A dialect is a variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. It can also refer to a language subordinate in status to a dominant language, and is sometimes used to mean a vernacular language.
104-543: Tuba , also Bidayat (Bideyat), is a dialect of the Zaghawa language found in Chad and western Sudan . In contrast to their Zaghawa kin, Bidayat speakers are more nomadic. This difference led early ethnographers to refer to them as different groups until linguistic similarities proved their close relationship. The former President of Chad , Idriss Déby belonged to this group. This Nilo-Saharan languages –related article
208-453: A dialect of a language defined in this way. In these terms, Danish and Norwegian , though mutually intelligible to a large degree, are considered separate languages. In the framework of Heinz Kloss , these are described as languages by ausbau (development) rather than by abstand (separation). In other situations, a closely related group of varieties possess considerable (though incomplete) mutual intelligibility, but none dominates
312-508: A dialect cluster is defined as a central variety together with a collection of varieties whose speakers can understand the central variety at a specified threshold level (usually between 70% and 85%) or higher. It is not required that peripheral varieties be understood by speakers of the central variety or of other peripheral varieties. A minimal set of central varieties providing coverage of a dialect continuum may be selected algorithmically from intelligibility data. In many societies, however,
416-461: A dialect continuum . The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity . A dialect associated with a particular social class is called a sociolect ; one associated with a particular ethnic group is an ethnolect ; and a geographical or regional dialect is a regiolect (alternative terms include 'regionalect', 'geolect', and 'topolect' ). Any variety of
520-513: A "dialect", as it is the dominant language in a particular state, be it in terms of linguistic prestige , social or political (e.g. official ) status, predominance or prevalence, or all of the above. The term "dialect" used this way implies a political connotation, being mostly used to refer to low-prestige languages (regardless of their actual degree of distance from the national language), languages lacking institutional support, or those perceived as "unsuitable for writing". The designation "dialect"
624-639: A Sicilian-speaking person would have a greater degree of mutual intelligibility with a speaker of the more closely related Neapolitan language, but far less mutual intelligibility with a person speaking Sicilian Gallo-Italic, a language that developed in isolated Lombard emigrant communities on the same island as the Sicilian language. Today, the majority of Italian nationals are able to speak Italian, though many Italians still speak their regional language regularly or as their primary day-to-day language, especially at home with family or when communicating with Italians from
728-465: A Yiddish speaker would consult a Yiddish dictionary rather than a German dictionary in such a case, and is classified as its own language. Within this framework, W. A. Stewart defined a language as an autonomous variety in addition to all the varieties that are heteronomous with respect to it, noting that an essentially equivalent definition had been stated by Charles A. Ferguson and John J. Gumperz in 1960. A heteronomous variety may be considered
832-456: A central variety together with all those varieties whose speakers understand the central variety at a specified threshold level or higher. If the threshold level is high, usually between 70% and 85%, the cluster is designated as a language . Another occasionally used criterion for discriminating dialects from languages is the sociolinguistic notion of linguistic authority . According to this definition, two varieties are considered dialects of
936-522: A distinct language from Arabic and not merely a dialect thereof. During the civil war , Christians often used Lebanese Arabic officially, and sporadically used the Latin script to write Lebanese, thus further distinguishing it from Arabic. All Lebanese laws are written in the standard literary form of Arabic, though parliamentary debate may be conducted in Lebanese Arabic. In Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco,
1040-402: A given language can be classified as "a dialect", including any standardized varieties . In this case, the distinction between the "standard language" (i.e. the "standard" dialect of a particular language) and the " nonstandard " (vernacular) dialects of the same language is often arbitrary and based on social, political, cultural, or historical considerations or prevalence and prominence. In
1144-546: A given language can be classified as a "dialect", including standardized ones . A second usage, which refers to colloquial settings, typically diglossic , in a few countries like Italy , such as dialetto , patois in France , much of East Central Europe, and the Philippines , may carry a pejorative undertone and underlines the politically and socially subordinated status of an autochthonous non-national language to
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#17328523821831248-415: A language with a writing system will operate at different degrees of distance from the standardized written form. Some dialects of a language are not mutually intelligible in spoken form, leading to debate as to whether they are regiolects or separate languages. A standard dialect , also known as a "standardized language", is supported by institutions. Such institutional support may include any or all of
1352-459: A matter of dispute. Macedonian , which is largely mutually intelligible with Bulgarian and certain dialects of Serbo-Croatian ( Torlakian ), is considered by Bulgarian linguists to be a Bulgarian dialect, while in North Macedonia , it is regarded as a language in its own right. Before the establishment of a literary standard of Macedonian in 1944, in most sources in and out of Bulgaria before
