> Assuming both sides *want* to communicate, dialect isn't automatically
> a barrier. If one side or the other doesn't particularly want to
> communicate, dialect can become a convenient excuse.
You've probably heard this before, but ... When I was at University there were two female first-year students, one from Sheffield and one from Bristol. For the first term they passed each other in the corridor and smiled, just because they couldn't understand a word each other said except for "Hi". So, two intelligent English-born women could not understand each other's dialect.
In a less modern society, dialect is more of a challenge. Travellers will probably be able to understand several dialects but the more sedentary and conservative ones will find it difficult to understand each other.
See Ya
Simon
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