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Dialect Continuum

Dialect continuum

A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. Dialects separated by great geographical distances may not be mutually comprehensible. According to the Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache paradigm, these dialects can be considered Abstandsprachen (i.e., as stand-alone languages). However, they can be seen as dialects of a single language, provided that a common standard language, through which communication is possible, exists. Such a situation is called diglossia. In sociolinguistics, a language continuum is said to exist when two or more different languages or dialects merge one into the other(s) without a definable boundary. The Romance languages of Portugal, Spain, France and Italy are often cited as the canonical example of this, although in recent times the intermediate dialects have been moving toward extinction. The many dialects making up German, Dutch, and Afrikaans are another example. They form a single dialect continuum, with three recognized literary standards. Although Dutch and German are not readily mutually intelligible, there are numerous transitional dialects that are. For example, on both sides of the border between the Netherlands and Germany, the people living in the immediate neighbourhood of the border speak an identical language. They can understand each other without difficulty, and would even have trouble telling just by the language whether a person from the region was from the Netherlands or from Germany. However, the Germans here call their language German, and the Dutch call their language Dutch, so in terms of sociolinguistics they are speaking different languages. The case of Chinese is an interesting one. The spoken variants of Chinese are highly divergent, forming a continuum comparable to that of the Romance languages. However, all the variants more or less share a common written language, though there are vernacular variations in vocabulary and grammar, but also even the characters. A similar situation takes place between a creole language which lacks prestige, and its more prestigious relative. The relationship between Gullah and African American Vernacular English on the one hand, and standard American English on the other, is a good example of this. Some speakers can glide throughout the continuum depending on the subject and the context. There are many other examples throughout the world.

Dialect

A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. The number of speakers, and the area itself, can be of arbitrary size. It follows that a dialect for a larger area can contain plenty of (sub-) dialects, which in turn can contain dialects of yet smaller areas, et cetera. A dialect is a complete system of verbal communication (oral or signed but not necessarily written) with its own vocabulary and/or grammar. The concept of dialects can be distinguished from:—
- sociolects, which are a variety of a language spoken by a certain social stratum,
- standard languages, which are standardized for public performance (e.g. written standard), and
- jargons, which are characterized by differences in vocabulary (or lexicon according to linguist jargon). Varieties of language such as dialects, idiolects and sociolects can be distinguished not only by their vocabulary and grammar, but also by differences in phonology (including prosody). If the distinctions are limited to phonology, one often uses the term accent of a variety instead of variety or dialect.

Standard and Non-standard Dialects

A standard dialect (also known as a standardized dialect or "standard language") is a dialect that is supported by institutions. Such institutional support may include government recognition or designation; presentation as being the "correct" form of a language in schools; published grammars, dictionaries, and textbooks that set forth a "correct" spoken and written form; and an extensive formal literature that employs that dialect (prose, poetry, nonfiction, etc.). There may be multiple standard dialects associated with a language. For example, Standard American English, Standard British English, and Standard Indian English may all be said to be standard dialects of the English language. A nonstandard dialect, like a standard dialect, has a complete vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, but is not the beneficiary of institutional support.

"Dialect" or "Language"

There are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, although a number of paradigms exist, which render sometimes contradictory results. The exact distinction is therefore a subjective one, dependent on the user's frame of reference. Language varieties are often called dialects rather than languages
- solely because they are not (or not recognized as) literary languages,
- because the speakers of the given language do not have a state of their own,
- or because their language lacks prestige. The term idiom is used by some linguists instead of language or dialect when there is no need to commit oneself to any decision on the status with respect to this distinction. Anthropological linguists define dialect as the specific form of a language used by a speech community. In other words, the difference between language and dialect is the difference between the abstract or general and the concrete and particular. From this perspective, no one speaks a "language," everyone speaks a dialect of a language. Those who identify a particular dialect as the "standard" or "proper" version of a language are in fact using these terms to express a social distinction. Often, the standard language is close to the sociolect of the elite class. In groups where prestige standards play less important roles, "dialect" may simply be used to refer to subtle regional variations in linguistic practices that are considered mutually intelligible, playing an important role to place strangers, carrying the message of wherefrom a stranger originates (which quarter or district in a town, which village in a rural setting, or which province of a country); thus there are many apparent "dialects" of Slavey, for example, geographically widespread North American indigenous languages, by which the linguist simply means that there are many subtle variations among speakers who largely understand each other and recognize that they are each speaking "the same way" in a general sense. Modern day linguistics knows that the status of language is not solely determined by linguistic criteria, but it is also the result of a historical and political development. Romansh came to be a written language, and therefore it is recognized as a language, even though it is very close to the Lombardic alpine dialects. An opposite example is the case of the Chinese language whose variations are often considered dialects and not languages despite their mutual unintelligibility because they share a common literary standard and common body of literature. The Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich published the expression, "A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un a flot" ("A language is a dialect with an army and a navy"), illustrating the fact that languages are created by assimilation. This is perhaps the most widely cited statement of an analogy that has been attributed to other authors. (Weinreich explicitly states that he did not coin it.) It has been suggested that the initial wording was provided by, Hubert Lyautey as, "Une langue, c'est un dialecte qui possède une armée, une marine et une aviation." ("A language is a dialect with an army, a navy and an air force." ). A separate article discusses the origin of the language-dialect aphorism in greater detail.

Political factors

Depending on political realities and ideologies, the classification of speech varieties as dialects or languages and their relationship to other varieties of speech can be controversial and the verdicts inconsistent. English and Serbo-Croatian illustrate the point. English and Serbo-Croatian each have two major variants (British and American English, and Serbian and Croatian, respectively), along with numerous lesser varieties. For political reasons, analyzing these varieties as "languages" or "dialects" yields inconsistent results: British and American English, spoken by close political and military allies, are almost universally regarded as dialects of a single language, whereas the standard languages of Serbia and Croatia, which differ from each other to a similar extent as the dialects of English, are being treated by many linguists from the region as distinct languages, largely because the two countries oscillate from being brotherly to being bitter enemies. The Serbo-Croatian language article deals with this topic much more fully. Parallel examples abound. Macedonian, although mutually intelligible with Bulgarian and often considered to be a Bulgarian dialect, is touted in Republic of Macedonia as a language in its own right. In Lebanon, the right-wing Guardians of the Cedars, a fiercely nationalistic (mainly Christian) political party which opposes the country's ties to the Arab world, is agitating for "Lebanese" to be recognized as a distinct language from Arabic and not merely a dialect, and has even advocated replacing the Arabic alphabet with a revival of the ancient Phoenician alphabet. There have been cases of a variety of speech being deliberately altered to serve political purposes. One example is Moldovan. No such language existed before 1945, and most non-Moldovan linguists remain sceptical about its classification. After the Soviet Union annexed the Romanian province of Bessarabia and renamed it Moldavia, Romanian, a Romance language, the Cyrillic alphabet was restored and numerous Slavic words were imported into the language, in an attempt to weaken any sense of shared national identity with Romania. After Moldavia won its independence in 1991 (and changed its name to Moldova), it reverted to a modified Latin alphabet as a rejection of the perceived political connotations of the Cyrillic alphabet. In 1996, however, the Moldovan parliament, citing fears of "Romanian expansionism," rejected a proposal from President Mircea Snegur to change the name of the language back to Romanian, and in 2003 a Romanian-Moldovan dictionary was published, purporting to show that the two countries speak different languages. Linguists of the Romanian Academy reacted by declaring that all the Moldovan words were also Romanian words; while in Moldova, the head of the Academy of Sciences' Institute of Linguistics, Ion Bărbuţă, described the dictionary as a politically motivated "absurdity". In contrast, spoken languages of Han Chinese are usually referred as dialects of one Chinese language, to promote national unity. The article "Is Chinese a language or a family of languages?" has more details. The significance of the political factors in any attempt at answering the question "what is a language? is great enough to cast doubt on whether any strictly linguistic definition, without a socio-cultural approach, is possible. This is illustrated by the frequency with which the army-navy aphorism discussed at the end of the preceding section is cited.

