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View Poll Results: Would the world be better or worse if all people spoke the same language?
Better 19 26.03%
Worse 54 73.97%
Voters: 73. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 05-15-2015, 07:05 PM
 
338 posts, read 333,035 times
Reputation: 162

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Quote:
Originally Posted by xander.XVII View Post
If I go 70km southwards I find an Italian spoken in a different accent, with different verbs, words and constructions and even different pronunciations.
Now find me how on Earth there's such a gap between two English varieties.
Italy alone has probably more dialects and regional variations than the whole Anglophone world combined.
There are but they are either endangered or extinct:
Forth and Bargy dialect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFl9ptuxd8s (hear it in this vid)
Yerstey w'had a baree, gist ing oor hoane,
Aar gentrize ware bibbern, aamzil cou no stoane.
Yith Muzleare had ba hole, t'was mee Tommeen,
At by mizluck was ee-pit t'drive in.

Joud an moud vrem earchee ete was ee Lough.
Zitch vaperreen, an shimmereen, fan ee-daf ee aar scoth!
Zitch blakeen, an blayeen, fan ee ball was ee-drowe!
Chote well aar aim was t'yie ouz n'eer a blowe."

"Yesterday we had a goal, just in our hand.
Their gentry were quaking, themselves could not stand.
If Good-for-little had been buried, it had been my Tommy,
Who by misluck was placed to drive in.

Throngs and crowds from each quarter were at the Lough;
Such vapouring, and shimmering, when stript in their shirts!
Such bawling, and shouting, when the ball was thrown!
I saw their aim was to give us ne'er a stroke."

I showed this and a video from youtube to a guy who spoke Spanish natively and he told me it's as distant from English as Portuguese is from Spanish, so whether it is a language or dialect is disputable. The video makes the mistake of adding the great vowel shift which modern English had, so something like "meat" is supposed to be pronounced like "met" and "drive" is "dreeve" only showing the distance.
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Old 05-16-2015, 04:27 AM
 
Location: near Turin (Italy)
1,377 posts, read 1,431,695 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by xander.XVII View Post
Dialects do NOT exist from a linguistic point of view, it's just a political construct with no real linguistic meaning.
American English is an accent or a variety of "British" English, but it's not more different than Liverpool English (which sounds way different).
Plus, my dialect is part of the Venetian family, yet hardly a Venetian can understand it.
In my areas a lot of villages have their own "patois" (*). They are all classified as Franco-Provençal language, but in practice it differ so much even between neighbor villages that it's nearly impossible to speak it outside your own village. For example my grandparents were born in two different villages (two really near villages, just half an hour by foot), but they never managed to speak patois between them because they knew two different patois.

(*) I don't know why, but here we call the local Franco-Provençal languages "patois", while we call "dialetto"= dialect the regional language, the Piedmontese language. To complicate even more the situation, some of our neighbor villages speak patois that are classified as Occitan. In practice my valley it's a linguistic mess!
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Old 05-16-2015, 05:52 AM
 
Location: Polderland
1,072 posts, read 1,248,828 times
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The world would be so boring....

When we go on holidays, we always say when driving to our destination "the holliday starts as soon as we don't hear our own language anymore". I'd like it to stay that way.
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Old 05-16-2015, 06:19 AM
 
692 posts, read 951,663 times
Reputation: 941
Quote:
Originally Posted by xander.XVII View Post
Dialects do NOT exist from a linguistic point of view, it's just a political construct with no real linguistic meaning.
American English is an accent or a variety of "British" English, but it's not more different than Liverpool English (which sounds way different).
Plus, my dialect is part of the Venetian family, yet hardly a Venetian can understand it.
This is false. Dialects DO exist from a linguistic point of view, I don't know where you heard that nonsense from.

What is unclear is where exactly a dialect begins and a language ends. Dialect continuums, isoglosses delineating where varieties of a language are spoken, prestige dialects, etc. are all fundamental components of modern linguistics and anyone who told you otherwise has no idea what they're talking about.

As for American English being an accent or variety of British English, this is false. American English has developed separately from British English for the last 4 centuries and has developed its own regional accents and dialects (New England English, Southern American English, African American English, etc) so to say otherwise is quite frankly, ridiculous and ignorant.
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Old 05-16-2015, 07:34 AM
 
1,603 posts, read 1,876,069 times
Reputation: 2065
Quote:
Originally Posted by lexdiamondz1902 View Post
This is false. Dialects DO exist from a linguistic point of view, I don't know where you heard that nonsense from.

What is unclear is where exactly a dialect begins and a language ends. Dialect continuums, isoglosses delineating where varieties of a language are spoken, prestige dialects, etc. are all fundamental components of modern linguistics and anyone who told you otherwise has no idea what they're talking about.

