The term dialect (from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
, , from the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...
word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of
linguistic
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...
phenomena:
One usage refers to a
variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
of a
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. Under this definition, the dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely
mutually intelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
, especially if close to one another on the
dialect continuum
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 accumulat ...
. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
or
ethnicity
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
.
A dialect that is associated with a particular
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
can be termed a
sociolect
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group.
Sociolects involve both passive acquisi ...
, a dialect that is associated with a particular
ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
can be termed an
ethnolect
An ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that mark speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. According to another definition, an ethnolect is any speech variety (language, diale ...
, and a geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolect
[Wolfram, Walt and Schilling, Natalie. 2016. ''American English: Dialects and Variation.'' West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, p. 184.] (alternative terms include 'regionalect',
'geolect',
and 'topolect'
). According to this definition, any variety of a given language can be classified as a "dialect", including any
standardized varieties. In this case, the distinction between the "standard language" (i.e. the "standard" dialect of a particular language) and the "
nonstandard" (vernacular) dialects of the same language is often
arbitrary
Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". It is also used to refer to a choice made without any specific criterion or restraint.
Arbitrary decisions are not necess ...
and based on social, political, cultural, or historical considerations or prevalence and prominence.
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.
The term "dialect" is however sometimes restricted to mean "non-standard variety", particularly in non-specialist settings and non-English linguistic traditions.
The other usage of the term "dialect", specific to
colloquial
Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom normally employed in conver ...
settings in a few countries like
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
[«The often used term "Italian dialects" may create the false impression that the dialects are varieties of the standard Italian language.» Martin Maiden, M. Mair Parry (1997), The Dialects of Italy, Psychology Press, p. 2.] (see ''
dialetto''
[«Parlata propria di un ambiente geografico e culturale ristretto (come la regione, la provincia, la città o anche il paese): contrapposta a un sistema linguistico affine per origine e sviluppo, ma che, per diverse ragioni (politiche, letterarie, geografiche, ecc.), si è imposto come lingua letteraria e ufficiale». Battaglia, Salvatore (1961). ''Grande dizionario della lingua italiana'', UTET, Torino, V. IV, pp.321–322.]),
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
(see ''
patois
''Patois'' (, pl. same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon or ...
''), much of East Central Europe, and the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
,
carries a
pejorative
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
undertone and underlines the politically and
socially subordinated status of a non-national language to the country's single official language. In this case, these "dialects" are not actual dialects in the same sense as in the first usage, as they do not derive from the politically dominant language and are therefore not one of its
varieties
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
, but they evolved in a separate and parallel way and may thus better fit various parties' criteria for a separate language. These "dialects" may be historically
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
with and share
genetic roots in the same
subfamily
In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...
as the dominant national language and may even, to a varying degree, share some
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
with the latter. However, in this sense, unlike in the first usage, these "dialects" may be better defined as separate languages from the standard or national language and the standard or national language would not itself be considered a "dialect", as it is the dominant language in a particular state, be it in terms of
linguistic prestige
In sociolinguistics, prestige is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige Variety (linguistics), varieties are language or dialect families wh ...
, social or political (e.g.
official
An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their ...
) status, predominance or prevalence, or all of the above. The term "dialect" used this way implies a political connotation, being mostly used to refer to low-prestige languages (regardless of their actual degree of distance from the national language), languages lacking institutional support, or those perceived as "unsuitable for writing".
The designation "dialect" is also used popularly to refer to the unwritten or non-codified languages of developing countries or isolated areas,
where the term "
vernacular language
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
" would be preferred by linguists.
Features that distinguish dialects from each other can be found in
lexicon
A lexicon is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Koine Greek language, Greek word (), neuter of () ...
(
vocabulary
A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...
) and
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
, as well as in pronunciation (
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
, including
prosody). Where the salient distinctions are only or mostly to be observed in pronunciation, the more specific term ''
accent'' may be used instead of ''dialect''. Differences that are largely concentrated in lexicon may be
creoles in their own right. When lexical differences are mostly concentrated in the specialized vocabulary of a profession or other organization, they are
jargon
Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The conte ...
s; differences in vocabulary that are deliberately cultivated to exclude outsiders or to serve as
shibboleth
A shibboleth (; hbo, , šībbōleṯ) is any custom or tradition, usually a choice of phrasing or even a single word, that distinguishes one group of people from another. Shibboleths have been used throughout history in many societies as passwor ...
s are known as cryptolects (or "cant") and include
slang
Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gro ...
s and
argots. The particular speech patterns used by an individual are referred to as that person's
idiolect
Idiolect is an individual's unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This differs from a dialect, a common set of linguistic characteristics shared among a group of people.
Th ...
.
To classify subsets of language as dialects, linguists take into account
linguistic distance
Linguistic distance is how different one language or dialect is from another. Although they lack a uniform approach to quantifying linguistic distance between languages, practitioners of linguistics use the concept in a variety of linguistic situat ...
. The dialects of a language with a
writing system
A writing system is a method of visually representing verbal communication, based on a script and a set of rules regulating its use. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writing differs in also being a reliable form ...
will operate at different degrees of distance from the standardized written form. Some dialects of a language are not mutually intelligible in spoken form, leading to debate as to whether they are regiolects or separate languages.
Standard and nonstandard dialects
A ''
standard dialect
A standard language (also standard variety, standard dialect, and standard) is a language variety that has undergone substantial codification of grammar and usage, although occasionally the term refers to the entirety of a language that includes ...
'' also known as a "standardized language" is supported by institutions. Such institutional support may include any or all of the following: government recognition or designation; formal presentation in schooling as the "correct" form of a language; informal monitoring of everyday
usage
The usage of a language is the ways in which its written and spoken variations are routinely employed by its speakers; that is, it refers to "the collective habits of a language's native speakers", as opposed to idealized models of how a language ...
; published grammars, dictionaries, and textbooks that set forth a normative spoken and written form; and an extensive formal literature (be it prose, poetry, non-fiction, etc.) that uses it. An example of a standardized language is the
French language
French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...
which is supported by the
Académie Française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
institution.
A
nonstandard dialect
A nonstandard dialect or vernacular dialect is a dialect or language variety that has not historically benefited from the institutional support or sanction that a standard dialect has.
Like any dialect, a nonstandard dialect has an internally co ...
has a complete grammar and vocabulary, but is usually not the beneficiary of institutional support.
Dialect as linguistic variety of a language
The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
or
ethnicity
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
.
A dialect that is associated with a particular
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
can be termed a
sociolect
In sociolinguistics, a sociolect is a form of language ( non-standard dialect, restricted register) or a set of lexical items used by a socioeconomic class, profession, an age group, or other social group.
Sociolects involve both passive acquisi ...
. A dialect that is associated with a particular
ethnic group
An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...
can be termed an
ethnolect
An ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that mark speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. According to another definition, an ethnolect is any speech variety (language, diale ...
.
A geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolect
(alternative terms include 'regionalect',
'geolect',
and 'topolect'
). According to this definition, any variety of a given language can be classified as "a dialect", including any
standardized varieties. In this case, the distinction between the "standard language" (i.e. the "standard" dialect of a particular language) and the "
nonstandard" (vernacular) dialects of the same language is often
arbitrary
Arbitrariness is the quality of being "determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle". It is also used to refer to a choice made without any specific criterion or restraint.
Arbitrary decisions are not necess ...
and based on social, political, cultural, or historical considerations or prevalence and prominence.
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.
The term "dialect" is however sometimes restricted to mean "non-standard variety", particularly in non-specialist settings and non-English linguistic traditions.