The historical linguistics point of view

Many historical linguists view every speech form as a dialect of the older medium of communication from which it developed. This point of view sees the modern Romance languages as dialects of Latin, modern Greek as a dialect of ancient Greek, and Tok Pisin as a dialect of English. This paradigm is not entirely problem-free. It sees genetic relationships as paramount; the "dialects" of a "language" (which itself may be a "dialect" of a yet older tongue) may or may not be mutually intelligible. Moreover, a parent language may spawn several "dialects" which themselves subdivide any number of times, with some "branches" of the tree changing more rapidly than others. This can give rise to the situation where two dialects (defined according to this paradigm) with a somewhat distant genetic relationship are mutually more readily comprehensible than more closely related dialects. This pattern is clearly present among the modern Romance tongues, with Italian and Spanish having a high degree of mutual comprehensibility, which neither language shares with French, despite both languages being genetically closer to French than to each other: French has undergone more rapid change than have Spanish and Italian.

Concepts in dialectology

Concepts in dialectology include:

Mutual intelligibility

Some have attempted to distinguish dialects from languages by saying that dialects are mutually comprehensible while languages are not. But this concept may not be as clear-cut as it may at first seem. Italian speakers and Spanish speakers, for example, may be able to understand a considerable proportion of each other's closely-related Romance languages, whereas Lombards and Sicilians, speaking what are described as dialects of the same language, may encounter considerable barriers to mutual comprehension.

Diglossia

Another problem occurs in the case of diglossia, used to describe a situation where, in a given society, there are two closely-related languages, one of high-prestige, which is generally used by the government and in formal texts, and one of low-prestige, which is usually the spoken vernacular tongue. An example of this is sanskrit, which was considered the proper way to speak in northern India, but only accessible by the upper class, and prakrit which was the common (and informal or slang) speech at the time.

Dialect continuum

A dialect continuum is a network of dialects in which geographically adjacent dialects are mutually comprehensible, but with comprehensibility steadily decreasing as distance between the dialects increases. A well-known example is the Afrikaans-Dutch-Frisian-German dialect continuum, a vast network of dialects with four recognized literary standards. Although standard Dutch and German are not mutually intelligible, a chain of dialects connects them, with no break in intelligibility between any geographically adjacent dialects along the continuum. A network of dialects similarly exists among the Eastern Slavic languages, among which Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian are recognized as three literary standards. The Serbo-Croatian language can also be viewed as a network of four major dialects and three literary standards. The Romance languages -- Portuguese, Castilian Spanish, Catalan, Provençal, French, Occitan, Corsican, Sardinian, Sicilian, Romansh, Friulian, other Italian dialects, Romanian, and others -- form another well-known continuum.

Diasystem

A diasystem refers to a single genetic language which has two or more standard forms. An example is Hindi-Urdu or Hindustani, which encompasses two main standard varieties, Urdu and Hindi.

Pluricentrism

A pluricentric language is a language with several standard versions.

The Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache framework

One analytical paradigm developed by professional linguists is known as the Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache framework. It has proved popular among linguists in Continental Europe, but is not so well known in English-speaking countries, especially among people who are not trained linguists. Although only one of many possible paradigms, it has the advantage of being constructed by trained linguists for the particular purpose of analyzing and categorizing varieties of speech, and has the additional merit of replacing such loaded words as "language" and "dialect" with the German terms of Ausbausprache, Abstandsprache, and Dachsprache, words that are not (yet) loaded with political, cultural, or emotional connotations. It may prove to be a tool helpful for enabling people to see some ancient and poisoned linguistic controversies through a different lens of perception.

Selected list of articles on dialects

- Varieties of Arabic
- Catalan dialect examples
- List of Chinese dialects
- List of dialects of the English language
- Flemish dialects
- Dialects of the French language
- Cypriot dialect
- Irish dialects
- Italian dialects
- Sicilian language
- Japanese dialects
- Korean dialects
- Norwegian dialects
- Gilaki and Mazandarani (Persian dialects)
- Warsaw dialect
- Portuguese dialects
- Dialects in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia
- Slovenian dialects
- Spanish dialects and varieties
- Swedish dialects in Ostrobothnia
- Bergensk, used in Bergen, Norway

External links

- [http://www.terralingua.org/Definitions/DLangDialect.html Language or dialect?] (Terralingua)
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9215/arts.htm Incorporating Dialect Study into the Language Arts Class]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1997-4/dialects.htm Vernacular Dialects in U.S. Schools]
- [http://www.theverybestofstuff.de/contents/dialectology.html Fishermen's Dialect on the South-East Coast of Scotland.] Category:Language varieties and styles als:Dialekt ko:방언 ja:方言

Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache

The Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache framework is a tool developed by sociolinguists, e.g. Heinz Kloss or Joshua Fishman, for analyzing and categorizing languages and dialects, and for distinguishing the concepts. Note that Sprache is the German word for language. The first occurrence of 'ausbau language' in the scientific literature is in Heinz Kloss, Abstand-languages and Ausbau-languages (Anthropological linguistics, 1967, 9). Ausbausprache may be translated literally as 'upgrade language', Abstandsprache as 'distance language' and Dachsprache as 'umbrella language' (literally: 'roof language'). Abstandsprache (also called an abstand language) is a language form that is so different from every other language that it cannot be regarded as a dialect of any another language, whether or not it is itself an Ausbausprache (almost identical with standard language). This does not necessarily mean that the language is not in any way related to another language, but that there is no mutual comprehensibility in either the spoken or written forms. An Ausbausprache (also called an ausbau language) is a language almost identical with a standard language that has been built up as a separate language for nation-building purposes, with a standard spelling, a standard grammar and a relatively wide and clear vocabulary. Two language forms that allow easy mutual communication are regarded as two different languages by sociolinguists if they are each an Ausbausprache according to this definition. Good examples are Persian of Afghanistan and Iran, Serbian and Croatian, Danish and Bokmål Norwegian, Dutch and Afrikaans, Luxemburgian language and German, and to some some extent Hindi and Urdu. Dachsprache means a language form that serves as standard language for different dialects, mostly in a dialect continuum, even though these dialects may be so different that mutual intelligibility is not possible on the basilectal level between all dialects, particularly those separated by significant geographical distance. In 1982, "Rumantsch Grischun" was developed by Heinrich Schmid as such a Dachsprache for a number of quite different Romansh language forms spoken in parts of Switzerland. Standard German and standard Italian to some extent function in the same way. Perhaps the most widely spoken dachsprache is Modern Standard Arabic, which links together the speakers of many different Arabic dialects.

