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Q: What's the difference between a language and a dialect? A: A language has an army! Examples: The Chinese government usually just talks about "Chinese". Man

Q: What's the difference between a language and a dialect? A: A language has an army! Examples: The Chinese government usually just talks about "Chinese". Mandarin is an English word to describe the Chinese language spoken in northern China--- but the Chinese government as political reasons to try to pretend that Cantonese is just a dialect. Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible, but each country has a government department dedicated to vetting books published in the language, and claim that what they speak are languages, not dialects. I think the real answer is that taxonomy is difficult.

Mediterraneo10 9y ago
Mutual intelligibility between Danish and the other two Scandinavian languages has declined over the 20th century. Danish has undergone some striking phonological developments (compare modern pronunciation to that of reference works written before the war) that have made it extremely difficult for Norwegians and, even more, Swedes to understand Danish without prior experience with the language. Nina Grønnum's 2003 paper titled “Why are the Danes so hard to understand?" looks at some of these quirks in detail. It is interesting to attend international events and watch the Scandinavians in their 60s or 70s speak among each other in their own languages with seemingly no problem, since their generation was pushed to overcome any hurdles to understanding the neighbours, while a group of younger Scandinavians that includes Danes is likely to switch to English because it just feels easier.
talideon 9y ago
The 'Chinese' situation is more complicated than that, and partly because the term typically translated as 'dialect' is more aptly translated as 'topolect' (the language of an area). While the Chinese government's language policies are shitty, fāngyán/topolect is, if anything a much more neutral term than 'dialect', which as a whole lot of extra baggage.

Mediterraneo10 9y ago

Mutual intelligibility between Danish and the other two Scandinavian languages has declined over the 20th century. Danish has undergone some striking phonological developments (compare modern pronunciation to that of reference works written before the war) that have made it extremely difficult for Norwegians and, even more, Swedes to understand Danish without prior experience with the language. Nina Grønnum's 2003 paper titled “Why are the Danes so hard to understand?" looks at some of these quirks in detail. It is interesting to attend international events and watch the Scandinavians in their 60s or 70s speak among each other in their own languages with seemingly no problem, since their generation was pushed to overcome any hurdles to understanding the neighbours, while a group of younger Scandinavians that includes Danes is likely to switch to English because it just feels easier.

talideon 9y ago

The 'Chinese' situation is more complicated than that, and partly because the term typically translated as 'dialect' is more aptly translated as 'topolect' (the language of an area). While the Chinese government's language policies are shitty, fāngyán/topolect is, if anything a much more neutral term than 'dialect', which as a whole lot of extra baggage.