the.com/dialect
the proof that no one actually speaks the language they think they do
means A regional or social variety of a language, distinct in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, yet still understood by speakers of the broader tongue.
from From Greek 'dialektos,' meaning conversation, discourse, or the speech of a particular place — built from 'dialegesthai,' to converse, itself from 'dia-' (across, between) plus 'legein' (to speak). It traveled through Latin 'dialectus' and French 'dialecte' before settling into English in the 16th century. At its root, then, a dialect is simply the way speaking happens between people — which is to say, the only way it ever happens at all.
- army myth
- a language is a dialect with an army and navy
- mutual aid
- Danes and Swedes mostly understand each other's separate languages
- dialect continuum
- villages blur word by word across entire countries
- perception
- accent judgments predict who you'll trust and hire
- shibboleth
- a single mispronounced word once got people killed
scottish english — spoken by ~1.5 million people in scotland with distinct phonology, vocabulary like 'braw' and 'kirk'
appalachian english — spoken across appalachian region of us with features like non-rhoticity and 'a-prefixing' in verb forms
singaporean english — official language of singapore since 1965, blends english grammar with malay, mandarin, tamil syntax
bangladeshi bengali — spoken by ~160 million people with distinct vowel system and vocabulary differences from west bengal bengali