External links

There are useful definitions included in these two scientific articles
- [http://www.sprakrad.no/templates/Page.aspx?id=6812 Peter Trudgill, Norwegian as a Normal Language (2002)]
- [http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/lang/Jack_Chambers/globalisation.pdf Peter Trudgill, Glocalisation and the Ausbau sociolinguistics of modern Europe (2004)]

Further information

- :de:Heinrich Schmid: German Wikipedia entry on the linguist mentioned in the examples. Category:Language varieties and styles

Diglossia

In linguistics, diglossia is a situation where, in a given society, there are two (often) closely-related languages, one of high prestige, which is generally used by the government and in formal texts, and one of low prestige, which is usually the spoken vernacular tongue. The high-prestige language tends to be the more formalised, and its forms and vocabulary often 'filter down' into the vernacular, though often in a changed form. The French term diglossie was first coined (as a translation of Greek διγλωσσία, 'bilingualism') by the Greek linguist and demoticist Ioannis Psycharis. The Arabist William Marçais used the term in 1930 to describe the linguistic situation in Arabic-speaking countries. In Charles Ferguson's article "Diglossia" in the journal Word (1959), diglossia was described as a kind of bilingualism in a given society in which one of the languages is (H), i.e. has high prestige, and another of the languages is (L), i.e. has low prestige. In Ferguson's definition, (H) and (L) are always closely related. Fishman also talks about diglossia with unrelated languages: "extended diglossia" (Fishman 1967), for example Sanskrit as (H) and Kannada as (L) or Alsatian (Elsässisch) in Alsace as (L) and French as (H). Kloss calls the (H) variant exoglossia and the (L) variant endoglossia. In some cases, the nature of the connection between (H) and (L) is disputed; for example, Jamaican Creole as (L) and Standard English as (H) in Jamaica. (H) is usually the written language whereas (L) is the spoken language. In formal situations, (H) is used; in informal situations, (L) is used. The (L) variants are not just simplifications of the (H) variants. Many (L) languages have certain features that are more complex than the corresponding (H) languages: some Swiss German dialects have , and while Standard German only has and . Jamaican Creole has fewer vowel phonemes than standard Englishes, but it has additional palatal and phonemes. Especially in endoglossia the (L) form may also be called "basilect", the (H) form "acrolect", and an intermediate form "mesolect". Note however that there is no "mesolect" in German-speaking Switzerland and in Luxembourg. Whether Paraguay has a form of diglossia is controversial. Guaraní and Spanish are both official languages of Paraguay. Some scholars argue that there are Paraguayans who actually don't speak Guaraní. See Guaraní language. The Chinese language also offers an interesting case. Ferguson's classic examples include Standard German/Swiss German, Standard Arabic/vernacular Arabic, Standard French/Kréyòl in Haiti, and Katharevousa/Dhimotiki in Greece. However, Kréyòl is now recognised as a standard language in Haiti. Swiss German dialects are hardly languages with low prestige in Switzerland; and colloquial Arabic has more prestige in some respects than standard Arabic nowadays (see Chambers, Sociolinguistic Theory). And after the end of the military regime in 1974, Dhimotiki was made into Greece's only standard language (1976). Nowadays, Katharevousa is no longer used. Harold Schiffman writes about Swiss German: "it seems to be the case that Swiss German was once consensually agreed to be in a diglossic hierarchy with Standard German, but that this consensus is now breaking." There is also a lot of code switching especially in the Arabic world; according to Andrew Freeman this is "different from Ferguson's description of diglossia which states that the two forms are in complementary distribution." To a certain extent, there is code switching and overlap in all diglossic societies, even German-speaking Switzerland. Furthermore, in Ferguson's definition, diglossia is not bilingualism; however this depends on the scholar's definition of language. For example, different kinds of Arabic are not mutually intelligible; even though many are, but this may also be due to exposure to different varieties rather than inherent linguistic properties. Examples where the High/Low dichotomy is justified in terms of social prestige include Italian dialects as (L) and Standard Italian as (H) in Italy and German dialects and standard German in Germany. In Italy and Germany, those speakers who still speak dialects typically use dialect in informal situations, especially in the family. In German-speaking Switzerland, on the other hand, Swiss German dialects are to a certain extent even used in schools and to a larger extent in churches. Ramseier calls German-speaking Switzerland's diglossia a "medial diglossia", whereas Felicity Rash prefers "functional diglossia". Paradoxically, Swiss German offers both the best example for diglossia (all speakers are native speakers of Swiss German and thus diglossic) and the worst, because there is no clear-cut hierarchy.

Catalan

Catalan is in most of catalan countries (it could be excluded the case of Andorra, in spite that in this case the pressure of the Castilian —"Español", but the name of that language is Castellano according to The Constitution of 1978— and of the French is very strong) in a situation of external diglossia; not only because the other languages (Castilian, French, Italian) are the languages used, to a large extent, by the corresponding official organizations; also the immigration, in the case of the Castilian at less, it has been so strong in the 20th century, that it has made that we can speak of esternal diglossia, produced by the relative increase of Castilian speakers; Also due that the Spanish Government as well as the French during many years have left apart the education in Catalan and provide education only for theirs respectives languages. In Algiers the Catalan is in severe danger, which has been recognized by UNESCO. It could be said that the Catalan is in danger everywhere due to the pressure of the official languages of the different states.