1456-745: A number of different families follow the last two major groups: the Gallo-Romance languages ( French , Occitan and its Vivaro-Alpine dialect , Franco-Provençal ); the Rhaeto-Romance languages ( Friulian and Ladin ); the Ibero-Romance languages ( Sardinia 's Algherese ); the Germanic Cimbrian , Southern Bavarian , Walser German and the Mòcheno language ; the Albanian Arbëresh language ;
1560-478: A particular dialect, often the sociolect of the elite class, comes to be identified as the "standard" or "proper" version of a language by those seeking to make a social distinction and is contrasted with other varieties. As a result of this, in some contexts, the term "dialect" refers specifically to varieties with low social status . In this secondary sense of "dialect", language varieties are often called dialects rather than languages : The status of "language"
1664-402: A question. In the second line, pitch falls, indicating a statement — a confirmation of the first line in this case. Finally, in the third line, a complicated rise-fall pattern indicates incredulity. Each pitch/intonation pattern communicates a different meaning. An additional pitch-related variation is pitch range ; speakers are capable of speaking with a wide range of pitch (this
1768-438: A separate and parallel way and may thus better fit various parties' criteria for a separate language. Despite this, these "dialects" may often be historically cognate and share genetic roots in the same subfamily as the dominant national language and may even, to a varying degree, share some mutual intelligibility with the latter. In this sense, unlike in the first usage, the national language would not itself be considered
1872-712: A separate language, because Literary Arabic is the liturgical language of Islam and the language of the Islamic sacred book, the Qur'an . Although, especially since the 1960s, the Darijas are occupying an increasing use and influence in the cultural life of these countries. Examples of cultural elements where Darijas' use became dominant include: theatre, film, music, television, advertisement, social media, folk-tale books and companies' names. Prosody (linguistics) In linguistics , prosody ( / ˈ p r ɒ s ə d i , ˈ p r ɒ z -/ )
1976-430: A sequence of varieties, where each mutually intelligible with the next, but may not be mutually intelligible with distant varieties. Others have argued that mutual intelligibility occurs in varying degrees, and the potential difficulty in distinguishing between intelligibility and prior familiarity with the other variety. However, recent research suggests that there is some empirical evidence in favor of using some form of
2080-399: A similar way, the definitions of the terms "language" and "dialect" may overlap and are often subject to debate, with the differentiation between the two classifications often grounded in arbitrary or sociopolitical motives, and the term "dialect" is sometimes restricted to mean "non-standard variety", particularly in non-specialist settings and non-English linguistic traditions. The term
2184-441: A similar way, the definitions of the terms "language" and "dialect" may overlap and are often subject to debate, with the differentiation between the two classifications often grounded in arbitrary or sociopolitical motives. The term "dialect" is however sometimes restricted to mean "non-standard variety", particularly in non-specialist settings and non-English linguistic traditions. Conversely, some dialectologists have reserved
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#17328523821832288-582: A socio-cultural approach, is possible. This is illustrated by the frequency with which the army-navy aphorism is cited. By the definition most commonly used by linguists, any linguistic variety can be considered a "dialect" of some language—"everybody speaks a dialect". According to that interpretation, the criteria above merely serve to distinguish whether two varieties are dialects of the same language or dialects of different languages. The terms "language" and "dialect" are not necessarily mutually exclusive, although they are often perceived to be. Thus there
2392-482: A speaker is inviting the listener to make a contribution to the conversation. Prosody is also important in signalling emotions and attitudes. When this is involuntary (as when the voice is affected by anxiety or fear), the prosodic information is not linguistically significant. However, when the speaker varies their speech intentionally, for example to indicate sarcasm, this usually involves the use of prosodic features. The most useful prosodic feature in detecting sarcasm
2496-636: A speaker of purely Eastern Lombard , a language in Northern Italy 's Lombardy region that includes the Bergamasque dialect , would have severely limited mutual intelligibility with a purely Italian speaker and would be nearly completely unintelligible to a Sicilian -speaking individual. Due to Eastern Lombard's status as a Gallo-Italic language, an Eastern Lombard speaker may, in fact, have more mutual intelligibility with an Occitan, Catalan , or French speaker than with an Italian or Sicilian speaker. Meanwhile,
2600-531: A variety of "filled" pause types. Formulaic language pause fillers include "Like", "Er" and "Um", and paralinguistic expressive respiratory pauses include the sigh and gasp . Although related to breathing, pauses may contain contrastive linguistic content, as in the periods between individual words in English advertising voice-over copy sometimes placed to denote high information content, e.g. "Quality. Service. Value". Pausing or its lack contributes to
2704-438: A word. Take one popular English word for example: In English, lexical prosody is used for a few different reasons. As we have seen above, lexical prosody was used to change the form of a word from a noun to a verb. Another function of lexical prosody has to do with the grammatical role that a word plays within a sentence. Adjectives and nouns of a sentence are often stressed on the first syllables while verbs are often stressed on