Dialect or language
There is no universally accepted criterion for distinguishing two different languages from two dialects (i.e. varieties) of the same language. A number of rough measures exist, sometimes leading to contradictory results. The distinction (dichotomy) between dialect and language is therefore subjective (arbitrary) and depends upon the user's preferred frame of reference. For example, there has been discussion about whether or not the
Limón Creole English
Limonese Creole (also called Limonese, Limón Creole English or ) is a dialect of Jamaican Patois (Jamaican Creole), an English-based creole language, spoken in Limón Province on the Caribbean Sea coast of Costa Rica. The number of native speak ...
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 The term Scanian (, or ) can refer to:
* A person born or living in the province of Scania proper (Skåne)
* The people and language of the historical provinces of Scania (Terrae Scaniae, Skånelandene (Danish), Skåneland (Swedish)
* Scanian dia ...
, which even, for a time, had its own ISO code.
Linguistic distance
An important criterion for categorizing varieties of language is
linguistic distance
Linguistic distance is how different one language or dialect is from another. Although they lack a uniform approach to quantifying linguistic distance between languages, practitioners of linguistics use the concept in a variety of linguistic situat ...
, 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.
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 families
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hi ...
and language siblings. For example, languages with little linguistic distance, like
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
and
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
, 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.
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
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
: two varieties are said to be dialects of the same language if being a speaker of one variety confers sufficient knowledge to understand and be understood by a speaker of the other; otherwise, they are said to be different languages.
However, this definition has often been criticized, especially in the case of a
dialect continuum
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 accumulat ...
(or dialect chain), which contains a sequence of varieties, each mutually intelligible with the next, but where widely separated varieties may not be mutually intelligible.
Others have argued that the mutual intelligibility criterion suffers from a series of problems, citing the fact 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 these objections do not stand up to scrutiny, and that there is some empirical evidence in favor of using some form of the intelligibility criterion to distinguish between languages and dialects, 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
SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is an evangelical Christian non-profit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to ex ...
, publishers of the ''
Ethnologue
''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensiv ...
'' and the
registration authority
Registration authorities exist for many standards organizations, such as ANNA (Association of National Numbering Agencies for ISIN), the Object Management Group, W3C, IEEE and others. In general, registration authorities all perform a similar func ...
for the
ISO 639-3
ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for i ...
standard for
language code
A language code is a code that assigns letters or numbers as identifiers or classifiers for languages. These codes may be used to organize library collections or presentations of data, to choose the correct localizations and translations in comput ...
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%, the cluster is designated as a ''language''.
Sociolinguistic definitions
![West Germanic dialect diagram](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/West_Germanic_dialect_diagram.svg)
Another occasionally used criterion for discriminating dialects from languages is the
sociolinguistic
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of l ...
notion of
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 and
East Franconian German
East Franconian (german: Ostfränkisch) or Mainfränkisch, usually referred to as Franconian (') in German, is a dialect which is spoken in Franconia, the northern part of the federal state of Bavaria and other areas in Germany around Nuremberg, ...
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
heteronomous with respect to,
Standard German
Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German (not to be confused with High German dialects, more precisely Upper German dialects) (german: Standardhochdeutsch, , or, in Switzerland, ), is the standardized variety ...
, which is said to be autonomous.
In contrast, speakers in the Netherlands of
Low Saxon
Low Saxon, also known as West Low German ( nds, Nedersassisch, Nedersaksies; nl, Nedersaksisch) are a group of Low German dialects spoken in parts of the Netherlands, northwestern Germany and southern Denmark (in North Schleswig by parts of th ...
varieties similar to Westphalian would instead consult a dictionary of
Standard Dutch
Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German and English. ''Afrikaans'' i ...
. Similarly, although Yiddish is classified by linguists as a language in the
Middle High German
Middle High German (MHG; german: Mittelhochdeutsch (Mhd.)) is the term for the form of German spoken in the High Middle Ages. It is conventionally dated between 1050 and 1350, developing from Old High German and into Early New High German. High ...
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.
Within this framework,
W. A. Stewart defined a ''language'' as an autonomous variety together with all the varieties that are heteronomous with respect to it, noting that an essentially equivalent definition had been stated by
Charles A. Ferguson
Charles Albert Ferguson (July 6, 1921 – September 2, 1998) was an American linguist who taught at Stanford University. He was one of the founders of sociolinguistics and is best known for his work on diglossia. The TOEFL test was created under ...
and
John J. Gumperz John Joseph Gumperz (January 9, 1922 – March 29, 2013) was an American linguist and academic. Gumperz was, for most of his career, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His research on the languages of India, on code-switching i ...
in 1960.
[ p. 535.]
A heteronomous variety may be considered a ''dialect'' of a language defined in this way.
In these terms,
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...
and
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
*Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
*Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including the ...
, though mutually intelligible to a large degree, are considered separate languages.
In the framework of
Heinz Kloss
Heinz Kloss (30 October 1904, in Halle, Saxony-Anhalt – 13 June 1987) was a German linguist and internationally recognised authority on linguistic minorities.
He coined the terms "Abstandsprache" and "Ausbausprache" to try to describe the differ ...
, these are described as languages by ''
ausbau
In sociolinguistics, an abstand language is a language variety or cluster of varieties with significant linguistic distance from all others, while an ausbau language is a standard variety, possibly with related dependent varieties. Heinz Kloss in ...
'' (development) rather than by ''abstand'' (separation).
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.
A similar situation, but with a greater degree of mutual unintelligibility, has been termed a ''language cluster''.
Political factors
In many societies, however, a particular dialect, often the sociolect of the
elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. D ...
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
Social status is the level of social value a person is considered to possess. More specifically, it refers to the relative level of respect, honour, assumed competence, and deference accorded to people, groups, and organizations in a society. Stat ...
. In this secondary sense of "dialect", language varieties are often called ''dialects'' rather than ''languages'':
* if they have no
standard Standard may refer to:
Symbols
* Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs
* Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification
Norms, conventions or requirements
* Standard (metrology), an object th ...
or
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
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
of their own,
* if they lack
prestige
Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.)
Prestige may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Films
* ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnett ...
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 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
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
, whose variations such as
Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
and
Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
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.
The
Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
linguist
Max Weinreich
Max Weinreich ( yi, מאַקס ווײַנרײַך ''Maks Vaynraych''; russian: Мейер Лазаревич Вайнрайх, ''Meyer Lazarevich Vaynraykh''; 22 April 1894, Goldingen, Russian Empire – 29 January 1969, New York City) was a Russ ...
published the expression, ''A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot'' (: "
A language is a dialect with an army and navy
"A language is a dialect with an army and navy" is a quip about the arbitrariness of the distinction between a dialect and a language. It points out the influence that social and political conditions can have over a community's perception of the ...
") in ''YIVO Bleter'' 25.1, 1945, p. 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
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. Thus there is nothing contradictory in the statement "the ''language'' of the
Pennsylvania Dutch
The Pennsylvania Dutch ( Pennsylvania Dutch: ), also known as Pennsylvania Germans, are a cultural group formed by German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. They emigrated primarily from German-spe ...
is a dialect of
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
".
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
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
";
"
lect
In sociolinguistics, a variety, also called an isolect or lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, registers, styles, or other forms of language, as well as a standard variety.Meecham, M ...
" is another. A more general term is "languoid", which does not distinguish between dialects, languages, and groups of languages, whether genealogically related or not.
Colloquial meaning of dialect
The colloquial meaning of dialect can be understood by example, e.g. in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
(see ''
dialetto''
),
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
(see ''
patois
''Patois'' (, pl. same or ) is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, ''patois'' can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars, but not commonly to jargon or ...
'') and the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
,
carries a
pejorative
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
undertone and underlines the politically and
socially subordinated status of a non-national language to the country's single official language. In other words, these "dialects" are not actual dialects in the same sense as in the first usage, as they do not derive from the politically dominant language and are therefore not one of its
varieties
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
, but instead they evolved in a separate and parallel way and may thus better fit various parties’ criteria for a separate language.