Brazilian Portuguese

According to many Brazilian linguists (Bortoni, Kato, Mattos e Silva, Bagno, Perini), Brazilian Portuguese is a highly diglossic language. L-variant (also known as Brazilian vernacular) is the mother tongue of all Brazilians, and H-variant (standard Brazilian Portuguese) is acquired through schooling. L-variant is a simplified form of archaic Portuguese, influenced by Amerindian and African languages, while H-variant is a form based on 19th century European Portuguese (and it is very similar to Standard European Portuguese, with only orthography being a little different). Mário A. Perini, a Brazilian linguist, compares the differences between L- and H- variants of Brazilian Portuguese with those between Standard Spanish and Standard Portuguese. The L-variant is the spoken form of Brazilian Portuguese, avoided only in very formal speech (court interrogation, political debate) while the H-variant is the written form of Brazilian Portuguese, avoided only in informal writing (such as songs lyrics, love letters, intimate friends correspondence). Even language professors many times use the L-variant while explaining students the structure and usage of the H-variant; in essays, nevertheless, all students are expected to use H-variant. The L-variant is used in songs, movies, soap operas, sitcoms and other television shows, although, at times, the H-variant is used in historic films or soap operas to make the language used sound more ‘elegant’ and/or ‘archaic’. The H-variant used to be preferred when dubbing foreign films and series into Brazilian Portuguese, but nowadays the L-variant is preferred. Movie subtitles normally use a mixture of L- and H-variants, but remain closer to the H-variant. Most literary works are written in the H-variant. They have been attempts at writing in the L-variant (masterpiece Macunaíma, written by Brazilian modernist Mário de Andrade), but, presently, the L-variant is used only in dialogue. Still, many contemporary writers like using the H-variant even in informal dialogue. This is also true of translated books, which never use the L-variant, only the H one. Childrens books seem to be more L-friendly, but, again, if they are translated from another language (The Little Prince, for instance) they will use the H-variant only. Most linguist use the term "Brazilian Portuguese" to describe the mesolect of Brazilian Vernacular, not the Standard Brazilian Portuguese which is almost identical to Standard European Portuguese. This idiom is characterized by simplification in verbal and pronominal systems and many changes in prepositional system, but the most striking differences are those affecting syntax. Brazilian linguist Fernando Tarallo claims that "the Portuguese language variety used in Brazil has developed quite a reasonable number of syntactic features different from the European system. These differences are large enough to allow for a description of the Brazilian variety in the sense of a Brazilian grammar". The same was confirmed later by Brazilian-based French linguist Galves. The mesolect form of Brazilian Vernacular (that is, the one used in the speech of middle class Brazilians) is the form of Brazilian Portuguese language taught at American universities. H-varieties are explained later after students have mastered the L-variants. Mário A. Perini, a famous Brazilian linguist, has said: :"There are two languages in Brazil. The one we write (and which is called "Portuguese"), and another one that we speak (which is so despised that there is not a name to call it). The latter is the mother tongue of Brazilians, the former has to be learned in school, and a majority of population does not manage to master it appropriately.... Personally, I do not object to us writing Portuguese, but I think it is important to make clear that Portuguese is (at least in Brazil) only a written language. Our mother tongue is not Portuguese, but Brazilian Vernacular. This is not a slogan, nor a political statement, it is simply recognition of a fact.... There are linguistic teams working hard in order to give the full description of the structure of the Vernacular. So, there are hopes, that within some years, we will have appropriate grammars of our mother tongue, the language that has been ignored, denied and despised for such a long time." According to Milton M. Azevedo (Brazilian linguist): :"The relationship between Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese and the formal prescriptive variety fulfills the basic conditions of Ferguson's definition [of diglossia]...[...] Considering the difficulty encountered by vernacular speakers to acquire the standard, an understanding of those relationships appears to have broad educational significance. The teaching of Portuguese has traditionally meant imparting a prescriptive formal standard based on a literary register (Cunha 1985: 24) that is often at variance with the language with which students are familiar. As in a diglossic situation, vernacular speakers must learn to read and write in a dialect they neither speak nor fully understand, a circumstance that may have a bearing on the high dropout rate in elementary schools..."

Tamil

Tamil is a diglossic language. The classic form (chentamil) of the language is different from the colloquial (koduntamil) form. This difference in the language has existed since ancient times. The classic form is preferred for writing, and is also used for public speaking. While written Tamil is mostly standard across various Tamil speaking regions, spoken form of the language differs widely from the written form. Novels, even popular ones, will use (H) for all description and narration and use (L) only for dialogue, if they use it at all. The (L) variant is often only used for dialogue of rural or less educated speakers. Even though all Tamilians in ordinary conversation will use (L), novels often depict educated people speaking in an (H) form. Regional and caste differences predominate in (L) variation. Tamil in the state capital Chennai (formerly Madras) is often quite distinct from that spoken elsewhere. Due to its proximity to Andhra Pradesh, there are often more Telugu words. Chennai (L) Tamil also often has more words of Urdu (or Deccani) than do varieties of Tamil from elsewhere in the state. Because of the larger role of English, Chennai Tamil also shows a great influence from this language. Of course, the Tamil spoken in Sri Lanka, while fully intelligible, also has clear differences in vocabulary and pronunciation. Throughout the state, a tripartite caste-based division is also common. Brahmans and Scheduled Castes (formerly called Untouchables) speak forms of (L) Tamil with clear grammatical differences from that of the members of other castes.

Bibliography

- Azevedo, Milton. 2005. "Portuguese. A linguistic introduction". Cambridge University Press.
- Azevedo, Milton; University of California. "Vernacular Features in Educated Speech in Brazilian Portuguese" http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/79117399329793384100080/p0000008.htm
- Bagno, Marcos. "Português ou Brasileiro? (Portuguese or Brazilian?)" http://paginas.terra.com.br/educacao/marcosbagno/
- Eeden, Petrus van. "Diglossie" http://www.afrikaans.nu/pag7.htm
- Freeman, Andrew. "Andrew Freeman's Perspectives on Arabic Diglossia" http://www-personal.umich.edu/~andyf/digl_96.htm
- Lubliner, Jacob. "Reflections on Diglossia" http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~coby/essays/refdigl.htm
- Módolo, Marcelo. "As duas línguas do Brasil.(Two languages of Brazil)" Editora FAUUSP.
- Perini, Mário. 2002. "Modern Portuguese. A Reference Grammar." Yale University Press. New Haven.
- Rash, Felicity. 1998. The German Language in Switzerland. Multilingualism, Diglossia and Variation. Bern: Peter Lang.
- Schiffman, Harold. "Diglossia as a Sociolinguistic Situation" http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/messeas/diglossia/node1.html Category:Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. It also studies how lects differ between groups separated by certain social variables, e.g., ethnicity, religion, economic status, gender, level of education, etc., and how creation and adherence to these rules is used to categorize individuals in social class or socio-economic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place (dialect), language usage varies among social classes, and it is these sociolects that sociolinguistics studies. For example, a sociolinguist might determine through study of social attitudes that Black English Vernacular would not be considered appropriate language use in a business or professional setting; he or she might also study the grammar, phonetics, vocabulary, and other aspects of this sociolect much as a dialectologist would study the same for a regional dialect. The study of language variation is concerned with social constraints determining language in its contextual environment. Code-switching is the term given to the use of different varieties of language in different social situations. William Labov is often regarded as the founder of the study of sociolinguistics. Sociolinguistics differs from sociology of language in that the focus of sociolinguistics is the effect of the society on the language, while the latter's focus is on the language's effect on the society.

