Why do individual languages vary among places?

dialect: a regional variety of a language distinguished by vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation

• speakers of one dialect can understand speakers of other dialects

• dialects reflect distinctive features of environments that people live in

isogloss: a boundary that separates regions in which different language usages predominate

Dialects of English

• migration to other locations, various dialects may develop

Dialects in the US

• major differences in US dialects originated because of differences in dialects among the original settlers

Settlement in the East

• New England

  • inhabited almost entirely by settlers from England

    • 2/3s were Puritans from East Anglia (southeastern England)

    • only a few came from the north of England

• Southeastern

  • 1/2 came from southeastern England

    • represented a diversity of social-class backgrounds

• Midlands

  • more diverse

  • early settlers were predominantly Quakers from the north of England

  • Scots and Irish arrived

  • also attracted German, Dutch, and Swedish immigrants

• more differences between Midlands and the other settlements because most settlers came from the north of England or from other countries

Current Dialect Differences in the East

• a fourth dialect region was developed in the West

• mass media influences the adoption of the same words throughout the country, but dialect differences still persist

  • Northeast + Southwest → soda

  • Midwest + Great Plains + Northwest → pop

  • Southerners → coke

Pronunciation Differences

• regional pronunciation differences are more familiar to us than word differences

• it is harder to draw precise isoglosses for the pronunciations

• northeastern dialect drops the /r/ sound, due to its background from England

• West and Midlands pronounce similarly because original west settlers were from the Midland

Dialects in the UK

• the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons spoke dialects of Old English

  • Kentish in the southeast

  • West Saxon in the southwest

  • Mercian in the center of the island

  • Northumbrian in the north

standard language: the form of a language used for official government business, education, and mass communications

• in languages with multiple dialects, one made be used as the standard language

Received Pronunciation (RP): the dialect of English associated with upper-class Britons living in London and now considered standard in the UK

• dialect used by upper-class residents in London, Cambridge, and Oxford

• diffusion of RP was encouraged by the printing press

• grammar books and dictionaries established spelling and grammar based on the London dialect

  • taught in schools throughout the country

• regional differences still exist

  • Northern

  • Midland

  • Southern

    • Southwestern

    • Southeastern

• isoglosses between English dialects are moving due to patterns of migration

British and American English Dialects

• English immigrants to US spoke the dialect they used in England at the time

• England and US were separated by the Atlantic Ocean, causing differences as time passed on as few people could cross to influence each other

Vocabulary

• American settlers encountered new objects and experiences

  • contained new physical features, within needed names

    • large forests and mountains

    • new animals

• Indigenous Americans influenced American English

  • canoe

  • moccasin

  • squash

• new inventions appeared, and different names were given on different sides of the Atlantic

  • elevator (America) = lift (England)

  • hood of a car (America) = bonnet (England)

  • trunk of a car (America) = boot (England)

Spelling

• Noah Webster, creator of American dictionary and grammar books, wanted to develop a uniquely American dialect of English

  • wanted to establish a national language, reduce cultural dependence on England, and inspire national pride

Pronunciation

• colonists began to pronounce words differently from the British

• British

  • some words are pronounced with an /ah/ rather than /a/

  • eliminate r sound except before vowels

• Americans

  • pronounce unaccented syllables with more clarity

    • secretary and necessary have 4 syllables compared to 3 in British

• pronunciation has changed more in England than in US

  • letters a and r are pronounced in the US more similarly to how they were pronounced in Britain in the 1600s, when settlers arrived

• English immigrants didn’t speak “proper” English because they weren’t drawn from the English upper classes

Distinguishing between Languages and Dialects

• other languages also have different dialects

Romance Branch Dialects

• distinct Romance languages evolved over time

• numerous dialects existed within each province

• creation of standard nation languages occured relatively recently

Spanish and Portuguese

• Spain contained many dialects during the Middle Ages

  • Castilian

    • arose in the 800s in Old Castile (north-central part of the country)

    • diffused south over centuries, as independent kingdoms were unified

• Spain grew to its approximate present boundaries when the Kingdom of Castile and Leon merged with the Kingdom of Aragon

  • Castilian became the official language

    • dialects survived in secluded rural areas

      • Aragon

      • Navarre

      • Leon

      • Asturias

      • Santander

• Portuguese developed as a separate language because of Portugal’s isolation

• Spanish and Portuguese became worldwide due to colonial activity

  • most speakers live outside of Europe

• Western Hemisphere Portuguese and Spanish are different from Europe

• Spanish Royal Academy meet in Madrid to clarify language rules, and added hundreds of new words originating in regional dialects of Spain or the Indian languages of Latin America

• Portuguese speaking countries agreed to standardize how their common language is written

  • people in Portugal are upset that the new standard language more closely resembled the Brazilian version

    • eliminates some accent marks

      • tildes

      • cedillas

      • circumflexes

      • hyphens

    • thousands of new Brazilian words

Dialect or Language?

Languages of Italy

• several languages in Italy were traditionally classified as dialects of Italian, but now are different enough to be different languages

  • Emiliano-Romagnolo

  • Liguria

  • Lombard

  • Napoletano-Calebrese

  • Piemontese

  • Sicilian

  • Venetian

Catalan-Valencian-Balear

• Catalan was once a dialect, but now is a separate Romance language

• traced to Vulgar Latin

• Balear is a dialect of Catalan spoken in the Balearic Islands

• Valencian is controversial

  • considered a dialect of Catalan by linguists

  • people in Valencia consider it a separate language because it has words derived from people who lived there before the Roman conquest

Galician

• debated on whether its a dialect of Portuguese or a separate language

• Academy of Galician Language considers it a separate language and symbol of cultural independence

• Galician Association of the Language consider it a dialect because as a language it would be relegated to a minor and obscure status, while as a dialect it can help to influence Portuguese

Moldovan

• generally classified as a dialect of Romanian

• official language of Moldova

• written in Cyrillic letters

  • was a part of Soviet Union

• Romanian is written in Roman letters

Creole Languages

creole (creolized language): a language that results from the mixing of a colonizer’s language with the indigenous language of the people being dominated

• examples

  • French Creole

  • Papiamento (creolized Spanish)

  • Portuguese Creole