Re: Dialects in communication

From: Mandacaru <SamLElliot_at_O2qK4IQThL7nUTnn0rcF2ITuAu0bSlOU641IMs0k_nQeyYxdKtLir9MDw5ObKgAI6>
Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:44:35 -0000

> >Sure. Broadly speaking, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and
> >Romanian are all dialects of Latin. Doesn't mean speaking one will
> >let you speak all the others, but after learning one, people tend to
> >find it easier to learn one of the others. :)
>
> That's broadening dialect beyond its usual meaning. Dialect involves
> a small proportion (10%, maybe 20%) of words which are either not
> part of the main form of the language or rarely used by most speakers.
> There are no significant differences in grammar or sentence structure.
> So apart from a bit of "what does that word mean?" speakers of
> different dialects can communicate without either learning the other
> language.

There seems to be a conflation of vocabulary with accent here. You can have exactly the same words spoken but overlaid with an accent which makes things impossible to understand. Also, I doubt anyone can understand 10% of any other dialect from the off without having experienced it before. You can get completely lost very quickly below the level of dialect. Can you understand it with a bit of time and application? Sure.

Are Spanish and Portuguese dialects of the same language? Pretty much. Look at them written. In fact, Portuguese and Gallego are very similar indeed. Can a Brazilian understand S. American Castillian? Usually. Can a Hispanic American understand Brazilian Portuguese? Very rarely. Go figure. Can a Brazilian understand Portuguese from Portugal? Rarely.

With languages which have been exported from the Old World to the New (e.g. English), a lot of the original variation is lost due to the bottleneck and to mixing in the new place. It is the same as population genetics/evolution.

As for Trainspotting...it wasn't Newcastle, it was Edinburgh. but in this instance, we are probably talking of different versions of Old English - the Scottish version was pretty much ditched.

Perhaps the most illuminating thing of all is to look at this site: http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
:)

Sam.