2808-486: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Dialect The more common usage of the term in English refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The dialects or varieties of a particular language are closely related and, despite their differences, are most often largely mutually intelligible , especially if geographically close to one another in
2912-668: Is a reduction in the mean fundamental frequency relative to other speech for humor, neutrality, or sincerity. While prosodic cues are important in indicating sarcasm, context clues and shared knowledge are also important. Emotional prosody was considered by Charles Darwin in The Descent of Man to predate the evolution of human language : "Even monkeys express strong feelings in different tones – anger and impatience by low, – fear and pain by high notes." Native speakers listening to actors reading emotionally neutral text while projecting emotions correctly recognized happiness 62% of
3016-503: Is also used popularly to refer to the unwritten or non-codified languages of developing countries or isolated areas, where the term " vernacular language " would be preferred by linguists. John Lyons writes that "Many linguists [...] subsume differences of accent under differences of dialect." In general, accent refers to variations in pronunciation, while dialect also encompasses specific variations in grammar and vocabulary . There are three geographical zones in which Arabic
3120-504: Is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class or ethnicity . A dialect that is associated with a particular social class can be termed a sociolect . A dialect that is associated with a particular ethnic group can be termed an ethnolect . A geographical/regional dialect may be termed a regiolect (alternative terms include 'regionalect', 'geolect', and 'topolect' ). According to this definition, any variety of
3224-474: Is described to be a natural component of language. The defining features of prosody that display the nuanced emotions of an individual differ across languages and cultures. Some writers (e.g., O'Connor and Arnold) have described intonation entirely in terms of pitch, while others (e.g., Crystal) propose that "intonation" is a combination of several prosodic variables. English intonation is often said to be based on three aspects: The choice of pitch movement and
Bidayat dialect - Misplaced Pages Continue
3328-532: Is heavily based on the Florentine dialect of Tuscan . The Tuscan-based language that would eventually become modern Italian had been used in poetry and literature since at least the 12th century , and it first spread outside the Tuscan linguistic borders through the works of the so-called tre corone ("three crowns"): Dante Alighieri , Petrarch , and Giovanni Boccaccio . Florentine thus gradually rose to prominence as
3432-540: Is important to distinguish between the personal characteristics that belong to an individual's voice (for example, their habitual pitch range, intonation patterns, etc.) and the independently variable prosodic features that are used contrastively to communicate meaning (for example, the use of changes in pitch to indicate the difference between statements and questions). Personal characteristics that belong to an individual are not linguistically significant while prosodic features are. Prosody has been found across all languages and
3536-486: Is most prevalent. Italy is in fact home to a vast array of separate languages , most of which lack mutual intelligibility with one another and have their own local varieties; twelve of them ( Albanian , Catalan , German , Greek , Slovene , Croatian , French , Franco-Provençal , Friulian , Ladin , Occitan and Sardinian ) underwent Italianization to a varying degree (ranging from the currently endangered state displayed by Sardinian and southern Italian Greek to
3640-685: Is necessary for listeners to be able to identify the affective tone of the utterance. At lengths below this, there was not enough information for listeners to process the emotional context of the utterance. Unique prosodic features have been noted in infant-directed speech (IDS) - also known as baby talk , child-directed speech (CDS), or "motherese". Adults, especially caregivers, speaking to young children tend to imitate childlike speech by using higher and more variable pitch, as well as an exaggerated stress. These prosodic characteristics are thought to assist children in acquiring phonemes, segmenting words, and recognizing phrasal boundaries. And though there
3744-426: Is no evidence to indicate that infant-directed speech is necessary for language acquisition, these specific prosodic features have been observed in many different languages. An aprosodia is an acquired or developmental impairment in comprehending or generating the emotion conveyed in spoken language. Aprosody is often accompanied by the inability to properly utilize variations in speech, particularly with deficits in
3848-604: 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 and classical Latin. An opposite example is Chinese , whose variations such as Mandarin and Cantonese are often called dialects and not languages in China, despite their mutual unintelligibility. National boundaries sometimes make
3952-766: Is nothing contradictory in the statement "the language of the Pennsylvania Dutch is a dialect of German ". There are various terms that linguists may use to avoid taking a position on whether the speech of a community is an independent language in its own right or a dialect of another language. Perhaps the most common is " variety "; " lect " is another. A more general term is " languoid ", which does not distinguish between dialects, languages, and groups of languages, whether genealogically related or not. The colloquial meaning of dialect can be understood by example, e.g. in Italy (see dialetto ), France (see patois ) and
