Dialects & Standard English

[Admin]

Being particularly familiar with Romania and Italy, I can say there certainly are tens of 'dialects' in these countries, and none are recognized as actual languages, as in the case of Mexico presented in the course. Wikipedia claims that Romanian dialects are all mutually intelligible, but I disagree to an extent. In my experience, you can put together a person from the south/south-east of the country with someone from the north and difficulties of understanding would arise, especially if there is a generational gap. Unfortunately, many of the regional languages of both Romania and Italy are vulnerable or seriously endangered, with older generations mostly being the ones keeping the languages alive. In Italy, these languages are so complex and have German or French influences, and one regional language I was exposed to sounded closer to Romanian than standard Italian!

I agree with the linguistic claim that Standard English is in itself a dialect...I would say it is a 'variety' of the language. It shouldn't be given more importance or status than the other varieties, in a perfect world...

I'd be interested to learn more about others' regional languages from their countries and their views on them.

[JELLOW SUMABONG]

Yes. Here in the Philippines, we have a lot of dialects like Cebuano, Hiligaynon, etc. which are widely used by the people of the archipelago. Tagalog, another dialect spoken by people in Luzon is the same as the national language which is then called "Filipino". Now, Tagalog seems dominant among the dialects as this should be known by the Filipino citizen.

[Deborah Ayers]

Even within a country, there is no "one language". In the US, for example, we have many dialects that can be unintelligible in other regions. e.g. "I took a wicked diggah in the dooryahd and now I'm all stove up." is something that someone from Massachusetts might say, but a Californian would have no idea that means "I feel down in my driveway and injured myself". We also have different ways of naming an object e.g. Is it a "Coke" a "soda" or a "pop"? All of those words describe a fizzy sweet drink, but depending on where you are in the US, you will hear a the different terms.

[Rachel Laycook]

We have dialects in different regions of my country, the U.S., although most people unfamiliar with the world of linguistics and language education refer to them as "accents". I'm from the southern U.S. and I can hear someone in my hometown speak aloud and know if they are from my city, from the other side of my state, or from one of our neighboring states, sometimes by their phonology but also often based on their word choice.

As a Spanish speaker, different dialects are a point of interest for me. I learned Spanish in the U.S. with a heavy focus on Mexican vocabulary and had to re-learn many words for their Chilean counterparts when I moved to Chile. The dialect here differs from other forms of Spanish in word choice, verb tense choice, specific verb conjugations, and a few phonetic details.

There is no English-speaking region that doesn't have its own dialectical differences, and that makes it impossible to say that there is a standard English not specific to any given region. I feel that often when "standard" English is mentioned, what really is being communicated, perhaps in an underlying way, is "acceptable" English. The English spoken in my hometown in the southern U.S. is certainly not standard, because it is not spoken in most other places... But who exactly is the judge to say whose English gets to be considered the "standard"?

The idea of a standard English seems simple on the surface but upon closer inspection, it reeks of privilege and gate-keeping.

[sameerco1971]

I agree that ‘Standard English’ is (just) a non-regional dialect but it is not the case in my language Arabic. There are many dialects that emerged from the Standard Arabic which is called "Fus'ha". However, The standard Arabic doesn't belong to a specific region now. In the past, it used to belong to the people who lived in the Arabian peninsula. The Standard Arabic has gone through many historical changes but it is still used up till now in formal documents, books and most importantly, the Holy Quran.

[Kunlong Jin]

I am a native speaker of Chinese but I was born and grew up in Shanghai. My family and I speak Shanghainese at home where only people live in Shanghai or provinces close around can understand what Shanghainese mean. It is called Wu language but we still labelled as a dialect in China since we have official 'mandarin'. China has the largest population in the world and has so many dialects. Many of them, like Shanghainese and Cantonese, are mutually unintelligible among Chinese people even if they can all identify one written system.

[Daniel Palmer]

I would say that in the UK 'Standard English' used to refer to the dialect spoken by those in the South (although, even this is a misconception) and is now almost used as a kind of lingua franca; personally, I have real difficulty understanding some of my family from the North-East when they us their preferred accent and lexicon, and they take real pleasure in using 'the Queen's English'to bridge the gap and roll their eyes at me!

[severoc]

In Portuguese we can establish communication through our Standard Portuguese, because depending on the state or region there are just too many slangs that only the people from their can understand completely. Therefore, Standard can be an way to ease the communication between speakers, but not to be considered as solution. Language is fluid and changes way too fast.

[Tarveen Walia]

There are 22 major languages in India, written in 13 different scripts, with over 720 dialects. Dialects change from district to district. The common language in Northern and Central India, is Hindi ( also our official language), and in the South, it is English. Plenty of scope for linguistic chauvinism:)

[Danielle Zelin - Mauritius]

Interestingly enough, Mauritius Island was colonized by both French and British. This left us with both languages but also our 'dialect', the Mauritian Creole. The 'dialect' actually has roots of French but also in addition many English words left by the British. As Mauritians, this is our language of communication and recently recognised as a full language. As for English, it is not widely spoken but taught in our schools. It is sort of 'standard English' but if it is spoken it is highly influenced by French and Mauritian Creole.

[Nidhi Lakhisarani]

Dialect and accent are very close concepts. From what I have read, I know that when the same language speaking communities separate due to any socio-political reasons but live nearby, they give birth to new dialects. In India, there are various versions of Gujarati within the state itself. It can be understood by other speakers of the language. When it comes to Standard English being a dialect, I completely agree to it. It was only after the Saxton brought the printing press that London dialect became the standard one and spellings were frozen.

[beatrizguerra]

In Brazil, there are many regional dialects but depending on the region some are more acceptable than the others. The dialects that are seen as more "prestigious" are mainly those in the Southeast region of the country, which is considered the 'Standard Portuguese'. Since the Southeast dialect is spoken by the Brazilian media, it reinforces the idea that this is the standard form of the language. The use of it ease the understanding among the speakers, but it also increases a social stigma regarding the other dialects.

[abdisyam]

It is very interesting how different countries use the term language and dialect differently. In Indonesia, we have more than 700 regional languages, and we use the term language to describe them. I used to think that when two people do not understand each other languages it means that they speak different languages. So, when I found that regional languages in China are referred as dialects, I thought my Chinese friends use the term incorrectly. Meanwhile, I also learnt in my sociolinguistics class that Hindi and Urdu are essentially the same language with different writing systems, yet they are still considered different languages. I understand that languages might not only be defined linguistically but also sociopolitically. While some use the term 'language' in order to establish distinct language identities, others might do so to have a certain language ideology where a dichotomy between national 'language' and so-called regional 'dialect' determines what is official and what is not.

[Tony]

According to linguists, dialects of a language as well as language(s) spoken by non-native speakers have their right to exist and be recognised. In that sense any variation of a language is placed at the same level as its standard form. Those who are, however, opposed to that idea – the proponents of monolithic aspects of English, for instance, – would not be able to accept any other forms but the standard one, considering them to be even incorrect. The first thing that comes to mind is a very-well-known situation in which some conservative Brits resent the usage of Americanism regarding American English as an improper one.

[andrea scabbia]

Yes, Italy is the land of dialects, of course: we have 20 regions, everyone with its dialect, and all the towns have their dialects. In my vilage, you can listen to a dialect, if you move to another village, maybe just 10 kms by car, there you can find a different dialect. We have an Italian standard too...and the telly was the father of it. Before the telly, there were no standard. But who says this is or this isn't standard?