Sociolinguistic variables

Studies in the field of sociolinguistics typically take a sample population and interview them, assessing the realisation of certain sociolinguistic variables. Labov specifies the ideal sociolinguistic variable to
- be high in frequency,
- have a certain immunity from conscious suppression,
- be an integral part of larger structures, and
- be easily quantified on a linear scale. Phonetic variables tend to meet these criteria and are often used, as are grammatical variables and, more rarely, lexical variables. Examples for phonetic variables are: the frequency of the Glottal stop, the height or backness of a Vowel or the realisation of word-endings. An example for grammatical variables is the frequency of Double negative.

Sociolinguistic differences according to gender

Minimal responses

One of the ways in which the communicative competence of men and women differ is in their use of minimal responses, i.e., paralinguistic features such as ‘mhm’ and ‘yeah’, which is behaviour associated with collaborative language use. Men, on the other hand, generally use them less frequently and where they do, it is usually to show agreement, as Zimmerman and West’s (1977) study of turn-taking in conversation indicates.

Questions

Men and women differ in their use of questions in conversations. For men, a question is usually a genuine request for information whereas with women it can often be a rhetorical means of engaging the other’s conversational contribution or of acquiring attention from others conversationally involved, techniques associated with a collaborative approach to language use (Barnes, 1971). Therefore women use questions more frequently (Todd, 1983).

Turn-taking

As the work of DeFrancisco (1991) shows, female linguistic behaviour characteristically encompasses a desire to take turns in conversation with others, which is opposed to men’s tendency towards centring on their own point or remaining silent when presented with such implicit offers of conversational turn-taking as are provided by hedges such as ‘y’ know’ and ‘isn’t it’. This desire for turn-taking gives rise to complex forms of interaction in relation to the more regimented form of turn-taking commonly exhibited by men (Sacks et al., 1974).

Changing the topic of conversation

According to Dorval (1990), in his study of same-sex friend interaction, males tend to change subject more frequently than females. This difference may well be at the root of the archaic conception that women chatter and talk too much, and may still trigger the same thinking in some males. In this way lowered estimation of women may arise. Incidentally, this androcentric attitude of women as chatterers arguably arose from the idea that any female conversation was too much talking according to the patriarchal, Judeo-Christian consideration of silence as a womanly virtue.

Self-disclosure

Female tendencies toward self-disclosure, i.e., sharing their problems and experiences with others, often to offer sympathy (Tannen, 1991:49), contrasts with male tendencies to non-self disclosure and professing advice when confronted with another’s problems.

Verbal aggression

Men tend to be more verbally aggressive in conversing (Labov, 1972), frequently using threats, profanities, yelling and name-calling. Women, on the whole, deem this to disrupt the flow of conversation and not (Eder’s 1990) as a means of upholding one’s hierarchical status in the conversation. Incidentally, where women swear, it is usually to demonstrate to others what is normal behaviour for them (Eder, 1990).

Listening and attentiveness

It appears that women attach more weight than men to the importance of listening in conversation, with its connotations of power to the listener as confidant(e) of the speaker . This attachment of import by women to listening is inferred by women’s normally lower rate of interruption – i.e., disrupting the flow of conversation with a topic unrelated to the previous one (Fishman, 1980) – and by their largely increased use of minimal responses in relation to men (Zimmerman and West, 1975). Men, however, interrupt far more frequently with non-related topics, especially in the mixed sex setting (Zimmerman and West,1975) and, far from rendering a female speaker's responses minimal, are apt to greet her conversational spotlights with silence, as the work of DeFrancisco (1991) demonstrates. All of this suggests that men see conversation as a means by which to draw attention to themselves, either by interruption or by questionably undermining what the woman has to say by non-paralinguistic response.

Dominance versus subjection

This in turn suggests a dichotomy between a male desire for conversational dominance - noted by Leet-Pellegrini (1980) with reference to male experts speaking more verbosely than their female counterparts – and a female aspiration to group conversational participation. One corollary of this is, according to Coates (1993: 202), that males are afforded more attention in the context of the classroom and that this can lead to their gaining more attention in scientific and technical subjects, which in turn can lead to their achieving better success in those areas, ultimately leading to their having more power in a technocratic society. However, women have, on average, higher verbal intelligence than men (Eysenck, 1966:4).

Politeness

Politeness in speech is described (Brown and Levinson, 1978) in terms of positive and negative face: respectively, the idea of pandering to the other’s desire to be liked and admired and not to suffer imposition. Both forms, according to Brown’s study of the Tzeltal language (1980), are used more frequently by women whether in mixed or single-sex pairs, suggesting for Brown a greater sensitivity in women than have men to the face needs of others. In short, women are to all intents and purposes largely politer than men. However, negative face politeness can be potentially viewed as weak language because of its associated hedges and tag questions, a view propounded by O’Barr and Atkins (1980) in their work on courtroom interaction.

Complimentary language

Compliments are closely linked to politeness in that, as Coates believes (1983), they cater for positive face needs. Yet, because they do not account for negative face needs, they can be consternating for those not wishing to be imposed upon, especially where this is in a mixed-sex setting. Nevertheless, an increased use of compliments by a women in relation to men (Holmes, 1982) could be held by some men to be indicative of her supposed need for assurance, which may be interpreted as a sign of weakness, resulting in a poorer opinion of her.

Collaborative versus competitive

Women tend towards collaborative language, a fact manifest in their relatively high use of minimal responses, questions, hedges, listening and turn-taking to encourage the other to talk; whereas men generally employ competitive styles as suggested by their silent responses and tendency to interrupt, both of which can be considered ways of competing with the other participants for attention and dominance in the conversation.

Private versus public language

Women tend to conversation oriented towards the private life, as their listening and politeness propensities imply by their very nature as tools with which to be sensitive to private feelings and likeability; whereas men can be held to have a more public-oriented conversational technique - as is implied by their advice-giving response tendencies to questions, giving an outward and so more public impression of the man as knowledgeable - and by their verbal aggression propensities to outwardly and so publicly establish an hierarchy within the conversational setting.

Agreement versus dissent

Women tend generally to have an agreement motivation in conversation, suggested by their usual half-implicit agreement to maintain topic continuity in a conversation at a rate higher to that of men. Men, on the other hand, tend more towards challenge in conversational motivations, a fact hinted at by their tendency to challenge the other’s conversation topic with a higher rate of topic change.

Intimate versus detached

Women can be said to tend towards intimacy in conversing, as suggestive in their use of such politeness techniques as hedges, minimal responses and tag questions to cater for such intimate considerations as positive and negative face; whereas men may be held to exhibit independence and, indeed, distance in conversing, a fact implied by their reduced incidence of resorting to self-disclosure.