4056-454: Is often considered to be purely linguistic, is that of mutual intelligibility : two varieties are said to be dialects of the same language if being a speaker of one variety has sufficient knowledge to understand and be understood by a speaker of the other dialect; otherwise, they are said to be different languages. However, this definition has often been criticized, especially in the case of a dialect continuum (or dialect chain), which contains
4160-405: Is only used for the traditional regional varieties. That allows them to be distinguished from the regional varieties of modern standard German. The German dialects show a wide spectrum of variation. Some of them are not mutually intelligible. German dialectology traditionally names the major dialect groups after Germanic tribes from which they were assumed to have descended. The extent to which
4264-506: Is said to be autonomous. In contrast, speakers in the Netherlands of Low Saxon varieties similar to Westphalian would instead consult a dictionary of Standard Dutch , and hence is categorized as a dialect of Dutch instead. Similarly, although Yiddish is classified by linguists as a language in the High German group of languages and has some degree of mutual intelligibility with German,
Bidayat dialect - Misplaced Pages Continue
4368-427: Is sometimes referred to as the accentual function of prosody. A well-known example is the ambiguous sentence "I never said she stole my money", where there are seven meaning changes depending on which of the seven words is vocally highlighted. Prosody helps convey many other pragmatic functions, including expressing attitudes (approval, uncertainty, dissatisfaction, and so on), flagging turn-taking intentions (to hold
4472-624: Is spoken (Jastrow 2002). Zone I is categorized as the area in which Arabic was spoken before the rise of Islam. It is the Arabian Peninsula, excluding the areas where southern Arabian was spoken. Zone II is categorized as the areas to which Arabic speaking peoples moved as a result of the conquests of Islam. Included in Zone II are the Levant , Egypt , North Africa , Iraq , and some parts of Iran . The Egyptian, Sudanese, and Levantine dialects (including
4576-488: Is supported by the Académie Française institution. A nonstandard dialect also has a complete grammar and vocabulary, but is usually not the beneficiary of institutional support. The distinction between the "standard" dialect and the " nonstandard " (vernacular) dialects of the same language is often arbitrary and based on social, political, cultural, or historical considerations or prevalence and prominence. In
4680-405: Is the basis of the metric pattern, we have poetry; when pitch is the pattern basis, we have rhythmic prose" (Weeks 11). Stress retraction is a popular example of phrasal prosody in everyday life. For example: Contrastive stress is another everyday English example of phrasal prosody that helps us determine what parts of the sentence are important. Take these sentences for example: Emphasizing that
4784-483: Is the major factor, the resulting prominence is often called accent rather than stress. There is considerable variation from language to language concerning the role of stress in identifying words or in interpreting grammar and syntax. Although rhythm is not a prosodic variable in the way that pitch or loudness are, it is usual to treat a language's characteristic rhythm as a part of its prosodic phonology. It has often been asserted that languages exhibit regularity in
4888-428: Is the study of elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but which are properties of syllables and larger units of speech, including linguistic functions such as intonation , stress , and rhythm . Such elements are known as suprasegmentals . Prosody reflects the nuanced emotional features of the speaker or of their utterances: their obvious or underlying emotional state,
4992-419: Is typically associated with the following: Some of these cues are more powerful or prominent than others. Alan Cruttenden, for example, writes "Perceptual experiments have clearly shown that, in English at any rate, the three features (pitch, length and loudness) form a scale of importance in bringing syllables into prominence, pitch being the most efficacious, and loudness the least so". When pitch prominence
5096-454: Is used by listeners to guide decisions about the emotional affect of the situation. Whether a person decodes the prosody as positive, negative, or neutral plays a role in the way a person decodes a facial expression accompanying an utterance. As the facial expression becomes closer to neutral, the prosodic interpretation influences the interpretation of the facial expression. A study by Marc D. Pell revealed that 600 ms of prosodic information
5200-616: Is usually associated with excitement), while at other times with a narrow range. English makes use of changes in key ; shifting one's intonation into the higher or lower part of one's pitch range is believed to be meaningful in certain contexts. Stress functions as the means of making a syllable prominent. Stress may be studied in relation to individual words (named "word stress" or lexical stress ) or in relation to larger units of speech (traditionally referred to as "sentence stress" but more appropriately named " prosodic stress "). Stressed syllables are made prominent by several variables. Stress
5304-575: The Centro-Southern and Centro-Northern dialects. Though mostly mutually unintelligible, the exact degree to which all the Italian languages are mutually unintelligible varies, often correlating with geographical distance or geographical barriers between the languages; some regional Italian languages that are closer in geographical proximity to each other or closer to each other on the dialect continuum are more or less mutually intelligible. For instance,
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#17328523821835408-556: The Darijas translated as literally meaning Dialect in Arabic (spoken North African languages) are sometimes considered more different from other Arabic dialects. Officially, North African countries prefer to give preference to the Literary Arabic and conduct much of their political and religious life in it (adherence to Islam ), and refrain from declaring each country's specific variety to be
