What's the difference between Language and Dialect?

Question

Apart from there being a written form, What is the linguistic difference between a language and a Dialect? What if the sub-language (spoken language) is so different from the written language ie. it even has many of its own words and is spoken in the media. Is it still defined as a dialekt?

Answer 1

The problem with these terms is that they are used differently in different situations.

The official definition among linguists goes like this: two versions of language are dialects of the same language if they are mutually intelligible. In other words, if people speaking these forms can understand each other, they are dialects of the same language. Languages, then, are mutually unintelligible.

There are two main problems with this definition, though. First, it's difficult to define mutual intelligibility, and second, these terms are used differently for sociopolitical reasons.

The mutual intelligibility issue is a major one. How much intelligibility counts? Is it 50%? 75%? and so forth. I'm a native speaker of English, for example, but I don't understand all dialects of English at the same level. In addition, some dialects aren't completely discrete from others. For example, in the region roughly in the west of Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands, there is more like a continuum of dialects spoken from German to Dutch. People near the border might be able to understand both languages, but people in Germany can't understand people from the Netherlands, and vice versa.

The second problem in defining these terms is the sociopolitical one. Despite intelligibility or non-intelligibility, people want to define who speaks the same language and who doesn't. For example, Hindi and Urdu are the same language -- they are mutually intelligible -- but for sociopolitical and religious reasons they are called by different names. Likewise, there are a number of non-mutually intelligible languages spoken in China, but for political reasons, they are all called dialects of the Chinese language, to make it seem like the country is more culturally unified than it is. Finally, the term "dialect" is used in a derogatory way in places such as Germany or Italy, for example, to refer to versions of the language that people don't like. Germans, for example, will say that people in certain regions of Germany speak "German" and then their "dialect". But actually, both of those are dialects of German.

You are also right that there can often be major differences between written and spoken languages. In general, linguists are mostly interested in spoken language, because written language is somewhat external (you can still be a native speaker of a language and not know how to write, for example). However, it is true that there are some major differences between spoken and written versions of some languages. Arabic and French are two languages that spring to mind.

In order to get around the problem of defining language and dialect from each other, linguists often refer to "variety", meaning either a language or a dialect.

Answer 2

English has many dialects. First of all you have the proper english, as used in England. Then you have the strong Liverpool dialect, which is still english, but with a strong british accent and slightly different words. American english is spoken much differently than UK english. And american english has many different dialects too. Southerners speak very differently than northerners, and some words are unique to their specific areas. Different slangs also. Black people also have a different way of speaking than most whites. Its all english, but spoken very differently. Think of it like chevys (cars). The language is Chevolet, the dialect is Impala or Monte Carlo. You dont know chevy? Ok Toyota. The language is Toyota, the dialect would be Highlander or Celica. Hope that helps. Cheers.

Answer 3

Languge is the undertstood word spoken between people the world over, for instance if I said to another English speaking person "Hello how are you?" you would recognise it immediately. However dialect is more unique and is connected to the area that you have been born in or have grown up in. Each large area for instance in my county of yorkshire in England, we have many towns and cities, and all have different linguistic sounds (dialects) to our accents, therefore allowing yorkshire people to instantly recognise which town a person is from, however I may need time to understand exactly what they are saying because of the slight difference in our dialect. Brilliant question, has really made me think this morning, think I will go and lie down now!!!!

Answer 4

A language is the tongue that is considered as the national language of a certain country, while dialects are the other "sub-tongues" spoken by the people of that same cuntry besides the "national language".
For example the Philippines. Thier language is Tagalog, but people from the different provinces of the Philippines speak different dialects like people from mindanao (the largest island in the Philippines) speak mainly visaya, which is completly different from Tagalog.

Answer 5

To concur with Aida, the lines that delineate language and dialect can be very hazy. As one of my linguistics professors once told me, the difference, at least officially, can be due as much to politics than to actual linguistic relationship. To use Catalan as the example: Most linguists would be inclined to consider Catalan a dialect of Spanish (with many French influences), thus lumping them in with the rest of the Spanish speaking world. Talk to any Catalan, however, and they will without hesitation tell you that Catalan (Catalonia) is its own separate language and region. In their ideological picture, their difference of language sets them apart and identifies them uniquely. Thus they are not speakers of Spanish, they are speakers of Catalan. In a similar and more telling case. The Spanish and Portuguese rulers of South and Central America often refereed to the speech of the natives as native dialects of their own language, even though they had absolutely no linguistic relation. This political move reinforced the superiority of the official language while marginalizing the native ones.

Answer 6

dialect is language :)

but language is not dialect. It is connected to the PLACE, where people speak differently from the official language (for example there is Hochdeutch and there is german spoken in Berlin called Berlin dialect)

Also : Slovak Language (official) and Middleslovak dialect. It is connected to geography. The official language is a compromise among all dialects that are in country (nation).

Answer 7

Linguistically, people speak two different languages if they cannot understand one another when they speak. People speak two different dialects of the same language if they can understand one another when they speak.

Dialects are regional variants of a language.

But most people mix these two up. In reading the other posts, most of the answers are mixed up and incorrectly distinguish language from dialect.

Answer 8

Ie. There are Greek people from Cyprus and Greek people from Greece. They speak the same language however the dialect is different which means the accent and there are also alot of different words used which one another may not understand.

Answer 9

Here in my country, not to mention it on purpose, we mixed languages interlingual speaking people. For some reason on the media someone once said it's a dialect!
Therefor no foreigners could understand us, so we might as well speak English.

Answer 10

a language is a general way to express oneself. a dialect is a variation of a language that is developed by different speakers of the language. speakers of differenct dialects but the same language often understand each other.