References

- Barnes, Douglas (1971), Language and Learning in the Classroom, Journal of Curriculum Studies. 3:1
- Brown, Penelope (1980), How and why are women more polite: some evidence from a Mayan community, pp. 111-36 in McConnell-Ginet, S. et al. [eds] Women and Language in Literature and Society. Praeger, New York.
- Brown, Penelope and Levinson, Stephen (1978), Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena, pp 56-289 in Goody, Esther [ed] Questions and Politeness. Cambridge University Press.
- Coates, Jennifer (1983), Language and Sexism, LAUD Paper No. 173, University of Duisburg.
- Coates, Jennifer (1987), Epistemic modality and spoken discourse, Transactions of the Philological Society, 110-31.
- Coates, Jennifer (1993), Women,Men and language. London: Longman
- DeFrancisco, Victoria (1991), The sound of silence: how men silence women in marital relationships, Discourse and Society 2 (4):413-24.
- Dorval, Bruce (1990), Conversational Organization and its Development, Ablex, Norwood, NJ.
- Eder, Donna (1990), Serious and Playful Disputes: variation in conflict talk among female adolescents, pp. 67-84 in Grimshaw, Allan [ed]Conflict Talk, Cambridge University Press.
- Eysenck, H.J (1966), Check Your Own I.Q. St Ives: Penguin
- Fishman, Pamela(1980), Interactional Shiftwork, Heresies 2:99-101.
- Holmes, Janet (1988), Paying Compliments: a sex-preferential politeness strategy, Journal of Pragmatics 12:445-65
- Labov, William (1972), Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press.
- Leet-Pellegrini, Helena M. (1980) Conversational dominance as a function of gender and expertise, pp. 97-104 in Giles, Howard, Robinson, W. Peters, and Smith, Philip M [eds] Language: Social Psychological Perspectives. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
- O’Barr and Atkins (1980) ‘Women’s Language’ or ‘powerless language’?, pp. 93-110 in McConnell-Ginet et al. [eds] Women and languages in Literature and Society. New York: Praeger.
- Sacks et al (1974) A simple systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation, Language 50:696-735.
- Tannen, Deborah (1991), You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, London: Virago.
- Todd, Alexandra Dundas (1983), A diagnosis of doctor-patient discourse in the prescription of contraception, pp. 159-87 in Fisher, Sue and Todd, Alexandra D. [eds] The Social Organization of Doctor-Patient Communication, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington D.C.
- Zimmerman, Don and West, Candace (1975) Sex roles, interruptions and silences in conversation, pp 105-29 in Thorne, Barrie and Henly, Nancy [eds] Language and sex: Difference and Dominance. Rowley, Massachusetts: Newbury House
- Zimmerman, Don and West, Candace (1977), Sex roles, interruptions and silences in conversation, pp. 105-29 in thorne, Barrie and Henley, Nancy [eds] Language and Sex: Difference and Dominance. Rowly, Massachusetts: Newbury House.

Dialect

Standard and Non-standard Dialects

"Dialect" or "Language"

Political factors

The historical linguistics point of view

Concepts in dialectology

Concepts in dialectology include:

Mutual intelligibility

Diglossia

Dialect continuum

Diasystem

A diasystem refers to a single genetic language which has two or more standard forms. An example is Hindi-Urdu or Hindustani, which encompasses two main standard varieties, Urdu and Hindi.

Pluricentrism

A pluricentric language is a language with several standard versions.

The Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache framework

Selected list of articles on dialects

External links

Romance languages

The Romance languages, also called Romanic languages or New Latin languages, are a subset of the Italic languages, specifically the descendants of the Latin dialects spoken by the common people in what is known as Latin Europe (Italian/Portuguese/Spanish Europa latina, Catalan Europa llatina, French Europe latine, Romanian Europa latină) as Vulgar Latin later evolved in different areas after the break-up of the Roman Empire. Romance language native speakers:
- Western Group:
- Iberian and Americas: Spanish (300 million native speakers), Portuguese (230 million), Catalan (6.5 million), Galician (4 million)
- France: French (65 million), Occitan (2 million)
- Switzerland: Romansh (66,000)
- Italy: Sardinian (300,000), Northern Italian dialects, Dolomites Ladin, Friulian
- Eastern Group:
- Italy: Italian (60 million), Central and Southern Italian dialects including Corsican language, Sicilian
- Romania and Moldova: Romanian (30 million) Many of the differences from the Romance languages in relation to Latin are analytical: articles and prepositions instead of declension, use of auxiliary verbs for the composite verbs, etc. The daughter languages of Latin differ for several reasons: historical isolation, influence of prior languages in territories of Latin Europe that fell under Roman rule, invasions and instability after the fall of Rome, and contact with other cultures in the Renaissance, among others.

History

The term "Romance" comes from the Romance word romance or romanz, from Latin romanice, the adverbial form of romanicus, in expressions like parabolare romanice ("to speak in Roman"). The modern Romance languages differ from Classical Latin in a number of fundamental respects:
- No declensions, that is, they generally no longer alter a noun to indicate its grammatical role, though there may be a few exceptions such as in pronouns. An exception is Romanian, which continues to use declensions.
- Only two grammatical genders, rather than the three of Classical Latin (except Romanian and Italian to a small extent, and except several gender-neutral pronouns in Spanish, Italian, Catalan etc.)
- Introduction of grammatical articles, based on Latin demonstratives
- Latin future tense scrapped, and new future and conditional tenses introduced, based on infinitive + present or imperfect tense of habere (to have), fused to form new inflections.
- Latin synthetic perfect tenses replaced by new compound forms with be or have + past participle (except Portuguese, where the Latin plusquamperfect tense has been retained and Romanian, which has 2 perfect tenses - one synthetic and one compound - that have the same meaning and also has a synthetic plusquamperfect tense in the indicative mood that is formed using the suffix "-se", derived from the suffix used in Latin to form the subjunctive plusquamperfect, "-isse").

Status

The most spoken Romance language is Spanish, followed by Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian and Catalan. Generally, the Romance languages have simplified the complex morphology and grammar of Latin. Italian, Sardinian and Romanian retain more original features than the rest. The Romance variants form a dialect continuum, and nearby languages usually have some mutual intelligibility. Portuguese and French are perhaps the most innovative of the languages, each in different ways. Sardinian is perhaps the most isolated and conservative variant. Languedocian Occitan is considered by some the most "average" western Romance language. In the history of the Romance languages, the first split was between Sardinian and the rest. Then of the rest, the next split was between Romanian in the east, and the others in the west. The third major split was between Italian and the Gallo-Iberian group. This latter then split into a Gallo-Romance group, which became the Oïl languages (including French), Occitan, Francoprovençal and Romansh, and an Iberian Romance group which became Spanish and Portuguese. Catalan is considered by many specialists as a transition language between the Gallic group and the Iberian group, since it shares characteristics from both groups; for example, 'fear' is 'medo' in Portuguese, 'miedo' in Spanish, but 'por' in Catalan — compare with 'peur' in French. There is much dialect diversity, and there is no clear differentiation between a "language" and a "dialect". Some varieties are privileged in that they are the main language of media and education in their countries (French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian and, recently, Catalan, although it is not as spread on the media as the other cited languages are, particularly in Valencia and the Balearic Islands, where its presence on local newspapers and radio stations is almost minoritary; it is also much neglected in the area of the French state where it is spoken). Others are used as the language of instruction in schools and have some official status, such as Sardinian and Romansh. Many have suffered long periods of official neglect, such as Occitan (or Provençal), the Oïl languages other than French, and Venetian. Some of these possess several competing standards. And some minor variants which might have developed into distinct languages have been reduced to residual areas and restricted usage, like Astur-Leonese, Aragonese or Mirandese.