5512-578: The Hellenic Griko language and Calabrian Greek ; the Serbo-Croatian Slavomolisano dialect ; and the various Slovene languages , including the Gail Valley dialect and Istrian dialect . The language indigenous to Sardinia , while being Romance in nature, is considered to be a specific linguistic family of its own, separate from the other Neo-Latin groups; it is often subdivided into
5616-586: The Middle Ages . However, all these languages evolved from Vulgar Latin in parallel with Italian, long prior to the popular diffusion of the latter throughout what is now Italy . During the Risorgimento , Italian still existed mainly as a literary language, and only 2.5% of Italy's population could speak Italian. Proponents of Italian nationalism , like the Lombard Alessandro Manzoni , stressed
5720-422: The Philippines , carries a pejorative undertone and underlines the politically and socially subordinated status of a non-national language to the country's single official language. In other words, these "dialects" are not actual dialects in the same sense as in the first usage, as they do not derive from the politically dominant language and are therefore not one of its varieties , but instead they evolved in
5824-420: The conscription of Italian men from all throughout Italy during World War I is credited with having facilitated the diffusion of Italian among the less educated conscripted soldiers, as these men, who had been speaking various regional languages up until then, found themselves forced to communicate with each other in a common tongue while serving in the Italian military. With the popular spread of Italian out of
5928-436: The isochrony article, this claim has not been supported by scientific evidence. Voiced or unvoiced, the pause is a form of interruption to articulatory continuity such as an open or terminal juncture . Conversation analysis commonly notes pause length. Distinguishing auditory hesitation from silent pauses is one challenge. Contrasting junctures within and without word chunks can aid in identifying pauses. There are
6032-418: The left hemisphere, which contains Wernicke's area ). Damage to the right inferior frontal gyrus causes a diminished ability to convey emotion or emphasis by voice or gesture, and damage to right superior temporal gyrus causes problems comprehending emotion or emphasis in the voice or gestures of others. The right Brodmann area 22 aids in the interpretation of prosody, and damage causes sensory aprosodia, with
6136-649: The volgare of the literate and upper class in Italy, and it spread throughout the peninsula and Sicily as the lingua franca among the Italian educated class as well as Italian travelling merchants. The economic prowess and cultural and artistic importance of Tuscany in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance further encouraged the diffusion of the Florentine-Tuscan Italian throughout Italy and among
6240-476: The Caribbean coast of Costa Rica (Central America) by descendants of Jamaican people. The position that Costa Rican linguists support depends upon which university they represent. Another example is Scanian , which even, for a time, had its own ISO code. An important criterion for categorizing varieties of language is linguistic distance . For a variety to be considered a dialect, the linguistic distance between
6344-562: The STAIRS is how the man went up. Emphasizing that it was a MAN who went up the stairs. It's important to note that the right hemisphere of the brain dominates one's perception of prosody. In contrast to left hemisphere damage where patterns of aphasias are present, patterns of aprosodias are present with damage to the left hemisphere. In patients with right hemisphere lesions, they are characterized as monotonous and as lacking variety in their tone and expression. They're also seen to struggle with
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#17328523821836448-576: The Second World War, the South Slavic dialect continuum covering the area of today's North Macedonia were referred to as Bulgarian dialects . Sociolinguists agree that the question of whether Macedonian is a dialect of Bulgarian or a language is a political one and cannot be resolved on a purely linguistic basis. In Lebanon , a part of the Christian population considers "Lebanese" to be in some sense
6552-546: The Syrian dialect) are well documented, and widely spoken and studied. Zone III comprises the areas in which Arabic is spoken outside of the continuous Arabic Language area. Spoken dialects of the Arabic language share the same writing system and share Modern Standard Arabic as their common prestige dialect used in writing. When talking about the German language, the term German dialects
6656-683: The West-Germanic language group. Some language siblings are closer to each other in terms of linguistic distance than to other linguistic siblings. French and Spanish, siblings in the Romance Branch of the Indo-European group, are closer to each other than they are to any of the languages of the West-Germanic group. When languages are close in terms of linguistic distance, they resemble one another, hence why dialects are not considered linguistically distant to their parent language. One criterion, which
6760-448: The ability to accurately modulate pitch, loudness, intonation, and rhythm of word formation. This is seen sometimes in autistic individuals. The three main types of aprosodia are: Lexical prosody refers to the specific amplitudes, pitches, or lengths of vowels that are applied to specific syllables in words based on what the speaker wants to emphasize. The different stressors placed on individual syllables can change entire meanings of