Despite this, these "dialects" may often be historically
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
and share
genetic roots in the same
subfamily
In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end subfamily botanical names with "-oideae", and zoologi ...
as the dominant national language and may even, to a varying degree, share some
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
with the latter. In this sense, unlike in the first usage, the national language would not itself be considered a "dialect", as it is the dominant language in a particular state, be it in terms of
linguistic prestige
In sociolinguistics, prestige is the level of regard normally accorded a specific language or dialect within a speech community, relative to other languages or dialects. Prestige Variety (linguistics), varieties are language or dialect families wh ...
, social or political (e.g.
official
An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their ...
) status, predominance or prevalence, or all of the above. The term "dialect" used this way implies a political connotation, being mostly used to refer to low-prestige languages (regardless of their actual degree of distance from the national language), languages lacking institutional support, or those perceived as "unsuitable for writing".
The designation "dialect" is also used popularly to refer to the unwritten or non-codified languages of developing countries or isolated areas,
where the term "
vernacular language
A vernacular or vernacular language is in contrast with a "standard language". It refers to the language or dialect that is spoken by people that are inhabiting a particular country or region. The vernacular is typically the native language, n ...
" would be preferred by linguists.
Dialect and accent
John Lyons writes that "Many linguists
..subsume differences of accent under differences of dialect." In general, ''
accent'' refers to variations in pronunciation, while ''dialect'' also encompasses specific variations in
grammar
In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
and
vocabulary
A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...
.
Examples
Arabic
There are three geographical zones in which Arabic is spoken (Jastrow 2002). Zone I is categorized as the area in which Arabic was spoken before the rise of Islam. It is the Arabian Peninsula, excluding the areas where southern Arabian was spoken. Zone II is categorized as the areas to which Arabic speaking peoples moved as a result of the conquests of Islam. Included in Zone II are the
Levant
The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...
,
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
,
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
,
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
, and some parts of
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. The Egyptian, Sudanese, and Levantine dialects (including the Syrian dialect) are well documented, and widely spoken and studied. Zone III comprises the areas in which Arabic is spoken outside of the continuous Arabic Language area.
Spoken dialects of the
Arabic language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
share the same writing system and share
Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary language, literary Arabic that developed in the Arab world in the late 19th and early 20th ...
as their common prestige dialect used in writing. However, some are
mutually unintelligible
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
from each other. This leads to debate among scholars of the status of Arabic dialects as their own regionalects or possibly separate languages.
German
When talking about the German language, the term
German dialects
German dialects are the various traditional local varieties of the German language. Though varied by region, those of the southern half of Germany beneath the Benrath line are dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant ...
is only used for the traditional regional varieties. That allows them to be distinguished from the regional varieties of modern standard German. The German dialects show a wide spectrum of variation. Some of them are not mutually intelligible.
German dialectology
German dialects are the various traditional local varieties of the German language. Though varied by region, those of the southern half of Germany beneath the Benrath line are dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant s ...
traditionally names the major dialect groups after
Germanic tribes
The Germanic peoples were historical groups of people that once occupied Central Europe and Scandinavia during antiquity and into the early Middle Ages. Since the 19th century, they have traditionally been defined by the use of ancient and ear ...
from which they were assumed to have descended.
The extent to which the dialects are spoken varies according to a number of factors: In Northern Germany, dialects are less common than in the South. In cities, dialects are less common than in the countryside. In a public environment, dialects are less common than in a familiar environment.
The situation in
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
and
Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein (), officially the Principality of Liechtenstein (german: link=no, Fürstentum Liechtenstein), is a German-speaking microstate located in the Alps between Austria and Switzerland. Liechtenstein is a semi-constitutional monarchy ...
is different from the rest of the German-speaking countries. The
Swiss German
Swiss German (Standard German: , gsw, Schwiizerdütsch, Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizertüütsch, Schwizertitsch Mundart,Because of the many different dialects, and because there is no defined orthography for any of them, many different spelling ...
dialects are the default everyday language in virtually every situation, whereas standard German is only spoken in education, partially in media, and with foreigners not possessing knowledge of Swiss German. Most Swiss German speakers perceive standard German to be a foreign language.
The
Low German
:
:
:
:
:
(70,000)
(30,000)
(8,000)
, familycolor = Indo-European
, fam2 = Germanic
, fam3 = West Germanic
, fam4 = North Sea Germanic
, ancestor = Old Saxon
, ancestor2 = Middle L ...
and
Low Franconian
Low Franconian, Low Frankish, NetherlandicSarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman: ''Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics'', University of California Press, 1991, p. 321. (Calling it "Low Frankish (or Netherlandish)".)Scott Shay ...
varieties spoken in Germany are often counted among the German dialects. This reflects the modern situation where they are
roofed by standard German. This is different from the situation in the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
when Low German had strong tendencies towards an
ausbau language
In sociolinguistics, an abstand language is a language variety or cluster of varieties with significant linguistic distance from all others, while an ausbau language is a standard variety, possibly with related dependent varieties. Heinz Kloss in ...
.
The
Frisian languages
The Frisian (, ) languages are a closely related group of West Germanic languages, spoken by about 500,000 Frisian people, who live on the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany. The Frisian languages are the closest li ...
spoken in Germany and the Netherlands are excluded from the German dialects.
Italy
Italy is an often quoted example of a country where the second definition of the word "dialect" (''dialetto''
) is most prevalent. Italy is in fact home to a
vast array of separate languages, most of which lack
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...
with one another and have their own local varieties; twelve of them (
Albanian
Albanian may refer to:
*Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular:
**Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans
**Albanian language
**Albanian culture
**Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
,
Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
,
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ger ...
,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
,
Slovene,
Croatian,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,
Franco-Provençal
Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a language within Gallo-Romance originally spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland and northwestern Italy.
Franco-Provençal has several distinct dialects and is separ ...
,
Friulian,
Ladin
Ladin may refer to:
* Ladin language, a language in northern Italy, often classified as a Rhaeto-Romance language
*Ladin people, the inhabitants of the Dolomite Alps region of northern Italy
See also
*Laden (disambiguation)
* Ladino (disambigua ...
,
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language
Occitan (; o ...
and
Sardinian) underwent
Italianization
Italianization ( it, italianizzazione; hr, talijanizacija; french: italianisation; sl, poitaljančevanje; german: Italianisierung; el, Ιταλοποίηση) is the spread of Italian culture, language and identity by way of integration or a ...
to a varying degree (ranging from the currently
endangered state displayed by Sardinian and
southern Italian Greek to the vigorous promotion of Germanic
Tyrolean), but have been officially recognized as
minority languages
A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) and ...
(''minoranze linguistiche storiche''), in light of their distinctive historical development. Yet, most of the
regional language
*
A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area.
Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan ...
s spoken across the peninsula are often colloquially referred to in non-linguistic circles as Italian ''dialetti'', since most of them, including the prestigious
Neapolitan
Neapolitan means of or pertaining to Naples, a city in Italy; or to:
Geography and history
* Province of Naples, a province in the Campania region of southern Italy that includes the city
* Duchy of Naples, in existence during the Early and Hig ...
,
Sicilian and
Venetian
Venetian often means from or related to:
* Venice, a city in Italy
* Veneto, a region of Italy
* Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area
Venetian and the like may also refer to:
* Venetian language, a Romance language s ...
, have adopted
vulgar Tuscan as their
reference language since the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
. However, all these languages evolved from
Vulgar Latin
Vulgar Latin, also known as Popular or Colloquial Latin, is the range of non-formal Register (sociolinguistics), registers of Latin spoken from the Crisis of the Roman Republic, Late Roman Republic onward. Through time, Vulgar Latin would evolve ...
in parallel with Italian, long prior to the popular diffusion of the latter throughout what is now
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
.
