Chapter 5 Key Issue 3

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

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