menu

search Login
keyboard_arrow_down
dialect
keyboard_arrow_down
Table of Contents

Home keyboard_arrow_right Geography & Travel keyboard_arrow_right Languages

dialect
linguistics
Alternate titles: patois

verified Cite
more_vert More

By
David Crystal
| See All
•
Edit History

boltFAST FACTS
•
2-Min Summary

dialect, a variety of a language that signals where a person comes from. The
notion is usually interpreted geographically (regional dialect), but it also has
some application in relation to a person’s social background (class dialect) or
occupation (occupational dialect). The word dialect comes from the Ancient
Greek dialektos “discourse, language, dialect,” which is derived from
dialegesthai “to discourse, talk.” A dialect is chiefly distinguished from other
dialects of the same language by features of linguistic structure—i.e.,
grammar (specifically morphology and syntax) and vocabulary. In
morphology (word formation), various dialects in the Atlantic states have
clim, clum, clome, or cloome instead of climbed, and, in syntax (sentence
structure), there are “sick to his stomach,” “sick at his stomach,” “sick in,”
“sick on,” and “sick with.” On the level of vocabulary, examples of dialectal
differences include American English subway, contrasting with British
English underground; and corn, which means “maize” in the United States,
Canada, and Australia, “wheat” in England, and “oats” in Scotland.
Nevertheless, while dialects of the same language differ, they still possess a
common core of features.
 zoom_in

Germanic languages in Europe

See all media

Key People:
William Barnes •
Biagio Marin •
Sir George Abraham Grierson •
Hermann Collitz •
Ivar
Aasen

Related Topics:
diglossia •
geographic dialect •
standard language •
social dialect •
archaism

See all related content →

Although some linguists include phonological features (such as vowels,

consonants, and intonation) among the dimensions of dialect, the standard
practice is to treat such features as aspects of accent. In the sound system of
American English, for example, some speakers pronounce greasy with an “s”
sound, while others pronounce it with a “z” sound. Accent differences of this
kind are extremely important as regional and class indicators in every
language. Their role is well recognized in Great Britain, for example, where
the prestige accent, called Received Pronunciation, is used as an educated
standard and differences in regional accent both rural and urban are
standard and differences in regional accent, both rural and urban, are

frequent. There is far less accent variation in Canada, Australia, and large
parts of the United States.

BRITANNICA QUIZ
Word Nerd Quiz
If you live for word associations, derivations, and definitions then you’re going to love this quiz!

Frequently, the label dialect, or dialectal, is attached to substandard speech,

language usage that deviates from the accepted norm—e.g., the speech of
many of the heroes of Mark Twain’s novels. On the other hand, the standard
language can also be regarded as one of the dialects of a given language,
though one that has attracted special prestige. In a historical sense, the term
dialect is sometimes applied to a language considered as one of a group
deriving from a common ancestor. Thus, English, Swedish, and German are
sometimes treated as Germanic dialects.

There is often considerable difficulty in deciding whether two linguistic

varieties are dialects of the same language or two separate but closely
related languages; this is especially true in parts of the world where speech
communities have been little studied. In these cases especially, decisions
regarding dialects versus languages must be to some extent arbitrary.

Normally, dialects of the same language are considered to be mutually

intelligible, while different languages are not. Intelligibility between dialects
is, however, almost never absolutely complete. On the other hand, speakers
of closely related languages can still communicate to a certain extent when
each uses his own mother tongue. Thus, the criterion of intelligibility is quite
relative. In more-developed societies the distinction between dialects and
related languages is easier to make because of the existence of standard
languages.
Sometimes sociopolitical factors play a role in drawing the distinction
between dialect and language. Linguistic varieties that are considered
dialects in one set of historical circumstances may be considered languages
in another. Before the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans in the 1990s, Serbo-
Croatian was viewed by its speakers as a single language consisting of
several dialects, spoken in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia;
afterward, local communities began to talk of Croatian and Serbian as
distinct languages.

Among the synonyms for dialect, the word idiom refers to any kind of
dialect, or even language, whereas patois, a term from French, denotes rural
or provincial dialects, often with a deprecatory connotation. A similar term
is vernacular, which refers to the common, everyday speech of the ordinary
people of a region. An idiolect is the dialect of an individual person at one
time. This term implies an awareness that no two persons speak in exactly
the same way and that each person’s dialect is constantly undergoing change
—e.g., by the introduction of newly acquired words. Most recent
investigations emphasize the versatility of each person’s speech habits
according to levels or styles of language usage.

Varieties of dialects
Geographic dialects

The most widespread type of dialectal differentiation is regional, or

geographic. As a rule, the speech of one locality differs at least slightly from
that of any other place. Differences between neighbouring local dialects are
usually small, but, in traveling farther in the same direction, differences
accumulate. Every dialectal feature has its own boundary line, called an
isogloss (or sometimes heterogloss). Isoglosses of various linguistic
phenomena rarely coincide completely, and by crossing and interweaving
they constitute intricate patterns on dialect maps. Frequently, however,
several isoglosses are grouped approximately together into a bundle of
isoglosses. This grouping is caused either by geographic obstacles that arrest
the diffusion of a number of innovations along the same line or by historical
circumstances, such as political borders of long standing, or by migrations
that have brought into contact two populations whose dialects were
 g p p
developed in noncontiguous areas.

Geographic dialects include local ones (e.g., the Yankee English of Cape Cod
or of Boston, the Russian of Moscow or of Smolensk) or broader regional
ones, such as Delaware Valley English, Australian English, or Tuscan Italian.
Such entities are of unequal rank; South Carolina English, for instance, is
included in Southern American English. Regional dialects do have some
internal variation, but the differences within a regional dialect are
supposedly smaller than differences between two regional dialects of the
same rank. In a number of areas (“linguistic landscapes”) where the dialectal
differentiation is essentially even, it is hardly justified to speak of regional
dialects. This uniformity has led many linguists to deny the meaningfulness
of such a notion altogether; very frequently, however, bundles of isoglosses
—or even a single isogloss of major importance—permit the division of a
territory into regional dialects. The public is often aware of such divisions,
usually associating them with names of geographic regions or provinces or
with some feature of pronunciation—e.g., Southern English or Russian o-
dialects and a-dialects. Especially clear-cut cases of division are those in
which geographic isolation has played the principal role—e.g., Australian
English or Louisiana French.

keyboard_arrow_down
Load Next Page