During the ''
Risorgimento
The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century political and social movement that resulted in the consolidation of different states of the Italian Peninsula into a single ...
'', Italian still existed mainly as a literary language, and only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak Italian. Proponents of
Italian nationalism
Italian nationalism is a movement which believes that the Italians are a nation with a single homogeneous identity, and therefrom seeks to promote the cultural unity of Italy as a country. From an Italian nationalist perspective, Italianness is ...
, like the Lombard
Alessandro Manzoni
Alessandro Francesco Tommaso Antonio Manzoni (, , ; 7 March 1785 – 22 May 1873) was an Italian poet, novelist and philosopher. He is famous for the novel '' The Betrothed'' (orig. it, I promessi sposi) (1827), generally ranked among the maste ...
, stressed the importance of establishing a uniform
national language
A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection—de facto or de jure—with a nation. There is little consistency in the use of this term. One or more languages spoken as first languages in the te ...
in order to better create an Italian
national identity
National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...
. With the
unification of Italy
The unification of Italy ( it, Unità d'Italia ), also known as the ''Risorgimento'' (, ; ), was the 19th-century Political movement, political and social movement that resulted in the Merger (politics), consolidation of List of historic stat ...
in the 1860s, Italian became the official national language of the new Italian state, while the other ones came to be institutionally regarded as "dialects" subordinate to Italian, and negatively associated with a lack of education.
In the early 20th century, the
conscription
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...
of Italian men from all throughout Italy during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
is credited with having facilitated the diffusion of Italian among the less educated conscripted soldiers, as these men, who had been speaking various regional languages up until then, found themselves forced to communicate with each other in a common tongue while serving in the Italian military. With the popular spread of Italian out of the intellectual circles, because of the mass-media and the establishment of
public education
State schools (in England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand) or public schools (Scottish English and North American English) are generally primary or secondary schools that educate all students without charge. They are funded in whole or in pa ...
, Italians from all regions were increasingly exposed to Italian.
While
dialect levelling
Dialect levelling or leveling (in American English) is the process of an overall reduction in the variation or diversity of features between two or more dialects. Typically, this comes about through assimilation, mixture, and merging of certain d ...
has increased the number of Italian speakers and decreased the number of speakers of other languages native to Italy, Italians in different regions have developed variations of standard Italian specific to their region. These variations of standard Italian, known as "
regional Italian
Regional Italian ( it, italiano regionale) is any regional"Regional" in the broad sense of the word; not to be confused with the Italian endonym , for Italy's administrative units. variety of the Italian language.
Such vernacular varieties and ...
", would thus more appropriately be called dialects in accordance with the first linguistic definition of the term, as they are in fact derived from Italian,
with some degree of influence from the local or regional native languages and accents.
The most widely spoken languages of Italy, which are not to be confused with regional Italian, fall within a family of which even Italian is part, the Italo-Dalmatian group. This wide category includes:
*the complex of the Tuscan and Central Italian dialects
Central Italian (Italian: ''dialetti mediani'') refers to Italo-Romance varieties spoken in the so-called ''Area Mediana'', which covers a swathe of the central Italian peninsula. ''Area Mediana'' is also used in a narrower sense to describe the ...
, such as Romanesco in Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
, with the addition of some distantly Corsican-derived varieties (Gallurese
Gallurese () is a Romance language from the Italo-Dalmatian family spoken in the region of Gallura, northeastern Sardinia. It is sometimes considered a dialect of southern Corsican or a transitional language between Corsican and Sardinian. " ...
and Sassarese
Sassarese (natively ''sassaresu'' or ''turritanu''; sc, tataresu ) is an Italo-Dalmatian language and transitional variety between Sardinian and Corsican. It is regarded as a Corso–Sardinian language because of Sassari's historic ties w ...
) spoken in Northern Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
;
*the Neapolitan group (also known as "Intermediate Meridional Italian"), which encompasses not only Naples
Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...
' and Campania
Campania (, also , , , ) is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islands and the i ...
's speech but also a variety of related neighboring varieties like the Irpinian dialect
The Irpinian dialect, or Irpino, is the dialect of Neapolitan language spoken in almost all of the comuni in the Province of Avellino in the Italian region of Campania. It differs from other varieties in certain phrases, pronunciation and the ...
, Abruzzese and Southern Marche
Marche ( , ) is one of the twenty regions of Italy. In English, the region is sometimes referred to as The Marches ( ). The region is located in the central area of the country, bordered by Emilia-Romagna and the republic of San Marino to the ...
giano, Molisan
Molisan is a group of dialects of the Neapolitan language spoken in Molise, a region of Southern Italy.
Distribution
For centuries, the area of Molise was part of the Kingdom of Naples, and later part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
It is ...
, Northern Calabrian or Cosentino, and the Bari dialect
Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy a ...
. The Cilentan dialect
The Cilentan dialect (in it, Cilentano, in Cilentan: or ) is a Neapolitan dialect spoken in the area of Cilento, located in the southern part of the Province of Salerno, Campania, Italy.
Influences
It has been influenced, especially in the ...
of Salerno
Salerno (, , ; nap, label= Salernitano, Saliernë, ) is an ancient city and ''comune'' in Campania (southwestern Italy) and is the capital of the namesake province, being the second largest city in the region by number of inhabitants, after ...
, in Campania
Campania (, also , , , ) is an administrative Regions of Italy, region of Italy; most of it is in the south-western portion of the Italian peninsula (with the Tyrrhenian Sea to its west), but it also includes the small Phlegraean Islands and the i ...
, is considered significantly influenced by the Neapolitan and the below-mentioned language groups;
*the Sicilian group (also known as "Extreme Meridional Italian"), including Salentino
Salentino () is a dialect of the Extreme Southern Italian ( in Italian) spoken in the Salento peninsula, which is the southern part of the region of Apulia at the southern "heel" of the Italian peninsula.
Overview
Salentino is a dialect of the ...
and centro-southern Calabrian.
Modern Italian is heavily based on the Florentine dialect
The Florentine dialect or vernacular ( or ) is a variety of Tuscan, a Romance language spoken in the Italian city of Florence and its immediate surroundings.
A received pedagogical variant derived from it historically, once called (literally, ...
of Tuscan. The Tuscan-based language that would eventually become modern Italian had been used in poetry and literature since at least the 12th century, and it first spread outside the Tuscan linguistic borders through the works of the so-called ''tre corone'' ("three crowns"): Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: '' ...
, Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists.
Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited w ...
, and Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so well known as a writer that he was somet ...
. Florentine thus gradually rose to prominence as the ''volgare'' of the literate
Literacy in its broadest sense describes "particular ways of thinking about and doing reading and writing" with the purpose of understanding or expressing thoughts or ideas in written form in some specific context of use. In other words, huma ...
and upper class
Upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of class society, and wield the greatest political power. According to this view, the upper class is gen ...
in Italy, and it spread throughout the peninsula and Sicily as the ''lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
'' among the Italian educated
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Vari ...
class as well as Italian travelling merchants. The economic prowess and cultural and artistic importance of Tuscany
Tuscany ( ; it, Toscana ) is a Regions of Italy, region in central Italy with an area of about and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (''Firenze'').
Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, art ...
in the Late Middle Ages
The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the Periodization, period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Eur ...
and the Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
further encouraged the diffusion of the Florentine-Tuscan Italian throughout Italy and among the educated and powerful, though local and regional languages remained the main languages of the common people.