Typical characteristics

Characteristics typical of Romance languages include:
- General:
- Romance languages are "verb-framed" rather than "satellite-framed". This means that phrases indicating motion will tend to encode the motion's direction within the verb (e.g. "enter", "insert"), rather than in an external particle (e.g. "go in", "put in"). This is a feature of word formation.
- Romance languages frequently have two copula verbs (see Romance copula), from the Latin infinitives ESSE and STARE: one for essence and the other for status.
- Romance languages conjugate verbs in first, second, and third person forms, both singular and plural. The third person forms may also be inflected for gender, but the first- and second-person forms are not (compare with Hebrew, which inflects all three persons for gender and number.)
- Politeness forms include some form of the T-V distinction in all Romance languages.
- Romance languages have 2 or 3 genders for all nouns, but usually do not inflect nouns for case, though their parent Latin did.
- Romance languages include a default stress on the second-last syllable, and have euphony rules that avoid glottal stops, and multiple stop consonants in a row. (The second-last syllable becomes the last in languages like French that habitually drop the final Latin vowel.) The combination of these rules gives spoken Romance languages their characteristic high speed and flow. Compare Polish second-to-last stress.
- Written form only:
- The letters "W" and "K" are rarely used (except in names or borrowings, for example Kappa, or w in standard Walloon orthography).
- The letters "C" and "G" are usually "soft" postalveolar consonants before a front vowel, but "hard" velar consonants by default, or before a back vowel.
- In most Romance languages, proper adjectives (including nationalities, such as American and British), names of days of the week and months of the year are not capitalized. For example, nationalities are capitalized in French only when used as nouns.

Distinguishing features

Evolution compared to Latin

According to the results of the study of M. Pei in 1949, which compares the evolution degree of the languages with respect of their inheritance language (in the case of Romance languages the Latin language), here are the evolution degrees:
- Sardinian: 8 %;
- Italian: 12 %;
- Spanish: 20 %;
- Romanian: 23.5 %;
- Occitan: 25 %;
- Portuguese: 31 %;
- French: 44 %.

Formation of plurals

Some Romance languages form plurals by adding /s/ (derived from the plural of the Latin accusative case), while others form the plural by changing the final vowel (by influence of the Latin nominative ending /i/). See La Spezia-Rimini Line for more information.
- Plural in /s/: Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Occitan, French, Sardinian.
- Vowel change: Italian, Romanian.

Omission of final Latin vowels

Some Romance languages have lost the final unstressed vowels from the Latin roots. For example: Latin lupus, luna become Italian lupo, luna but French loup /lu/), lune (/lyn/).
- Final vowels retained: Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Romanian (Southern dialects and old Romanian).
- Final vowels retained in feminine gender only: Catalan, Occitan, Romanian (Daco-Romanian).
- Final vowels dropped: French. Romance languages dropping the final vowel have one less syllable: the usual "penultimate syllable" accent is on the last syllable in these languages.

Words for "more"

Some Romance languages use a version of Latin plus, others a version of magis.
- Plus-derived: French plus /ply/, Italian più /pju/, dialectal Catalan pus /pus/ (this word is exclusively used on negative statements in Mallorcan Catalan)
- Magis-derived: Portuguese (mais), Spanish (más), Catalan (més), Occitan (mai), Romanian (mai), Italian (mai, used only in the construction non...mai, meaning "never")

The number 16

In some languages the word for the number 16 is irregular after the fashion of English "sixteen", as are all the Romance numerals from 11 to 15. In other Romance languages, 16 is literally "ten and six", like the numbers from 17 to 19.
- "Sixteen": Catalan, Occitan, French, Italian, Romanian.
- "Ten and six": Portuguese, Spanish.

To have and to hold

The verbs derived from Latin habere and tenere are used differently for the concepts of "to hold", "to have", "to have" (auxiliary for complex tenses), and existence statements ("there is"). For instance, in French, je tiens, j'ai, j'ai fait, il y a: these are respectively derived from tenere, habere, habere and habere. If we use T for tenere and H for habere, in these four meanings, we can encode the difference as follows:
- TTTT: Some varieties of Brazilian Portuguese.
- TTTH: Portuguese/Galician.
- TTHH: Spanish, Catalan.
- THHH: Occitan, French. There is also essere in Italian and este in Romanian, used for "to be":
- THHE: Romanian, Italian

To have or to be

Some languages use their equivalent of "have" as an auxiliary verb to form the perfect forms (e. g. French passé composé) of all verbs; others use "be" for some verbs and "have" for others.
- "Have" only: Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian.
- "Have" and "be": Occitan, French, Italian. In the latter, the verbs which use "be" as an auxiliary are unaccusative verbs, that is, intransitive verbs that show motion not directly initiated by the subject or changes of state, such as "fall", "come", "become". All other verbs (intransitive unergative verbs and all transitive verbs) use "have". For example, in French, J'ai vu "I have seen" vs. Je suis tombé "I am fallen" ("I have fallen").

Pidgins and creoles

The global spread of colonial Romance languages has given rise to numerous creoles and pidgins. Some of the lesser-spoken languages have also had influences on varieties spoken far from their traditional regions.
- List creoles and pidgins, grouped by source-language.
- Lingua Franca, influenced by the Romance languages of the Western Mediterranean and Arabic.
- French Creoles
- Haitian Creole is a national language of Haiti
- Antillean Creole spoken primarily in Dominica and St. Lucia.
- Kreyol Lwiziyen Louisiana creole
- Mauritian Creole is the lingua franca in Mauritius
- Seychellois Creole Also known as Seselwa, Seychellois Creole is an official language, along with English and French, as well as the lingua franca of the Seychelles.
- Lanc-Patuá Spoken in Brazil, mostly in Amapá state. It has been influenced by Portuguese. It was developed by immigrants from neighboring French Guiana and French territories of the Caribbean Sea.
- Portuguese Creoles
- Angolar Spoken in coastal areas of São Tomé Island, São Tomé and Príncipe.
- Annobonnese Spoken in the island of Annobón, Equatorial Guinea.
- Crioulo do Barlavento (Criol) Spoken in Barlavento islands of Cape Verde.
- Crioulo de São Vicente Spoken in São Vicente Island, Cape Verde. It could not be a, de facto, Creole.
- Crioulo do Sotavento (Kriolu) Spoken in Sotavento islands of Cape Verde.
- Daman Indo-Portuguese Spoken in Daman, India. Decreolization process occurred.
- Diu Indo-Portuguese Spoken in Diu, India. Almost extinct.
- Forro Spoken in São Tomé Island, São Tomé and Príncipe.
- Kristang Spoken in Malaysia.
- Kristi Spoken in the village of Korlay, India.
- Lunguyê Spoken in Príncipe Island, São Tomé and Príncipe. Almost extinct.
- Macanese Spoken in Macau and Hong Kong. Decreolization process occurred.
- Papiamento Spoken in the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. Spanish influenced.
- Saramaccan Portuguese/English Creole. Spoken in Surinam.
- Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese Spoken in Coastal cities of Sri Lanka.
- Upper Guinea Creole (Kriol) lingua franca of Guinea-Bissau, also spoken in Casamance, Senegal.
- Spanish Creoles
- Chavacano -Spoken in Zamboanga and Cavite , Philippines.
- Palenquero
- Papiamento. It is often hard to tell Portuguese influences from Spanish ones.
- Spanglish, spoken in northern Mexico and southern United States.
- Yanito While not being pidgins nor creoles, English (see Middle English creole hypothesis) and Basque have a substantial Romance influence in their vocabularies.