As for American English being an accent or variety of British English, this is false. American English has developed separately from British English for the last 4 centuries and has developed its own regional accents and dialects (New England English, Southern American English, African American English, etc) so to say otherwise is quite frankly, ridiculous and ignorant.
The definition of dialect as you gave is a definition used only in the Anglo-Saxon world, that is "a variation of a national language, of a system or of a linguistic and geographic continuum, a variation which shares the same structural features of the starting language"
In other words, in your definition a "dialect" is practically a mutually intelligible but different (only in minor grammatical features and pronunciation), for every European linguist your definition suits the definition of "accent".
Most European linguist define dialect as "an autonomous linguistic system in respect to the national language, with different structural features and a diverse history, but lacking any political relevance or prestige in the literary use"
American English might have developed separately from British English for 4 centuries but any English speakers (me included) can understand what you say or write, even though I have never set foot on the American continent.
What's then the distinction between an accent and a dialect? How different is Southern American English from RP?
I mean, do you say, "This is my dog" in a grammatically different way than a Briton?
Technically, according to your definition I speak Italian with a Northern accent and I also speak the dialect of my region, am I bilingual then?
In my opinion (and in that of all linguists I know), a dialect needs many different grammar structures to be at least considered a language, this is something AE largely lacks.
To give you an example, AE generally uses no agreement between collective noun and the verb (hence in AE it's "the team is" and in BE it's "the team are"), the same applies to the accents of Italian: Northerners, for example, tend to use a lot the imperfect tense (Io parlavo) whereas Southerners generally use remote past (Io parlai).
Yet, it's not that there's a "Southern Italian" and a "Northern Italian", there are different regional accents with enormous variation, but they are not considered dialects.
If we follow your definition Italy would have a dialect for almost every single town.
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Old 05-16-2015, 11:10 AM
 
338 posts, read 333,035 times
Reputation: 162
Quote:
Originally Posted by xander.XVII View Post
The definition of dialect as you gave is a definition used only in the Anglo-Saxon world, that is "a variation of a national language, of a system or of a linguistic and geographic continuum, a variation which shares the same structural features of the starting language"
In other words, in your definition a "dialect" is practically a mutually intelligible but different (only in minor grammatical features and pronunciation), for every European linguist your definition suits the definition of "accent".
Most European linguist define dialect as "an autonomous linguistic system in respect to the national language, with different structural features and a diverse history, but lacking any political relevance or prestige in the literary use"
American English might have developed separately from British English for 4 centuries but any English speakers (me included) can understand what you say or write, even though I have never set foot on the American continent.
What's then the distinction between an accent and a dialect? How different is Southern American English from RP?
I mean, do you say, "This is my dog" in a grammatically different way than a Briton?
Technically, according to your definition I speak Italian with a Northern accent and I also speak the dialect of my region, am I bilingual then?
In my opinion (and in that of all linguists I know), a dialect needs many different grammar structures to be at least considered a language, this is something AE largely lacks.
To give you an example, AE generally uses no agreement between collective noun and the verb (hence in AE it's "the team is" and in BE it's "the team are"), the same applies to the accents of Italian: Northerners, for example, tend to use a lot the imperfect tense (Io parlavo) whereas Southerners generally use remote past (Io parlai).
Yet, it's not that there's a "Southern Italian" and a "Northern Italian", there are different regional accents with enormous variation, but they are not considered dialects.
If we follow your definition Italy would have a dialect for almost every single town.
I never said American English was a dialect at all, just that dialects do exist but in the UK only and they are seldom spoken or extinct like the one I showed, although it can be argued it is a separate language. Another divergent dialect was the Dorset dialect which went extinct in the late 19th century, it was possibly the last dialect to have fully functioning grammatical gender in English, and there are some northern varieties still around today such as in the shetlands with grammatical gender for some objects such as a spade, weather, and the sun being masculine, and the moon and a church being feminine, a few more dozen words have gender, nevertheless they had far more inanimate nouns with gender in the past than now and I wouldn't be surprised if it goes extinct.

Last edited by Mahhammer; 05-16-2015 at 11:21 AM..
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Old 05-16-2015, 11:43 AM
 
692 posts, read 951,663 times
Reputation: 941
Quote:
Originally Posted by xander.XVII View Post
The definition of dialect as you gave is a definition used only in the Anglo-Saxon world, that is "a variation of a national language, of a system or of a linguistic and geographic continuum, a variation which shares the same structural features of the starting language"
In other words, in your definition a "dialect" is practically a mutually intelligible but different (only in minor grammatical features and pronunciation), for every European linguist your definition suits the definition of "accent".
Most European linguist define dialect as "an autonomous linguistic system in respect to the national language, with different structural features and a diverse history, but lacking any political relevance or prestige in the literary use"
American English might have developed separately from British English for 4 centuries but any English speakers (me included) can understand what you say or write, even though I have never set foot on the American continent.
What's then the distinction between an accent and a dialect? How different is Southern American English from RP?
I mean, do you say, "This is my dog" in a grammatically different way than a Briton?
Technically, according to your definition I speak Italian with a Northern accent and I also speak the dialect of my region, am I bilingual then?
In my opinion (and in that of all linguists I know), a dialect needs many different grammar structures to be at least considered a language, this is something AE largely lacks.
To give you an example, AE generally uses no agreement between collective noun and the verb (hence in AE it's "the team is" and in BE it's "the team are"), the same applies to the accents of Italian: Northerners, for example, tend to use a lot the imperfect tense (Io parlavo) whereas Southerners generally use remote past (Io parlai).
Yet, it's not that there's a "Southern Italian" and a "Northern Italian", there are different regional accents with enormous variation, but they are not considered dialects.
If we follow your definition Italy would have a dialect for almost every single town.
So first dialects aren't real, and now dialects only exist to anglo-saxons?