Aside from the Italo-Dalmatian languages
The Italo-Dalmatian languages, or Central Romance languages, are a group of Romance languages spoken in Italy, Corsica (France), and formerly in Dalmatia (Croatia).
Italo-Dalmatian can be split into:Hammarström, Harald & Forkel, Robert & Hasp ...
, the second most widespread family in Italy is the Gallo-Italic group, spanning throughout much of Northern Italy
Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative regions ...
's languages and dialects (such as Piedmontese
Piedmontese (; autonym: or , in it, piemontese) is a language spoken by some 2,000,000 people mostly in Piedmont, northwestern region of Italy. Although considered by most linguists a separate language, in Italy it is often mistakenly regard ...
, Emilian-Romagnol
Emilian-Romagnol is a linguistic continuum part of the Gallo-Romance languages spoken in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna. It is divided into two main varieties: Emilian and Romagnol.
While first registered under a single code in ...
, Ligurian, Lombard, Venetian
Venetian often means from or related to:
* Venice, a city in Italy
* Veneto, a region of Italy
* Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area
Venetian and the like may also refer to:
* Venetian language, a Romance language s ...
, Sicily's and Basilicata's Gallo-Italic in southern Italy
Southern Italy ( it, Sud Italia or ) also known as ''Meridione'' or ''Mezzogiorno'' (), is a macroregion of the Italian Republic consisting of its southern half.
The term ''Mezzogiorno'' today refers to regions that are associated with the peop ...
, etc.).
Finally, other languages from a number of different families follow the last two major groups: the Gallo-Romance languages
The Gallo-Romance branch of the Romance languages includes in the narrowest sense the Langues d'oïl and Franco-Provençal. However, other definitions are far broader, variously encompassing the Occitano-Romance, Gallo-Italic, and Rhaeto-Roman ...
(French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language
Occitan (; o ...
and its Vivaro-Alpine dialect
Vivaro-Alpine ( oc, vivaroalpenc, vivaroaupenc) is a variety of Occitan spoken in southeastern France (namely, around the Dauphiné area) and northwestern Italy (the Occitan Valleys of Piedmont and Liguria). There is also a small Vivaro-Alpine e ...
, Franco-Provençal
Franco-Provençal (also Francoprovençal, Patois or Arpitan) is a language within Gallo-Romance originally spoken in east-central France, western Switzerland and northwestern Italy.
Franco-Provençal has several distinct dialects and is separ ...
); the Rhaeto-Romance languages
Rhaeto-Romance, Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, is a purported subfamily of the Romance languages that is spoken in south-eastern Switzerland and north-eastern Italy. The name "Rhaeto-Romance" refers to the former Roman province of Raetia. The questi ...
( Friulian and Ladin
Ladin may refer to:
* Ladin language, a language in northern Italy, often classified as a Rhaeto-Romance language
*Ladin people, the inhabitants of the Dolomite Alps region of northern Italy
See also
*Laden (disambiguation)
* Ladino (disambigua ...
); the Ibero-Romance languages
The Iberian Romance, Ibero-Romance or sometimes Iberian languagesIberian languages is also used as a more inclusive term for all languages spoken on the Iberian Peninsula, which in antiquity included the non-Indo-European Iberian language. are a ...
(Sardinia
Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...
's Algherese
Algherese or Alguerese (Algherese: ) is the variant of Catalan spoken in the city of Alghero ( in Catalan), in the northwest of Sardinia, Italy.
The dialect has its roots in 1372, when Catalan-speaking colonists were allowed to repopulate Al ...
); the Germanic Cimbrian
Cimbrian ( cim, zimbar, links=no, ; german: Zimbrisch; it, cimbro) refers to any of several local Upper German varieties spoken in northeastern Italy. The speakers of the language are known as ''Zimbern'' in German.
Cimbrian is a Germanic l ...
, Southern Bavarian
Southern Bavarian or South Bavarian, is a cluster of Upper German dialects of the Bavarian group. They are primarily spoken in Tyrol (i.e. the Austrian federal state of Tyrol and the Italian province of South Tyrol), in Carinthia and in the west ...
, Walser German
Walser German (german: Walserdeutsch) and Walliser German (, locally ) are a group of Highest Alemannic dialects spoken in parts of Switzerland (Valais, Ticino, Grisons), Italy (Piedmont, Aosta Valley), Liechtenstein (Triesenberg, Planken), an ...
and the Mòcheno language
Mòcheno (german: Fersentalerisch; bar, Bersntolerisch) is an Upper German variety spoken in three towns of the Bersntol (german: Fersental, it, Valle del Fersina), in Trentino, northeastern Italy.
Mòcheno is closely related to Bavarian and ...
; the Albanian
Albanian may refer to:
*Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular:
**Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans
**Albanian language
**Albanian culture
**Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...
Arbëresh language
Arbëresh (, also known as ''Arbërisht'', ''Arbreshi'', ''Arbërishtja'' or ''Tarbrisht'') is the variety of Albanian spoken by the Arbëreshë people of Italy. It is derived from the Albanian Tosk spoken in Albania, in Epirus and is also sp ...
; the Hellenic Griko language
Griko, sometimes spelled Grico, is the dialect of Italiot Greek spoken by Griko people in Salento (province of Lecce) and (also called Grecanic) in Calabria. Some Greek linguists consider it to be a Modern Greek dialect and often call it ( el, Κ ...
and Calabrian Greek
The Calabrian dialect of Greek, or [Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...](_blank)
Slavomolisano dialect
''Slavomolisano'', also known as Molise Slavic or Molise Croatian, is a variety of Shtokavian Serbo-Croatian spoken by Italian Croats in the province of Campobasso, in the Molise Region of southern Italy, in the villages of Montemitro (), Acqu ...
; and the various Slovene language
Slovene ( or ), or alternatively Slovenian (; or ), is a South Slavic languages, South Slavic language, a sub-branch that is part of the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family ...
s, including the Gail Valley dialect The Gail Valley dialect ( sl, ziljsko narečje, ''ziljščina''Logar, Tine. 1996. ''Dialektološke in jezikovnozgodovinske razprave''. Ljubljana: SAZU) is the westernmost Slovene dialect in the Carinthian dialect group, spoken in parts of southern ...
and Istrian dialect
This article uses Logar transcription.
The Istrian dialect ( , ) is a Slovene dialect spoken in Slovene Istria, as well as some settlements in Italy and Croatia. The dialect borders the Inner Carniolan dialect to the north and northeast, the So ...
. The language indigenous to Sardinia, while being Romance in nature, is considered to be a specific linguistic family of its own, separate from the other Neo-Latin groups; it is often subdivided into the Centro-Southern and Centro-Northern dialects.
Though mostly mutually unintelligible, the exact degree to which all the Italian languages are mutually unintelligible varies, often correlating with geographical distance or geographical barriers between the languages; some regional Italian languages that are closer in geographical proximity to each other or closer to each other on the dialect continuum
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 accumulat ...
are more or less mutually intelligible. For instance, a speaker of purely Eastern Lombard
Eastern Lombard is a group of closely related variants of Lombard, a Gallo-Italic dialect spoken in Lombardy, mainly in the provinces of Bergamo, Brescia and Mantua, in the area around Cremona and in parts of Trentino. Its main variants are ...
, a language in Northern Italy
Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative regions ...
's Lombardy region
Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...
that includes the Bergamasque dialect
The Bergamasque dialect is the western variant of the Eastern Lombard group of the Lombard language. It is mainly spoken in the province of Bergamo and in the area around Crema, in central Lombardy.
Bergamasque has official status in the pro ...
, would have severely limited mutual intelligibility with a purely Italian speaker and would be nearly completely unintelligible to a Sicilian-speaking individual. Due to Eastern Lombard's status as a Gallo-Italic language, an Eastern Lombard speaker may, in fact, have more mutual intelligibility with an Occitan, Catalan
Catalan may refer to:
Catalonia
From, or related to Catalonia:
* Catalan language, a Romance language
* Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia
Places
* 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...
