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If you really think that Spanish and Italians are more like dialects than separate languages, then you probably don't know much about either...
by tincholio 16y ago
If you really think that Spanish and Italians are more like dialects than separate languages, then you probably don't know much about either...
- hasenj 16y agoTrue, but, if the following is true: - Many basic expressions might be different, but they're learn-able without any formal education; simply watching TV in the other language constantly for some time allows you to pick up most of these differences - If you speak slightly slowly, and stick to standard vocabulary, you can communicate with native speakers of the other language without much trouble. If these above two points are true, then they're about as different as the various Arabic dialects. Whether you identify these languages as separate languages or regional dialects is largely a political/cultural issue.
- tincholio 16y agoI was talking more about liguistics, not politics/culture. Linguistically, they are separate languages, not dialects, though what you say is true (and it also holds for Spanish and Portuguese, for example). I don't speak Arabic, so I don't know how far the differences between say, Lebanese Arabic and Tunisian or Moroccan Arabic go. I do know that I've met people from Lebanon and Tunis, and they communicated in French between them, mostly. The explanation was basically that written Arabic was pretty much understandable by all Arabic speakers, but the dialects were too different in some cases.