Also, you're making a huge assumption saying that I'm speaking from an Anglo-Saxon perspective when I'm not an Anglo.
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Old 05-16-2015, 12:29 PM
 
1,603 posts, read 1,876,069 times
Reputation: 2065
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mahhammer View Post
I never said American English was a dialect at all, just that dialects do exist but in the UK only and they are seldom spoken or extinct like the one I showed, although it can be argued it is a separate language. Another divergent dialect was the Dorset dialect which went extinct in the late 19th century, it was possibly the last dialect to have fully functioning grammatical gender in English, and there are some northern varieties still around today such as in the shetlands with grammatical gender for some objects such as a spade, weather, and the sun being masculine, and the moon and a church being feminine, a few more dozen words have gender, nevertheless they had far more inanimate nouns with gender in the past than now and I wouldn't be surprised if it goes extinct.
I wasn't replying to you and your post perfectly confirms my point: English has almost no dialect from a linguistic point of view but lots of accents.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lexdiamondz1902 View Post
So first dialects aren't real, and now dialects only exist to anglo-saxons?

Also, you're making a huge assumption saying that I'm speaking from an Anglo-Saxon perspective when I'm not an Anglo.
I wasn't implying that you were an Anglosaxon, I was saying that you are using the perspective of Anglo-Saxon linguists.
You consider the variation of a single linguistic entity as a dialect, most linguists don't.
It's obvious that from your point of view there are gazillions of English dialects since the accent vary a lot in English (and only that basically), likewise Italy had billions of dialects and trilions of languages (and I wonder what regions like China or Papua New Guinea contain).
AE isn't a dialect of English but an accent of it: grammatical features are basically the same (aside from few spelling changes, fewest different prepositions and different pronunciation) and AE is perfectly comprehensible to any English speaker.
The matter is all here: in my opinion (and in that of several linguists), a dialect is just a language which lacks the importance given to the national language on a determined territory (hence why Spanish isn't a dialect in the US).
AE might have been varying for 4 centuries from BE, yet the differences are fewer than those occurring between my Italian and the Italian spoken by a Sicilian.
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Old 05-16-2015, 11:56 PM
 
338 posts, read 333,035 times
Reputation: 162
Quote:
Originally Posted by xander.XVII View Post
I wasn't replying to you and your post perfectly confirms my point: English has almost no dialect from a linguistic point of view but lots of accents.
The matter is all here: in my opinion (and in that of several linguists), a dialect is just a language which lacks the importance given to the national language on a determined territory (hence why Spanish isn't a dialect in the US).
AE might have been varying for 4 centuries from BE, yet the differences are fewer than those occurring between my Italian and the Italian spoken by a Sicilian.
Based on the video I posted, how large is the distance between what you heard, the "Yola" dialect, compared with a romance language like Spanish or Italian and another Romance language in your opinion? To me, the most noticeable thing is that words starting with wh- are pronounced with f-.
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Old 05-17-2015, 08:27 AM
 
1,309 posts, read 1,151,730 times
Reputation: 1768
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88 View Post
If everyone did speak the same language, it wouild over a few centuries re-fragment into multiple languages again. 300 years ago, all English speakers spoke pretty much the same language, and all could be clearly understood by each other. But now when you dial an 800-number, your get a person who speaks perfect English but you can't understand him.

In my lifetime, a whole new language has split off from English and begun its own separate evolution, called Ebonics. A new language was similarly created a few generations earlier on Caribbean islands.

A thousand years ago, the people of Germany and the Netherlands spoke the same language, but now they are no longer mutually comprehensible. Those same Dutch went to South Africa, and now the Dutch spoken there is not always intelligible those back in Amsterdam.

In many cases, new languages separated and evolved along their own trajectories because subgroups of people wanted to separate themselves culturally from those speaking the mother tongue. The more you try to impose your ideals on everyone else, the greater the desire of people to want to distinguish themselves from you, and they do so by creating their own separate language.
The opposite would be true, more people would talk alike. Now everyone would be watching untranslated movies in a single language and emulating that. Look how in America regional accents are dying off. The Washington DC white accent, for example, is completely dead for anyone under 40, I'm from the area and have never heard it except with older folks. Look at how the Philly, Pittsburgh, Brahmin and even Boston accents are going away. It split off into trajectories before because there was no media of instant communication. An American wanting to contact his friend in England would have to send a letter or later a telegraph.
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