, or French speaker than with an Italian or Sicilian speaker. Meanwhile, a Sicilian-speaking person would have a greater degree of mutual intelligibility with a speaker of the more closely related Neapolitan language, but far less mutual intelligibility with a person speaking Sicilian Gallo-Italic, a language that developed in isolated Lombard emigrant communities on the same island as the Sicilian language.
Today, the majority of Italian nationals are able to speak Italian, though many Italians still speak their regional language regularly or as their primary day-to-day language, especially at home with family or when communicating with Italians from the same town or region.
The Balkans
The classification of speech varieties as dialects or languages and their relationship to other varieties of speech can be controversial and the verdicts inconsistent. Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and ...
illustrates this point. Serbo-Croatian has two major formal variants ( Serbian and Croatian). Both are based on the ''Shtokavian
Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige dialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards. It ...
'' dialect and therefore mutually intelligible with differences found mostly in their respective local vocabularies and minor grammatical differences. Certain dialects of Serbia (''Torlakian
Torlakian, or Torlak is a group of South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia, Kosovo, northeastern North Macedonia, and northwestern Bulgaria. Torlakian, together with Bulgarian and Macedonian, falls into the Balkan Slavic linguistic ar ...
'') and Croatia (''Kajkavian
Kajkavian (Kajkavian noun: ''kajkavščina''; Shtokavian adjective: ''kajkavski'' , noun: ''kajkavica'' or ''kajkavština'' ) is a South Slavic regiolect or language spoken primarily by Croats in much of Central Croatia, Gorski Kotar and nort ...
'' and ''Chakavian
Chakavian or Čakavian (, , , sh-Latn, čakavski proper name: or own name: ''čokovski, čakavski, čekavski'') is a South Slavic regiolect or language spoken primarily by Croats along the Adriatic coast, in the historical regions of Dalmat ...
''), however, are not mutually intelligible even though they are usually subsumed under Serbo-Croatian. How these dialects should be classified in relation to Shtokavian remains a matter of dispute.
Macedonian
Macedonian most often refers to someone or something from or related to Macedonia.
Macedonian(s) may specifically refer to:
People Modern
* Macedonians (ethnic group), a nation and a South Slavic ethnic group primarily associated with North M ...
, although largely mutually intelligible with Bulgarian
Bulgarian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria
* Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group
* Bulgarian language, a Slavic language
* Bulgarian alphabet
* A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria
* Bul ...
and certain dialects of Serbo-Croatian (Torlakian
Torlakian, or Torlak is a group of South Slavic dialects of southeastern Serbia, Kosovo, northeastern North Macedonia, and northwestern Bulgaria. Torlakian, together with Bulgarian and Macedonian, falls into the Balkan Slavic linguistic ar ...
), is considered by Bulgarian linguists to be a Bulgarian dialect, in contrast with the view in North Macedonia
North Macedonia, ; sq, Maqedonia e Veriut, (Macedonia before February 2019), officially the Republic of North Macedonia,, is a country in Southeast Europe. It gained independence in 1991 as one of the successor states of Socialist Feder ...
, which regards it as a language in its own right. Before the establishment of a literary standard of Macedonian in 1944, in most sources in and out of Bulgaria before the Second World War, the South Slavic dialect continuum covering the area of today's North Macedonia were referred to as Bulgarian dialects
Bulgarian dialects are the regional varieties of the Bulgarian language, a South Slavic language. Bulgarian dialectology dates to the 1830s and the pioneering work of Neofit Rilski, ''Bolgarska gramatika'' (published 1835 in ...
. Sociolinguists agree that the question of whether Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian or a language is a political one and cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis.
Lebanon
In Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
, a part of the Christian population considers "Lebanese" to be in some sense a distinct language from Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and not merely a dialect thereof. During the civil war
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, Christians often used Lebanese Arabic officially, and sporadically used the Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
to write Lebanese, thus further distinguishing it from Arabic. All Lebanese laws are written in the standard literary form of Arabic, though parliamentary debate may be conducted in Lebanese Arabic.
North Africa
In Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, the Darija
Maghrebi Arabic (, Western Arabic; as opposed to Eastern or Mashriqi Arabic) is a vernacular Arabic dialect continuum spoken in the Maghreb region, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Western Sahara, and Mauritania. It includes Moroccan, Alge ...
s (spoken North African languages) are sometimes considered more different from other Arabic dialects. Officially, North African countries prefer to give preference to the Literary Arabic
Literary Arabic (Arabic: ' ) may refer to:
* Classical Arabic
* Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Modern Written Arabic (MWA), terms used mostly by linguists, is the variety of Standard language, standardized, Literary ...
and conduct much of their political and religious life in it (adherence to Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
), and refrain from declaring each country's specific variety to be a separate language, because Literary Arabic is the liturgical language
A sacred language, holy language or liturgical language is any language that is cultivated and used primarily in church service or for other religious reasons by people who speak another, primary language in their daily lives.
Concept
A sacre ...
of Islam and the language of the Islamic sacred book, the Qur'an
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...
. Although, especially since the 1960s, the Darijas are occupying an increasing use and influence in the cultural life of these countries. Examples of cultural elements where Darijas' use became dominant include: theatre, film, music, television, advertisement, social media, folk-tale books and companies' names.
Ukraine
The Modern Ukrainian language
Ukrainian ( uk, украї́нська мо́ва, translit=ukrainska mova, label=native name, ) is an East Slavic language of the Indo-European language family. It is the native language of about 40 million people and the official state langu ...
has been in common use since the late 17th century, associated with the establishment of the Cossack Hetmanate
The Cossack Hetmanate ( uk, Гетьманщина, Hetmanshchyna; or ''Cossack state''), officially the Zaporizhian Host or Army of Zaporizhia ( uk, Військо Запорозьке, Viisko Zaporozke, links=no; la, Exercitus Zaporoviensis) ...
. In the 19th century, the Tsar
Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...
ist Government of the Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
claimed that Ukrainian
Ukrainian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Ukraine
* Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe
* Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine
* So ...
(or Little Russian, per official name) was merely a dialect of Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
(or Polonized dialect) and not a language on its own (same concept as for Belarusian language
Belarusian ( be, беларуская мова, biełaruskaja mova, link=no, ) is an East Slavic language. It is the native language of many Belarusians and one of the two official state languages in Belarus. Additionally, it is spoken in some p ...
). That concepted was enrooted soon after the partitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...
. According to these claims, the differences were few and caused by the conquest of western Ukraine by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, in reality the dialects in Ukraine were developing independently from the dialects in the modern Russia for several centuries, and as a result they differed substantially.
Following the Spring of Nations
The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europea ...
in Europe and efforts of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius
The Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius ( uk, Кирило-Мефодіївське братство, russian: Кирилло-Мефодиевское братство) was a short-lived secret political society that existed in Kiev (now Kyi ...
, across the so called "Southwestern Krai" of Russian Empire started to spread cultural societies of Hromada
A hromada ( uk, територіальна громада, lit=territorial community, translit=terytorialna hromada) is a basic unit of administrative division in Ukraine, similar to a municipality. It was established by the Government of Ukra ...
and their Sunday schools. Themselves "hromadas" acted in same manner as Orthodox fraternities of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth back in 15th century. Around that time in Ukraine becoming popular political movements Narodnichestvo (Narodniks
The Narodniks (russian: народники, ) were a politically conscious movement of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, ...
) and Khlopomanstvo.
