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Relatively (geographically) small countries with (effectively) a single native language tend to develop the most extreme range of dialects as groups seek to dif

Relatively (geographically) small countries with (effectively) a single native language tend to develop the most extreme range of dialects as groups seek to differentiate themselves. The UK is a particularly extreme example of this (but not unique). I am also from the UK, but have lived in the USA for 34 years. When I first came here for a visit, I remember thinking there was more cultural variation between shellfish fisherman in Louisiana and Maine than there was across all of Europe, even though they had very similar jobs, spoke the same language, drove the same cars, watched the same TV shows (back then, at least). 34 years later, I stand by that assessment, though it has become a lot more nuanced.

yongjik 3y ago
People don't just decide to speak differently to feel different from their neighbors. The reason why the British English is more diverse is very simple: they have been speaking English for much longer than Americans, so they had more time to diversify. Go a little back more in time, and the daughter languages become diverse enough that they get their own names, like English, Dutch, or German. Give America a thousand years and chances are that some people will end up speaking something completely unintelligible to others.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  > People don't just decide to speak differently to feel different from their neighbors. Actually, it seems that they do, when they don't get on with their neighbors for one reason or another. And this seems to be accelerated when they are geographically close to the neighbors they don't get on with. So yeah, in 1000 years the US will likely have more diverse dialects (and actually, a very different form of english (or spanish). But that doesn't eliminate the cause for the highly variegated dialects in small regions like the UK. Time has something to do with it, but not everything.
- conductr 3y ago
  > Give America a thousand years and chances are that some people will end up speaking something completely unintelligible to others. I wonder how much some simple tech by today’s standards will alter this course. Given media and mass communication it’s in our interests to reduce variation to increase our communication capabilities which hasn’t been the case for as long but I can see in the US anyways we’ve become more similar than we once were when we had stronger geographical anchors in our speech or culture.
- drewcoo 3y ago
  > [Brits] have been speaking English for much longer than Americans The English spoken in America is from immigrants from the UK. American English was not suddenly invented out of whole cloth in 1783. > Give America a thousand years and chances are that some people will end up speaking something completely unintelligible to others. It doesn't really work that way now. The US has only had a relatively unified spoken language with the advent of national radio and television networks. Regions largely lost their dialects once everyone started consuming the same media.
  - yongjik 3y ago
    > The English spoken in America is from immigrants from the UK. Yes, but immigration involved language mixing. It's not like a remote village in Scotland could elect two hundred people to hop on a ship, cross the sea, and settle down in another remote village in Montana. For their kids born in America, they would have been lucky to find one other family that spoke the same dialect. So the differences averaged out, in the same way kids growing up in London speak London's dialect regardless of where their ancestors came from.
nonethewiser 3y ago
> I remember thinking there was more cultural variation between shellfish fisherman in Louisiana and Maine than there was across all of Europe, even though they had very similar jobs, spoke the same language, drove the same cars, watched the same TV shows (back then, at least). 34 years later, I stand by that assessment, though it has become a lot more nuanced. There is a reason New Yorkers want to vacation in London and not Dallas.
bitcharmer 3y ago
> (...) tend to develop the most extreme range of dialects as groups seek to differentiate themselves. This is very interesting. Can you share the source of this claim?
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  This brittanica article summarizes the general concepts: https://www.britannica.com/topic/dialect/Social-dialects https://www.britannica.com/topic/dialect/Social-dialects These 2 papers are more at the language level rather than the dialect level, but acts as a good jumping-off point for research and ideas about how social structure affects the development/evolution of language: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805949/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805949/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2798932/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2798932/ Neither specifically address the development of dialects as a reinforcement of social subgroup differentiation, and right now I can't find the original place where I read about this idea.

yongjik 3y ago

People don't just decide to speak differently to feel different from their neighbors. The reason why the British English is more diverse is very simple: they have been speaking English for much longer than Americans, so they had more time to diversify. Go a little back more in time, and the daughter languages become diverse enough that they get their own names, like English, Dutch, or German. Give America a thousand years and chances are that some people will end up speaking something completely unintelligible to others.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
> People don't just decide to speak differently to feel different from their neighbors. Actually, it seems that they do, when they don't get on with their neighbors for one reason or another. And this seems to be accelerated when they are geographically close to the neighbors they don't get on with. So yeah, in 1000 years the US will likely have more diverse dialects (and actually, a very different form of english (or spanish). But that doesn't eliminate the cause for the highly variegated dialects in small regions like the UK. Time has something to do with it, but not everything.
conductr 3y ago
> Give America a thousand years and chances are that some people will end up speaking something completely unintelligible to others. I wonder how much some simple tech by today’s standards will alter this course. Given media and mass communication it’s in our interests to reduce variation to increase our communication capabilities which hasn’t been the case for as long but I can see in the US anyways we’ve become more similar than we once were when we had stronger geographical anchors in our speech or culture.
drewcoo 3y ago
> [Brits] have been speaking English for much longer than Americans The English spoken in America is from immigrants from the UK. American English was not suddenly invented out of whole cloth in 1783. > Give America a thousand years and chances are that some people will end up speaking something completely unintelligible to others. It doesn't really work that way now. The US has only had a relatively unified spoken language with the advent of national radio and television networks. Regions largely lost their dialects once everyone started consuming the same media.
- yongjik 3y ago
  > The English spoken in America is from immigrants from the UK. Yes, but immigration involved language mixing. It's not like a remote village in Scotland could elect two hundred people to hop on a ship, cross the sea, and settle down in another remote village in Montana. For their kids born in America, they would have been lucky to find one other family that spoke the same dialect. So the differences averaged out, in the same way kids growing up in London speak London's dialect regardless of where their ancestors came from.

nonethewiser 3y ago

> I remember thinking there was more cultural variation between shellfish fisherman in Louisiana and Maine than there was across all of Europe, even though they had very similar jobs, spoke the same language, drove the same cars, watched the same TV shows (back then, at least). 34 years later, I stand by that assessment, though it has become a lot more nuanced. There is a reason New Yorkers want to vacation in London and not Dallas.

bitcharmer 3y ago

> (...) tend to develop the most extreme range of dialects as groups seek to differentiate themselves. This is very interesting. Can you share the source of this claim?

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
This brittanica article summarizes the general concepts: https://www.britannica.com/topic/dialect/Social-dialects https://www.britannica.com/topic/dialect/Social-dialects These 2 papers are more at the language level rather than the dialect level, but acts as a good jumping-off point for research and ideas about how social structure affects the development/evolution of language: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805949/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5805949/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2798932/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2798932/ Neither specifically address the development of dialects as a reinforcement of social subgroup differentiation, and right now I can't find the original place where I read about this idea.