LINGUISTICS

Language, Dialect, and the Time-Space Continuum

The Difference Between Language and Dialect

Image by Johnson Martin from Pixabay

What is the difference between a dialect and a language? Many of us are used to thinking of a dialect as a quaint version of a language, typically associated with some particular geographical region of the country where the dialect of the country’s “language” is spoken. (Presumably, some other region of the country is where the language is spoken “correctly.”)

Dialects are also typically seen as somehow imperfect, or mysterious and unique, marching to the beat of a slightly different drum than that of the language itself. This is a popular myth, and it is indeed a myth.

Linguist John McWhorter (Professor at Columbia University) echoes the consensus position among linguists and language scholars today in this Atlantic piece (aptly titled “What’s a Language Anyway?”):

“If either the terms “language” or “dialect” have any objective use, the best anyone can do is to say that there is no such thing as a “language”: Dialects are all there is.”

In other words, a language is best seen as a collection of dialects. Consider English. There is English as it is spoken in the United Kingdom, or the Republic of Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, Nigeria, Kenya, India, and the United States (among other “Englishes” out there…)

The Englishes spoken in these countries are all different dialects of English, with different rules of pronunciation, different vocabularies, and even slightly different grammars!

A language is a dialect with an army and a navy

The fact we tend to refer to “British English” as in contrast to “American English” is simply because these distinct dialects are different, and each is also associated with political entities with armies and navies…

There are multitudes of dialects of English within each of these countries as well. Brits from London sound different than Brits from Manchester. US Americans from the South have a characteristic accent (sometimes called a “Southern twang”) that differs from that of Americans from the West or East coasts, or the Midwest.