Moldova
There have been cases of a variety of speech being deliberately reclassified to serve political purposes. One example is Moldovan. In 1996, the Moldovan parliament, citing fears of "Romanian expansionism", rejected a proposal from President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Mircea Snegur
Mircea Snegur (; born 17 January 1940) is a Moldovan politician who was served as first President of Moldova from 1990–1997. Before that, he served as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet 1989–1990 (head of state) and Chairman ...
to change the name of the language to Romanian, and in 2003 a Moldovan–Romanian dictionary was published, purporting to show that the two countries speak different languages. Linguists of the Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy ( ro, Academia Română ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life.
According to its byl ...
reacted by declaring that all the Moldovan words were also Romanian words; while in Moldova, the head of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova
The Academy of Sciences of Moldova ( ro, Academia de Științe a Moldovei), established in 1961, is the main scientific organization of Moldova and coordinates research in all areas of science and technology. Ion Tighineanu has been the head of t ...
, Ion Bărbuţă, described the dictionary as a politically motivated "absurdity".
Greater China
Unlike languages that use alphabets to indicate their pronunciation, Chinese characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as ''kanji' ...
have developed from logograms
In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...
that do not always give hints to their pronunciation. Although the written characters have remained relatively consistent for the last two thousand years, the pronunciation and grammar in different regions have developed to an extent that the varieties of the spoken language are often mutually unintelligible. As a series of migration to the south throughout the history, the regional languages of the south, including Gan
The word Gan or the initials GAN may refer to:
Places
*Gan, a component of Hebrew placenames literally meaning "garden"
China
* Gan River (Jiangxi)
* Gan River (Inner Mongolia),
* Gan County, in Jiangxi province
* Gansu, abbreviated ''Gā ...
, Xiang, Wu, Min
Min or MIN may refer to:
Places
* Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China
** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian
* Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China
* Min River (Fujian)
* Min River (Sichuan)
* Mineola (Amtrak ...
, Yue and Hakka
The Hakka (), sometimes also referred to as Hakka Han, or Hakka Chinese, or Hakkas are a Han Chinese subgroup whose ancestral homes are chiefly in the Hakka-speaking provincial areas of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan, Zhej ...
often show traces of Old Chinese
Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...
or Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese (formerly known as Ancient Chinese) or the Qieyun system (QYS) is the historical variety of Chinese recorded in the '' Qieyun'', a rime dictionary first published in 601 and followed by several revised and expanded editions. The ...
. From the Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
onward, Beijing has been the capital of China and the dialect spoken in Beijing has had the most prestige among other varieties. With the founding of the Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
, Standard Mandarin
Standard Chinese ()—in linguistics Standard Northern Mandarin or Standard Beijing Mandarin, in common speech simply Mandarin, better qualified as Standard Mandarin, Modern Standard Mandarin or Standard Mandarin Chinese—is a modern standar ...
was designated as the official language, based on the spoken language of Beijing. Since then, other spoken varieties are regarded as ''fangyan'' (regional speech). Cantonese
Cantonese ( zh, t=廣東話, s=广东话, first=t, cy=Gwóngdūng wá) is a language within the Chinese (Sinitic) branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages originating from the city of Guangzhou (historically known as Canton) and its surrounding are ...
is still the most commonly-used language in Guangzhou
Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
, Macau
Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...
and among some overseas Chinese communities, whereas Hokkien
The Hokkien () variety of Chinese is a Southern Min language native to and originating from the Minnan region, where it is widely spoken in the south-eastern part of Fujian in southeastern mainland China. It is one of the national languages in ...
has been accepted in Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...
as an important local language alongside Mandarin
Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to:
Language
* Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country
** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China
** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...
.
Interlingua
Interlingua
Interlingua (; ISO 639 language codes ia, ina) is an international auxiliary language (IAL) developed between 1937 and 1951 by the American International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA). It ranks among the most widely used IALs and is t ...
was developed so that the languages of Western civilization would act as its dialects.[ Morris, Alice Vanderbilt]
General report
. New York: International Auxiliary Language Association, 1945. Drawing from such concepts as the international scientific vocabulary
International scientific vocabulary (ISV) comprises scientific and specialized words whose language of origin may or may not be certain, but which are in current use in several modern languages (that is, translingually, whether in naturalized, loa ...
and Standard Average European
Standard Average European (SAE) is a concept introduced in 1939 by American linguist Benjamin Whorf to group the modern Indo-European languages of Europe with shared common features. Whorf argued that the SAE languages were characterized by a numb ...
, researchers at the International Auxiliary Language Association
The International Auxiliary Language Association, Inc. (IALA) was an American organisation founded in 1924 to "promote widespread study, discussion and publicity of all questions involved in the establishment of an auxiliary language, together wi ...
extracted words and affixes to be part of Interlingua's vocabulary.[ Gode, Alexander, '' Interlingua-English Dictionary''. New York: Storm Publishers, 1951.] In theory, speakers of the Western languages would understand written or spoken Interlingua immediately, without prior study, since their own languages were its dialects. Interlingua could be used to assist in the learning of other languages.[Gopsill, F. P., ''International languages: A matter for Interlingua''. Sheffield: British Interlingua Society, 1990. "In one study, Swedish high school students learning Interlingua were able to translate passages from Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian that students of those languages found too difficult to understand."] The vocabulary of Interlingua extends beyond the Western language families.
Selected list of articles on dialects
*Varieties of Arabic
The varieties (or dialects or vernacular languages) of Arabic, a Semitic language within the Afroasiatic family originating in the Arabian Peninsula, are the linguistic systems that Arabic speakers speak natively. There are considerable variati ...
*Bengali dialects
The dialects of the Bengali language are part of the Eastern Indo-Aryan language group of the Indo-European language family widely spoken in the Bengal region of South Asia. The spoken dialects of Bengali are mutually intelligible with neighbo ...
*Catalan dialects
The Catalan dialects feature a relative uniformity, especially when compared to other Romance languages; both in terms of vocabulary, semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology. Mutual intelligibility between its dialects is very high, estima ...
*Varieties of Chinese
Chinese, also known as Sinitic, is a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family consisting of hundreds of local varieties, many of which are not mutually intelligible. Variation is particularly strong in the more mountainous southeast of main ...
*Cypriot Greek
Cypriot Greek ( el, κυπριακή ελληνική or ) is the Varieties of Modern Greek, variety of Modern Greek that is spoken by the majority of the Cyprus, Cypriot populace and Greek Cypriot diaspora. It is considered a divergent dialect ...
*Cypriot Turkish
Cypriot Turkish (''Kıbrıs Türkçesi'') is a dialect of the Turkish language spoken by Turkish Cypriots both in Cyprus and among its diaspora.
History
Emanating from Anatolia and evolved for four centuries, Cypriot Turkish is the vernacular s ...
*Danish dialects
The Danish language has a number of regional and local dialect varieties. These can be divided into the traditional dialects, which differ from modern Standard Danish in both phonology and grammar, and the Danish accents, which are local varieties ...
*Dutch dialects
Dutch dialects are primarily the dialects that are both cognate with the Dutch language and are spoken in the same language area as the Dutch standard language. Dutch dialects are remarkably diverse and are found in the Netherlands and Flanders, ...
*English dialects
Dialects are linguistic varieties that may differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling and grammar. For the classification of varieties of English only in terms of pronunciation, see regional accents of English.
Overview
Dialects can be defi ...
*Finnish dialects
Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish). ...
*Varieties of French
Varieties of the French language are spoken in France and around the world. The Francophones of France generally use Metropolitan French (spoken in Paris and considered standard) although some also use regional dialects or varieties such as M ...
*Georgian dialects Georgian (ქართული ''kartuli'') is a Kartvelian language spoken by about 4 million people, primarily in Georgia but also by indigenous communities in northern Turkey and Azerbaijan, and the diaspora, such as in Russia, Turkey, Iran, Eur ...