Constructed languages

Latin and the Romance languages also give rise to numerous constructed languages, both international auxiliary languages (well-known examples of which are Esperanto, Ido and Interlingua) and languages created for artistic purposes only (such as Brithenig and Wenedyk).

Listing

Here is a more detailed listing of languages and dialects (roughly ordered from west to east):
- Iberian Romance languages
- Portuguese-Galician
- Portuguese language
- European Portuguese
- Brazilian Portuguese
- African Portuguese
-
- Angolan Portuguese
-
- Capeverdean Portuguese
-
- Guinean Portuguese
-
- Mozambican Portuguese
-
- São Tomean Portuguese
- Judeo-Portuguese
- Galician
- Eonaviegan (a Galician dialect with some traits of Asturian)
- Fala language (spoken in a a valley of the northwestern part of Extremadura in Spain)
- Astur-Leonese
- Leonese
- Asturian (the variant with more vitality)
- Mirandese (spoken in a tiny corner of Portugal — very archaic)
- Extremaduran (the south variant, more Castilian like)
- Spanish (Castilian)
- Ladino (Judæo-Spanish)
- Aragonese
- Mozarabic variants (extinct by the 15th century)
- Catalan
- Western Catalan
- North-Western Catalan
-
- Ribagorçan (transitional to Aragonese)
- Valencian
- Eastern Catalan
- Central Catalan (includes Barcelona dialect)
- Northern Catalan (Roussillonese)
- Balearic
- Alguerese
- Occitan or langue d'oc
- Gascon
- Aranese
- Lemosin
- Auvernhat
- Aupenc
- Lengadocian
- Provençal
- Niçard
- Francoprovençal
- langues d'oïl
- French
- Picard language
- Walloon language
- Norman language
- Jèrriais
- Dgèrnésiais
- Anglo-Norman language (extinct)
- Gallo language
- Franc-Comtois
- Champenois
- Poitevin-Saintongeais
- Bourguignon-Morvandiau
- Lorrain
- Rhaetian languages
- Friulian
- Ladin
- Romansh
- Italian
- Gallo-Italian languages
- Piemontese
- Ligurian
- Monegasque
- Lombard
- Emilio-Romagnolo
- Venetian
- Napoletano-Calabrese
- Sicilian
- Corsican (closely related to Tuscan dialects, with Ligurian elements)
- Gallurese (close to Corsican)
- Sassarese (transitional to Corsican)
- Sardinian
- Campidanese
- Logudorese
- Dalmatian (extinct)
- Istriot
- Eastern Romance languages
- Romanian (also named Moldovan in Moldova)
- Aromanian
- Meglenitic
- Istro-Romanian (these latter three are sometimes regarded as dialects of the Romanian language).

Ethnologue classification

The classification below is largely based on the analysis provided at ethnologue.com. The ISO-639-2 code roa is applied by the ISO for any Romance language that does not have its own code. The Ethnologue classification (produced by the SIL International) is at one extreme of linguists, who divide into 'splitters' and 'lumpers'. Ethnologue produce a very detailed classification, which is more precise than many other linguists would accept, but it is valuable as a description of varieties. The Southern group
- Sardinian Four versions recognized; all are included in ISO 639-1 code, sc; ISO 639-2 code, srd)
- Sardinian, Sassarese - (SIL code, SDC)
- Sardinian, Gallurese - (SIL Code, SDN)
- Sardinian, Logudorese - (SIL Code, SRD)
- Sardinian, Campidanese - (SIL Code, SRO)
- Corsican - (SIL Code, COI; ISO 639-1 code, co; ISO 639-2 code, cos) The Italo-Western group
The Western sub-group
. .Gallo-Iberian division
. . .Ibero-Romance sub-division
. . . .West Iberian section
- Asturo-Leonese
- Asturian - (SIL Code, AUB; ISO 639-2 code, ast)
- Mirandese - (SIL Code, MWL; ISO 639-2 code, roa)
- Castilian
- Spanish - (SIL Code, SPN; ISO 639-1 code, es; ISO 639-2 code, spa)
- Spanish, Loreto-Ucayali - (SIL Code, SPQ; ISO 639-2 code, roa)
- Ladino (Judæo-Spanish) - (SIL Code, SPJ; ISO 639-2 code, lad)
- Extremaduran - (SIL Code, EXT; ISO 639-2 c

Dialect continuum

See also

Dialect

Standard and Non-standard Dialects

"Dialect" or "Language"

Political factors

The historical linguistics point of view

Concepts in dialectology

Mutual intelligibility

Diglossia

Dialect continuum

Diasystem

Pluricentrism

The Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache framework

Selected list of articles on dialects

See also

External links

Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache

External links

Further information

Diglossia

Catalan

Brazilian Portuguese

Tamil

Bibliography

Sociolinguistics

Sociolinguistic variables

Sociolinguistic differences according to gender

Minimal responses

Questions

Turn-taking

Changing the topic of conversation

Self-disclosure

Verbal aggression

Listening and attentiveness

Dominance versus subjection

Politeness

Complimentary language

Collaborative versus competitive

Private versus public language

Agreement versus dissent

Intimate versus detached

References

Further reading

See also

Dialect

Standard and Non-standard Dialects

"Dialect" or "Language"

Political factors

The historical linguistics point of view

Concepts in dialectology

Mutual intelligibility

Diglossia

Dialect continuum

Diasystem

Pluricentrism

The Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache framework

Selected list of articles on dialects

See also

External links

Romance languages

History

Status

Typical characteristics

Distinguishing features

Evolution compared to Latin

Formation of plurals

Omission of final Latin vowels

Words for "more"

The number 16

To have and to hold

To have or to be

Pidgins and creoles

Constructed languages

Listing

Ethnologue classification