6864-688: The articulation of adjacent word syllables, thereby changing the potential open junctures between words into closed junctures. Prosody has had a number of perceptually significant functions in English and other languages, contributing to the recognition and comprehension of speech. It is believed that prosody assists listeners in parsing continuous speech and in the recognition of words, providing cues to syntactic structure, grammatical boundaries and sentence type. Boundaries between intonation units are often associated with grammatical or syntactic boundaries; these are marked by such prosodic features as pauses and slowing of tempo, as well as "pitch reset" where
6968-477: The average person to decode conversational implicature of emotional prosody has been found to be slightly less accurate than traditional facial expression discrimination ability; however, specific ability to decode varies by emotion. These emotional have been determined to be ubiquitous across cultures, as they are utilized and understood across cultures. Various emotions, and their general experimental identification rates, are as follows: The prosody of an utterance
7072-470: The country's official language(s). Dialects in this sense do not derive from a dominant language, are therefore not one of its varieties , but they evolved in a separate and parallel way. While they may be historically cognate with and share genetic roots in the same subfamily as the dominant national language and may, to a varying degree, share some mutual intelligibility with the latter, "dialects" under this second definition are separate languages from
7176-449: The default everyday language in virtually every situation, whereas standard German is only spoken in education, partially in media, and with foreigners not possessing knowledge of Swiss German. Most Swiss German speakers perceive standard German to be a foreign language. The Low German and Low Franconian varieties spoken in Germany are often counted among the German dialects. This reflects
7280-577: The dialects are spoken varies according to a number of factors: In Northern Germany, dialects are less common than in the South. In cities, dialects are less common than in the countryside. In a public environment, dialects are less common than in a familiar environment. The situation in Switzerland and Liechtenstein is different from the rest of the German-speaking countries. The Swiss German dialects are
7384-440: The distinction between "language" and "dialect" an issue of political importance. A group speaking a separate "language" may be seen as having a greater claim to being a separate "people", and thus to be more deserving of its own independent state, while a group speaking a "dialect" may be seen as a sub-group, part of a bigger people, which must content itself with regional autonomy. The Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich published
7488-593: The educated and powerful, though local and regional languages remained the main languages of the common people. Aside from the Italo-Dalmatian languages , the second most widespread family in Italy is the Gallo-Italic group , spanning throughout much of Northern Italy 's languages and dialects (such as Piedmontese , Emilian-Romagnol , Ligurian , Lombard , Venetian , Sicily's and Basilicata's Gallo-Italic in southern Italy , etc.). Finally, other languages from
7592-455: The expression, A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un flot ( "אַ שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמײ און פֿלאָט" : " A language is a dialect with an army and navy ") in YIVO Bleter 25.1, 1945, p. 13. 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
7696-401: The first linguistic definition of the term, as they are in fact derived from Italian, with some degree of influence from the local or regional native languages and accents. The most widely spoken languages of Italy, which are not to be confused with regional Italian, fall within a family of which even Italian is part, the Italo-Dalmatian group . This wide category includes: Modern Italian
7800-412: The floor, to yield the turn, to invite a backchannel like uh-huh, and so on), and marking topic structure (starting a new topic, closing a topic, interpolating a parenthetical remark, and so on), among others. For example, David Brazil and his associates studied how intonation can indicate whether information is new or already established; whether a speaker is dominant or not in a conversation; and when
7904-471: The following: government recognition or designation; formal presentation in schooling as the "correct" form of a language; informal monitoring of everyday usage ; published grammars, dictionaries, and textbooks that set forth a normative spoken and written form; and an extensive formal literature (be it prose, poetry, non-fiction, etc.) that uses it. An example of a standardized language is the French language which
8008-420: The form of utterance (statement, question, or command), the presence of irony or sarcasm , certain emphasis on words or morphemes, contrast , focus , and so on. Prosody displays elements of language that are not encoded by grammar , punctuation or choice of vocabulary . In the study of prosodic aspects of speech, it is usual to distinguish between auditory measures ( subjective impressions produced in
8112-408: The highlighting of particular words to create different intonation patterns can be seen in the following English conversation: The exchange above is an example of using intonation to highlight particular words and to employ rising and falling of pitch to change meaning. If read out loud, the pitch of the voice moves in different directions on the word "cat." In the first line, pitch goes up, indicating
8216-402: The identification and discrimination of semantically neutral sentences with varying tones of happiness, sadness, anger, and indifference, exemplifying the importance of prosody in language comprehension and production. Producing these nonverbal elements requires intact motor areas of the face, mouth, tongue, and throat. This area is associated with Brodmann areas 44 and 45 ( Broca's area ) of
