Wikibooks: Linguistics/Dialectology and Creoles

• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Subjects: Faroe Islands
• Online Access: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Linguistics/Dialectology_and_Creoles

{{BOOKTEMPLATE /TOC}} = Dialectology = A distinction must be made between accent and dialect first for the two are not interchangeable. An accent describes only someone s pronunciation. A dialect includes other aspects of regional linguistic variation including vocabulary and syntax. That some people lack accents is also untrue. All speakers of a language have accent. = Dialect Boundaries = An isogloss separates areas which share a common lingusitic feature such as vocabulary (e.g. truck vs. lorry ) or pronunciation (e.g. rhoticity or whether the terminal r in words like waiter and whether are pronounced). Here is an example of a group of isoglosses related to pronunciation In this map of the Faroe Islands areas above the dark blue line pronounce á as [aː] and those below it pronounce á as [ɔa]. If we have a lot of isoglosses we can demarcate dialects using dialect boundaries . Dialects share a set of linguistic features among them. Here is an example The black lines separate Central German (light blue) from Low German (yellow) and High German (green). It is important to note however that the boundaries are not as clear cut as they appear on the map. Speakers near the boundaries are likely to share linguistic features prevalent on both sides. In other words a dialect continuum exists. = Diglossia = Sometimes a person is at home with two distinct varieties of a language which can either be separate languages or dialects and uses them in different situations. A high variety is used in official occasions such as ceremonies or formal letters while a low variety is used for daily conversation. For example before 1920 Classical Chinese is the high variety of Chinese while other Sinitic topolects The word topolect was coined to cover regional varieties of a language without judging whether they are dialects or languages. such as Wu Min Yue and Hakka were low varieties. After 1920 Mandarin became the high variety with the other topolects remaining their low status. A similar type of diglossia occurs in Arabic in ...