where did dialects originate ?

Question

can anyone tell me where dialects originated ? it seems odd that in the UK we are all from the same island and yet we all speak with different accents.

Answer 1

The various manners and languages people speak are due to the fact that (a) everyone pretty much learns how to speak from their parents and (2) parents do not speak alike.

Forget the Tower of Babel bit. There is zero evidence that humanity has EVER all spoken the same language. I guess you need to check out Wikipedia on this one if you don't believe me, but I have a PhD in languages and that is what every expert that I deem sane and scholarly says, so it is more likely true than not.

They had lots of earthquakes in the area where the Babylonians and others built zuggarats, or huge towers. This is in Eastern Turkey, and they still have lots of earthquakes. A really, really bad place to build a skyscraper without steel reinforcements or modern technology. Don't even try to build a tower there, okay?

There is a standard accent if you do not want to sound like a weirdo, dork, Scotsman or Geordie in the UK. It is called British Broadcast English, and it is what you need to speak to be an announcer on the BBC.

If you are an American, try to speak American Standard Broadcast English, as do all the announcers on the network news in the US if you want to sound educated and proper to most Americans, or get a job with the networks.

If you want to chat up your homies, that's fine: be bilingual: speak 'homey' with your buds and Standard English with anyone you want to impress.

There is no penalty for not doing this, and if it turns out there is, don't blame me, I am just an observer.

Answer 2

Just like to add something to Richard E. It is correct, that there is British standard Pronounciation as there is American, and Australian standard pronounciation. But in order to work for BBC you don't have to speak "BBE" British Broadcast English (which is not an accepted denomination of that peculliar pronounciation), but RP Received Pronounciation, which is only used on a daily base by 2 % of the British population, which should incllude news speakers of the BBC, which might make assume, that there was a connection between the accent and it's orgin.

In modern linguistics, a dialect would be considered any recognizeable variation of the standard language (which is more than the RP which is only a way of pronouncing e.g. laboratory pronounced with 4 respectively 5 syllables) which can be assigned to a certain geographic location, or a social or ethnic group (also socialect, or in some groups slang), but within one country.
If dialects vary from country to country you would start to talk about different languages, at least each country will have their own language institute that is creating and preserving the norms of the nation's language. So in GB you have some Royal Institute of British Language, whil in Ireland an Irish institution regulates rules and preservation.
So if you want a dialect it is the same ina a smaller scale. It is language without a Nation and written grammar. The dialect is like the local language of every body from a region, like Liverpool or South East...

Answer 3

A great question, I have often wondered...A dialect is often associated with an area so that's a clue. It's not as if different dialects are randomly sprinkled up and down the UK except where people have moved out of an area.
The scottish, Irish and welsh all get their english dialects from their languages which in turn originate from gaelic the language of the celts.

Answer 4

Don't forget that even now, most people don't move far from where they were born.

Particular subtleties of language, inflection and vowel sounds were perpetuated within a closed community or village. My Mother could tell which valley then which town in Lancashire somebody came from.

Even in the 21st Century with all our rapid transport and trans global television, people find their accent or dialect a part of their identity and choose not to speak, what the BBC call, received pronunciation. A scouser wants to heard of as a scouser, for instance.

Answer 5

When you start mixing regional dialects and people from other parts of the world, you get a difference in dialects. Accents and dialects change on an all most yearly basis. Look at the kids today talking like american mancs?? in it!!!

Answer 6

It's like when you are at school and you have special words for things or nicknames for the teachers. I remember when I was at school to say "Yeah, chin" was to express disbelief. If you think about it each and every school would have different things like this and dialects are much the same. Every village or town will have slightly different words for some things because of different things happening there. This is basically how dialects start up.

Answer 7

We'll if you're Christian, dialects originate from the Tower of Babel. Now the reason there are different English dialects in the UK is because of the different tribes that inhabited the British Isles. And they way that they spoke English just sounds different from that of other people. I hope that made sense.

Answer 8

Due to the slow dessemination of learning in the world in olden times, people pronounced words differently, partly because they heard them differently. When people of another language over ran another, they pronounced native words differently because of the bias of their native tongue. Another reason for dielects is code talk. Cockney is famous for this. A slight change of inflection or vowel pronouncation makes the same language sound foreign.

Answer 9

Just like slang or folk songs appear along these years.

Answer 10

its the partr in the word that connect like the parts where the letters hold together