8320-413: The importance of establishing a uniform national language in order to better create an Italian national identity . With the unification of Italy in the 1860s, Italian became the official national language of the new Italian state, while the other ones came to be institutionally regarded as "dialects" subordinate to Italian, and negatively associated with a lack of education. In the early 20th century,
8424-544: The intellectual circles, because of the mass-media and the establishment of public education , Italians from all regions were increasingly exposed to Italian. While dialect levelling has increased the number of Italian speakers and decreased the number of speakers of other languages native to Italy, Italians in different regions have developed variations of standard Italian specific to their region. These variations of standard Italian, known as " regional Italian ", would thus more appropriately be called dialects in accordance with
8528-568: The intelligibility criterion to distinguish between languages and dialects, though mutuality may not be as relevant as initially thought. The requirement for mutuality is abandoned by the Language Survey Reference Guide of SIL International , publishers of the Ethnologue and the registration authority for the ISO 639-3 standard for language codes . They define a dialect cluster as
8632-416: The left frontal lobe . Damage to areas 44/45, specifically on the right hemisphere, produces motor aprosodia, with the nonverbal elements of speech being disturbed (facial expression, tone, rhythm of voice). Understanding these nonverbal elements requires an intact and properly functioning right-hemisphere perisylvian area , particularly Brodmann area 22 (not to be confused with the corresponding area in
8736-526: The linguistic functions of intonation and stress, as well as other prosodic features such as rhythm and tempo. Additional prosodic variables have been studied, including voice quality and pausing. The behavior of the prosodic variables can be studied either as contours across the prosodic unit or by the behavior of boundaries. Prosodic features are suprasegmental, since they are properties of units of speech that are defined over groups of sounds rather than single segments. When talking about prosodic features, it
8840-557: The mind of the listener) and objective measures (physical properties of the sound wave and physiological characteristics of articulation that may be measured objectively). Auditory (subjective) and objective ( acoustic and articulatory) measures of prosody do not correspond in a linear way. Most studies of prosody have been based on auditory analysis using auditory scales. Auditorily, the major prosodic variables are: Acoustically, these prosodic variables correspond closely to: Different combinations of these variables are exploited in
8944-405: The modern situation where they are roofed by standard German. This is different from the situation in the Middle Ages when Low German had strong tendencies towards an ausbau language . The Frisian languages spoken in Germany and the Netherlands are excluded from the German dialects. Italy is an often quoted example of a country where the second definition of the word "dialect" ( dialetto )
9048-585: The national language) of limited geographic distribution, languages lacking institutional support, or even those considered to be "unsuitable for writing". Occasionally, in a third usage, dialect refers to the unwritten or non-codified languages of developing countries or isolated areas, where the term " vernacular language " would be preferred by linguists. Features that distinguish dialects from each other can be found in lexicon ( vocabulary ) and grammar ( morphology , syntax ) as well as in pronunciation ( phonology , including prosody ). In instances where
9152-454: The others. To describe this situation, the editors of the Handbook of African Languages introduced the term dialect cluster as a classificatory unit at the same level as a language. A similar situation, but with a greater degree of mutual unintelligibility, has been termed a language cluster . In the Language Survey Reference Guide issued by SIL International , who produce Ethnologue ,
9256-449: The perception of word groups, or chunks. Examples include the phrase , phraseme , constituent or interjection . Chunks commonly highlight lexical items or fixed expression idioms . Chunking prosody is present on any complete utterance and may correspond to a syntactic category , but not necessarily. The well-known English chunk "Know what I mean?" in common usage sounds like a single word ("No-wada-MEEN?") due to blurring or rushing
9360-469: The recognition of emotion may be quite low, of the order of 50%, hampering the complex interrelationship function of speech advocated by some authors. However, even if emotional expression through prosody cannot always be consciously recognized, tone of voice may continue to have subconscious effects in conversation. This sort of expression stems not from linguistic or semantic effects, and can thus be isolated from traditional linguistic content. Aptitude of
9464-731: The salient distinctions are only or mostly to be observed in pronunciation, the more specific term accent may be used instead of dialect . Differences that are largely concentrated in lexicon may be classified as creoles . When lexical differences are mostly concentrated in the specialized vocabulary of a profession or other organization, they are jargons . Differences in vocabulary that are deliberately cultivated to exclude outsiders or to serve as shibboleths are known as cryptolects or cant, and include slangs and argots . The particular speech patterns used by an individual are referred to as that person's idiolect . Languages are classified as dialects based on linguistic distance . The dialects of
9568-486: The same language if (under at least some circumstances) they would defer to the same authority regarding some questions about their language. For instance, to learn the name of a new invention, or an obscure foreign species of plant, speakers of Westphalian and East Franconian German might each consult a German dictionary or ask a German-speaking expert in the subject. Thus these varieties are said to be dependent on, or heteronomous with respect to, Standard German , which
