|Westphalian]] and [[East Franconian German]] might each consult a German dictionary or ask a German-speaking expert in the subject. Thus these varieties are said to be dependent on, or [[autonomy and heteronomy (sociolinguistics)|heteronomous]] with respect to, [[Standard German]], which is said to be autonomous.{{sfnp|Chambers|Trudgill|1998|p=10}}

In contrast, speakers in the Netherlands of [[Dutch Low Saxon|Low Saxon]] varieties similar to Westphalian would instead consult a dictionary of [[Standard Dutch]], and hence is categorized as a dialect of Dutch instead. Similarly, although [[Yiddish]] is classified by linguists as a language in the [[High German]] group of languages and has some degree of mutual intelligibility with German, a Yiddish speaker would consult a Yiddish dictionary rather than a German dictionary in such a case, and is classified as its own language.

Within this framework, [[William Alexander Stewart|W. A. Stewart]] defined a ''language'' as an autonomous variety in addition to all the varieties that are heteronomous with respect to it, noting that an essentially equivalent definition had been stated by [[Charles A. Ferguson]] and [[John J. Gumperz]] in 1960.<ref name="Stewart">{{cite book
  | first = William A. | last = Stewart | author-link = William Alexander Stewart
  | chapter = A sociolinguistic typology for describing national multilingualism
  | pages = 531–545 | doi = 10.1515/9783110805376.531
  | editor-first = Joshua A. | editor-last = Fishman
  | title = Readings in the Sociology of Language
  | publisher = De Gruyter | year = 1968
  | isbn = 978-3-11-080537-6
}} p. 535.</ref><ref>{{cite book
  | chapter = Introduction | pages = 1–18
  | first1 = Charles A. | last1 = Ferguson | author-link1 = Charles A. Ferguson
  | first2 = John J. | last2 = Gumperz | author-link2 = John J. Gumperz
  | title = Linguistic Diversity in South Asia: Studies in Regional, Social, and Functional Variation
  | editor-first1 = Charles A. | editor-last1 = Ferguson
  | editor-first2 = John J. | editor-last2 = Gumperz
  | publisher = Indiana University, Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics
  | year = 1960
}} p. 5.</ref> A heteronomous variety may be considered a ''dialect'' of a language defined in this way.<ref name="Stewart" /> In these terms, [[Danish language|Danish]] and [[Norwegian language|Norwegian]], though mutually intelligible to a large degree, are considered separate languages.{{sfnp|Chambers|Trudgill|1998|p=11}} In the framework of [[Heinz Kloss]], these are described as languages by ''[[abstand and ausbau languages|ausbau]]'' (development) rather than by ''abstand'' (separation).<ref>{{cite journal
  | surname = Kloss | given = Heinz |  author-link = Heinz Kloss
  | title = 'Abstand languages' and 'ausbau languages'
  | journal = Anthropological Linguistics | volume = 9 | number = 7
  | year = 1967 | pages = 29–41
  | jstor = 30029461
}}</ref>

=== Dialect and language clusters ===
{{See also|Dialect continuum}}
In other situations, a closely related group of varieties possess considerable (though incomplete) mutual intelligibility, but none dominates the others. To describe this situation, the editors of the ''Handbook of African Languages'' introduced the term '''dialect cluster''' as a classificatory unit at the same level as a language.<ref>{{cite journal
  | title = A Handbook of African Languages
  | author = Handbook Sub-committee Committee of the International African Institute.
  | journal = Africa | volume = 16 | number = 3 | year = 1946 | pages = 156–159
  | doi = 10.2307/1156320
 | jstor = 1156320
| s2cid = 245909714
 }}</ref> A similar situation, but with a greater degree of mutual unintelligibility, has been termed a '''language cluster'''.<ref>{{cite journal
  | title = A provisional language map of Nigeria
  | given1 = Keir | surname1 = Hansford
  | given2 = John | surname2 = Bendor-Samuel
  | given3 = Ron | surname3 = Stanford
  | journal = Savanna | volume = 5 | number = 2 | year = 1976 | pages = 115–124
}} p. 118.</ref>