*German dialects
German dialects are the various traditional local varieties of the German language. Though varied by region, those of the southern half of Germany beneath the Benrath line are dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant ...
*Malayalam languages
The Malayalam languages are the
group of Dravidian languages most closely related to Malayalam. In addition to Malayalam itself, they are:
*Paniya, Ravula, Beary, Aranadan, Judeo-Malayalam, Arabi Malayalam, Suriyani Malayalam, Kadar, Malapanda ...
*Varieties of Malay
The Malayic languages are a branch of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, Malayo-Polynesian subgroup of the Austronesian languages, Austronesian language family. The most prominent member is Malay language, Malay, which is the national language of B ...
*Connacht Irish
Connacht Irish () is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Connacht. Gaeltacht regions in Connacht are found in Counties Mayo (notably Tourmakeady, Achill Island and Erris) and Galway (notably in parts of Connemara and on ...
, Munster Irish
Munster Irish () is the dialect of the Irish language spoken in the province of Munster. Gaeltacht regions in Munster are found in the Gaeltachtaí of the Dingle Peninsula in west County Kerry, in the Iveragh Peninsula in south Kerry, in Cape ...
, Ulster Irish
Ulster Irish ( ga, Gaeilig Uladh, IPA=, IPA ga=ˈɡeːlʲɪc ˌʊlˠuː) is the variety of Irish spoken in the province of Ulster. It "occupies a central position in the Gaelic world made up of Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man". Ulster Iri ...
* Italian dialects
*Japanese dialects
The dialects of the Japanese language fall into two primary clades, Eastern (including Tokyo) and Western (including Kyoto), with the dialects of Kyushu and Hachijō Island often distinguished as additional branches, the latter perhaps the most di ...
*Korean dialects
A number of Korean dialects are spoken on the Korean Peninsula. The peninsula is very mountainous and each dialect's "territory" corresponds closely to the natural boundaries between different geographical regions of Korea. Most of the dialects ...
*Norwegian dialects
Norwegian dialects (''dialekter'') are commonly divided into four main groups, 'Northern Norwegian' (), 'Central Norwegian' (''trøndersk''), 'Western Norwegian' (''vestlandsk''), and 'Eastern Norwegian' (). Sometimes 'Midland Norwegian' () and/ ...
*Nguni languages
The Nguni languages are a group of closely related Bantu languages spoken in southern Africa by the Nguni peoples. Nguni languages include Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele (sometimes referred to as "Northern Ndebele"), and Swazi. The appellation "Nguni" d ...
*Dialects of Polish
Polish dialects are regional vernacular varieties of the Polish language.
Four major dialect groups are typically recognized, each primarily associated with a particular geographical region, and often further subdivided into subdialectal groups ...
*Portuguese dialects
Portuguese dialects are the mutually intelligible variations of the Portuguese language over Portuguese-speaking countries and other areas holding some degree of cultural bound with the language. Portuguese has two standard forms of writing and ...
*Romanian dialects The Romanian dialects ( ro, subdialecte or ) are the several regional varieties of the Romanian language (Daco-Romanian). The dialects are divided into two types, northern and southern, but further subdivisions are less clear, so the number of diale ...
*Russian dialects
Russian dialects are spoken variants of the Russian language.
Russian dialects and territorial varieties are divided in two conceptual chronological and geographic categories: Kamusella, Tomasz. (2018). Russian: A Monocentric or Pluricentric Lan ...
*Slavic microlanguages
Slavic microlanguages are literary linguistic varieties that exist alongside the better-known Slavic languages of historically prominent nations. Aleksandr Dulichenko coined the term "(literary) microlanguages" at the end of the 1970s; it subseq ...
*Slovenian dialects
In a purely Dialectology, dialectological sense, Slovene dialects ( sl, slovenska narečja , ) are the regionally diverse Variety (linguistics), varieties that evolved from Alpine Slavic, old Slovene, a South Slavic languages, South Slavic langua ...
*Spanish dialects
Some of the regional varieties of the Spanish language are quite divergent from one another, especially in pronunciation and vocabulary, and less so in grammar.
While all Spanish dialects adhere to approximately the same written standard, ...
*Swedish dialects
Swedish dialects are the various forms of the Swedish language, particularly those that differ considerably from Standard Swedish.
Traditional dialects
The linguistic definition of a Swedish traditional dialect, in the literature merely called ' ...
*Sri Lankan Tamil dialects
The Sri Lankan Tamil dialects or Ceylon Tamil or commonly in Tamil language Eelam Tamil () are a group of Tamil dialects used in Sri Lanka by its native Tamil people and Eastern Moors, and Coast Veddas that is distinct from the dialects of Tamil s ...
*Yiddish dialects
Yiddish dialects are variants of the Yiddish language and are divided according to the region in Europe where each developed its distinctiveness. Linguistically, Yiddish is divided in distinct Eastern and Western dialects. While the Western diale ...
See also
*Accent perception Accents are the distinctive variations in the pronunciation of a language. They can be native or foreign, local or national and can provide information about a person’s geographical locality, socio-economic status and ethnicity. The perception o ...
*Chronolect In linguistics, a chronolect or temporal dialect is a specific speech variety whose characteristics are in particular determined by time-related factors. As such, it can be contrasted with a sociolect, an ethnolect or a geolect. In historical ling ...
*Colloquialism
Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the style (sociolinguistics), linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom norm ...
*Creole language
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...
*Dialect levelling
Dialect levelling or leveling (in American English) is the process of an overall reduction in the variation or diversity of features between two or more dialects. Typically, this comes about through assimilation, mixture, and merging of certain d ...
*Dialectology Dialectology (from Greek , ''dialektos'', "talk, dialect"; and , ''-logia'') is the scientific study of linguistic dialect, a sub-field of sociolinguistics. It studies variations in language based primarily on geographic distribution and their assoc ...
*Dialectometry
Dialectometry is the quantitative and computational branch of dialectology, the study of dialect. This sub-field of linguistics studies language variation using the methods of statistics; it arose in the 1970s and 80s as a result of seminal work b ...
*Ethnolect
An ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that mark speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. According to another definition, an ethnolect is any speech variety (language, diale ...
* Eye dialect
*Idiolect
Idiolect is an individual's unique use of language, including speech. This unique usage encompasses vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. This differs from a dialect, a common set of linguistic characteristics shared among a group of people.
Th ...
*Isogloss
An isogloss, also called a heterogloss (see Etymology below), is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Major d ...
*Koiné language
In linguistics, a koiné language, koiné dialect, or simply koiné (Ancient Greek κοινή, "common anguage) is a standard or common language or dialect that has arisen as a result of the contact, mixing, and often simplification of two or ...
*Register (sociolinguistics)
In sociolinguistics, a register is a variety of language used for a particular purpose or in a particular communicative situation. For example, when speaking officially or in a public setting, an English speaker may be more likely to follow pres ...
*Literary language
A literary language is the form (register) of a language used in written literature, which can be either a nonstandard dialect or a standardized variety of the language. Literary language sometimes is noticeably different from the spoken langu ...
*Nation language "Nation language" is the term coined by scholar and poet Kamau Brathwaite McArthur, Tom,"Nation language" ''Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language'', 1998. and now commonly preferred to describe the work of writers from the Caribbean and ...
*Regional language
*
A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area.
Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan ...
*Sprachbund
A sprachbund (, lit. "language federation"), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The lang ...
References
External links
Sounds Familiar?
– Listen to regional accents and dialects of the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
International Dialects of English Archive Since 1997
thedialectdictionary.com
– Compilation of Dialects from around the globe
*
{{Authority control
Language
Language varieties and styles
Lexicology
Linguistics terminology