9672-467: The same language. A number of rough measures exist, sometimes leading to contradictory results. The distinction between dialect and language is therefore subjective and depends upon the user's preferred frame of reference. For example, there has been discussion about whether or not the Limón Creole English should be considered "a kind" of English or a different language. This creole is spoken in
9776-807: The same town or region. The classification of speech varieties as dialects or languages and their relationship to other varieties of speech can be controversial and the verdicts inconsistent. Serbo-Croatian illustrates this point. Serbo-Croatian has two major formal variants ( Serbian and Croatian ). Both are based on the Shtokavian dialect and therefore mutually intelligible with differences found mostly in their respective local vocabularies and minor grammatical differences. Certain dialects of Serbia ( Torlakian ) and Croatia ( Kajkavian and Chakavian ), however, are not mutually intelligible even though they are usually subsumed under Serbo-Croatian. How these dialects should be classified in relation to Shtokavian remains
9880-427: The second syllable. For example: Here, adults will emphasize the first syllable, "IN", as "increase" functions as an adjective. Here, adults will emphasize the second syllable, "CREASE", as "increase" functions as a verb. Another way that lexical prosody is used in the English language is in compound nouns such as "wishbone, mailbox, and blackbird" where the first compound is emphasized. Some suffixes can also affect
9984-496: The sentence into chunks ) and changes in intonation will reduce or remove the ambiguity. Moving the intonational boundary in cases such as the above example will tend to change the interpretation of the sentence. This result has been found in studies performed in both English and Bulgarian. Research in English word recognition has demonstrated an important role for prosody. Intonation and stress work together to highlight important words or syllables for contrast and focus . This
10088-426: The speaker's pitch level returns to the level typical of the onset of a new intonation unit. In this way potential ambiguities may be resolved. For example, the sentence "They invited Bob and Bill and Al got rejected" is ambiguous when written, although addition of a written comma after either "Bob" or "Bill" will remove the sentence's ambiguity. But when the sentence is read aloud, prosodic cues like pauses (dividing
10192-474: The standard or national language. Under this definition, the standard or national language would not itself be considered a dialect, as it is the dominant language in terms of linguistic prestige , social or political (e.g. official ) status, predominance or prevalence, or all of the above. Dialect used this way implies a political connotation, often being used to refer to non-standardized "low-prestige" languages (regardless of their actual degree of distance from
10296-575: The term "dialect" for forms that they believed (sometimes wrongly) to be purer forms of the older languages, as in how early dialectologists of English did not consider the Brummie of Birmingham or the Scouse of Liverpool to be real dialects, as they had arisen fairly recently in time and partly as a result of influences from Irish migrants. There is no universally accepted criterion for distinguishing two different languages from two dialects (i.e. varieties) of
10400-477: The time, anger 95%, surprise 91%, sadness 81%, and neutral tone 76%. When a database of this speech was processed by computer, segmental features allowed better than 90% recognition of happiness and anger, while suprasegmental prosodic features allowed only 44%–49% recognition. The reverse was true for surprise, which was recognized only 69% of the time by segmental features and 96% of the time by suprasegmental prosody. In typical conversation (no actor voice involved),
10504-441: The timing of successive units of speech, a regularity referred to as isochrony , and that every language may be assigned one of three rhythmical types: stress-timed (where the durations of the intervals between stressed syllables is relatively constant), syllable-timed (where the durations of successive syllables are relatively constant) and mora-timed (where the durations of successive morae are relatively constant). As explained in
10608-621: The two varieties must be low. Linguistic distance between spoken or written forms of language increases as the differences between the forms are characterized. For example, two languages with completely different syntactical structures would have a high linguistic distance, while a language with very few differences from another may be considered a dialect or a sibling of that language. Linguistic distance may be used to determine language families and language siblings. For example, languages with little linguistic distance, like Dutch and German , are considered siblings. Dutch and German are siblings in
10712-502: The vigorous promotion of Germanic Tyrolean ), but have been officially recognized as minority languages ( minoranze linguistiche storiche ), in light of their distinctive historical development. Yet, most of the regional languages spoken across the peninsula are often colloquially referred to in non-linguistic circles as Italian dialetti , since most of them, including the prestigious Neapolitan , Sicilian and Venetian , have adopted vulgar Tuscan as their reference language since
10816-447: The ways in which different words are stressed. Take "active" for example. Without the suffix, the lexical emphasis is on "AC". However, when we add the suffix -ity, the stress shifts to "TIV". Phrasal prosody refers to the rhythm and tempo of phrases, often in an artistic setting such as music or poetry, but not always. The rhythm of the English language has four different elements: stress, time, pause, and pitch. Furthermore, "When stress
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