In the ''Language Survey Reference Guide'' issued by [[SIL International]], who produce ''[[Ethnologue]]'', a ''dialect cluster'' is defined as a central variety together with a collection of varieties whose speakers can understand the central variety at a specified threshold level (usually between 70% and 85%) or higher. It is not required that peripheral varieties be understood by speakers of the central variety or of other peripheral varieties. A minimal set of central varieties providing coverage of a dialect continuum may be selected algorithmically from intelligibility data.<ref>{{cite book |title=Language Survey Reference Guide |first=Joseph Evans |last=Grimes |publisher=SIL International |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-88312-609-7 |pages=17, 22 }}</ref>

=== Political factors ===
In many societies, however, a particular dialect, often the sociolect of the [[elite]] class, comes to be identified as the "standard" or "proper" version of a language by those seeking to make a social distinction and is contrasted with other varieties. As a result of this, in some contexts, the term "dialect" refers specifically to varieties with low [[social status]]. In this secondary sense of "dialect", language varieties are often called ''dialects'' rather than ''languages'':
* if they have no [[Standard variety|standard]] or [[Codification (linguistics)|codified]] form,
* if they are rarely or never used in writing (outside reported speech),
* if the speakers of the given language do not have a [[State (polity)|state]] of their own,
* if they lack [[prestige dialect|prestige]] with respect to some other, often standardised, variety.

The status of "language" is not solely determined by linguistic criteria, but it is also the result of a historical and political development. [[Romansh language|Romansh]] came to be a written language, and therefore it is recognized as a language, even though it is very close to the Lombardic alpine dialects and classical Latin. An opposite example is [[Chinese language|Chinese]], whose variations such as [[Mandarin Chinese|Mandarin]] and [[Yue Chinese|Cantonese]] are often called dialects and not languages in China, despite their mutual unintelligibility.

National boundaries sometimes make the distinction between "language" and "dialect" an issue of political importance. A group speaking a separate "language" may be seen as having a greater claim to being a separate "people", and thus to be more deserving of its own independent state, while a group speaking a "dialect" may be seen as a sub-group, part of a bigger people, which must content itself with regional autonomy.<ref>Muljačić, Ž. (1997). The relationships between the dialect and the standard language. In M. Maiden, M. Maiden, & M. Parry (Eds.), The Dialects of Italy (1st ed.). essay, Routledge.</ref>{{Citation needed|date=January 2009}}

The [[Yiddish language|Yiddish]] linguist [[Max Weinreich]] published the expression, ''A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot'' ({{lang|yi|"אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמײ און פֿלאָט"}}: "[[A language is a dialect with an army and navy]]") in ''YIVO Bleter'' 25.1, 1945, p.&nbsp;13. The significance of the political factors in any attempt at answering the question "what is a language?" is great enough to cast doubt on whether any strictly linguistic definition, without a socio-cultural approach, is possible. This is illustrated by the frequency with which the army-navy aphorism is cited.

=== Terminology<span class="anchor" id="languoid"></span> ===
By the definition most commonly used by linguists, any linguistic variety can be considered a "dialect" of ''some'' language—"everybody speaks a dialect". According to that interpretation, the criteria above merely serve to distinguish whether two varieties are dialects of the ''same'' language or dialects of ''different'' languages.

The terms "language" and "dialect" are not necessarily mutually exclusive, although they are often perceived to be.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/01/difference-between-language-dialect/424704/|title=There's No Such Thing as a 'Language'|last=McWhorter|first=John|date=2016-01-19|website=The Atlantic|language=en-US|access-date=2019-10-24}}</ref> Thus there is nothing contradictory in the statement "the ''language'' of the [[Pennsylvania Dutch]] is a dialect of [[German (language)|German]]".

There are various terms that linguists may use to avoid taking a position on whether the speech of a community is an independent language in its own right or a dialect of another language. Perhaps the most common is "[[variety (linguistics)|variety]]";<ref name=finegan>{{cite book |title=Language: Its Structure and Use|edition=5th |last=Finegan |first=Edward |year=2007 |publisher= Thomson Wadsworth|location=Boston, MA|isbn=978-1-4130-3055-6 |page=348}}</ref> "[[lect]]" is another. A more general term is "'''languoid'''", which does not distinguish between dialects, languages, and groups of languages, whether genealogically related or not.<ref>[http://www.glottopedia.org/index.php/Languoid "Languoid"] at ''Glottopedia.com''</ref>