5 ms·

Dialects can mean very different things hence the old joke "a language is a dialect with its own army and navy", recognizing that the issue is really political

Dialects can mean very different things hence the old joke "a language is a dialect with its own army and navy", recognizing that the issue is really political rather than linguistic. Many Chinese dialects (like Mandarin and Cantonese) are considered dialects of the same "Chinese language" for political reasons but are mutually unintelligible, whereas Danish and Norwegian (the majority bokmal dialect anyway) are considered different languages even though they are pretty mutually intelligible because Norway and Denmark are different countries. As for how the table of Spanish dialects was constructed, the figure gives the link to the paper it was from [1]. Basically they measured differences in dialects by giving pictures of an item (the example shown is a pinwheel) and asking what Spanish speakers from different places called that thing. Given hundreds of different concepts you can see how close Spanish dialects are to each other. [1] https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/opli-2018-0035/html https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/opli-2018-003...

fluoridation 2y ago
Okay, so the article is wrong for using that bit of data for the argument. It doesn't tell you much about how well two people from two different places will understand each other. If two people are in the same place and one says to the other "¿me das la veleta?", but the other would have called the object "molinete", chances are they could probably understand what the other person is saying. What makes different dialects of Spanish difficult to understand each other is slang and accent, not different words for common objects. Like, if a Spaniard tells me "Mariana está en el ordenador", I'm not going to get confused about what he means even if I would have called it "computadora".
- jhbadger 2y ago
  True, but that's like saying a British person wouldn't be confused by the phrase "the trunk of my car" said by an American even if they would would say "the boot of my car" themselves. The fact still remains than "trunk" is US dialect and "boot" is British, and that the dialects are different.
  - fluoridation 2y ago
    I'm not saying the dialects are not different, I'm saying the fact that they're different is separate from how mutually unintelligible they are. Correlated? Yeah, sure. Equivalent? Not even close.
  - duckmysick 2y ago
    Shouldn't that comparison be weighted by how frequent the words are? For example words in the top 100 usage would count for more than the top 1000 and the top 10000. It would be a much different story if British English and American English had different words for "a car". Which, by the way, happens in Spanish dialects ("el coche" vs "el carro").
    - anthk 2y ago
      Spain: Automóvil: Formal word for car. Coche: Car. If used with 'de caballos' (of horses), well, carriage. Carro: Carriage, or trolley.
    - kragen 2y ago
      here (argentina, non-native) we usually say 'el auto' but have significant use of 'coche'. 'carro' means something different; using it for an automobile sounds mexican but if you showed an argentine a picture of a car, they might very well say 'auto' while perhaps someone from elsewhere would say 'coche', leading to a basically incorrect point of difference being measured in this study between the two dialects
      - duckmysick 2y ago
        Why would it be incorrect? Sometimes two or three different words describe the same thing and that's ok. If you poll enough people you can get a rough idea if one version is more dominant that the other, if there's an even split, or if different regions in the same country prefer different versions. Similar to soda/pop/coke in the US. You can design a study with a high level of data granularity. You could even track differences in pronunciation and grammar if you wish so.
- servilio 2y ago
  I agree with you, differences in pronunciation, cadence, etc. should be taken in account as well. Though measuring those could take longer, if possible.
wongarsu 2y ago
You don't even have to go all the way to China. The English countryside has multiple so called "accents" that are basically unintelligible to a speaker of London English, with plenty of famous examples in popular media (e.g. [1][2]). Similarly, Germany has plenty of mutually unintelligible dialects. They are all related to each other and any two geographically adjacent dialects are mutually intelligible, but as distance grows it becomes harder to bridge the gap (which is why everyone learns Standard German nowadays). Luxembourgish meanwhile is in every sense a dialect of German with French influences, but due to having an army is considered its own language. 1: https://youtu.be/Hs-rgvkRfwc https://youtu.be/Hs-rgvkRfwc 2: https://youtu.be/Z660sool2L4?t=49 https://youtu.be/Z660sool2L4?t=49
theshrike79 2y ago
Danes and legibility isn't something people say often, even Danes themselves can't always understand other Danes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk

fluoridation 2y ago

Okay, so the article is wrong for using that bit of data for the argument. It doesn't tell you much about how well two people from two different places will understand each other. If two people are in the same place and one says to the other "¿me das la veleta?", but the other would have called the object "molinete", chances are they could probably understand what the other person is saying. What makes different dialects of Spanish difficult to understand each other is slang and accent, not different words for common objects. Like, if a Spaniard tells me "Mariana está en el ordenador", I'm not going to get confused about what he means even if I would have called it "computadora".

jhbadger 2y ago
True, but that's like saying a British person wouldn't be confused by the phrase "the trunk of my car" said by an American even if they would would say "the boot of my car" themselves. The fact still remains than "trunk" is US dialect and "boot" is British, and that the dialects are different.
- fluoridation 2y ago
  I'm not saying the dialects are not different, I'm saying the fact that they're different is separate from how mutually unintelligible they are. Correlated? Yeah, sure. Equivalent? Not even close.
- duckmysick 2y ago
  Shouldn't that comparison be weighted by how frequent the words are? For example words in the top 100 usage would count for more than the top 1000 and the top 10000. It would be a much different story if British English and American English had different words for "a car". Which, by the way, happens in Spanish dialects ("el coche" vs "el carro").
  - anthk 2y ago
    Spain: Automóvil: Formal word for car. Coche: Car. If used with 'de caballos' (of horses), well, carriage. Carro: Carriage, or trolley.
  - kragen 2y ago
    here (argentina, non-native) we usually say 'el auto' but have significant use of 'coche'. 'carro' means something different; using it for an automobile sounds mexican but if you showed an argentine a picture of a car, they might very well say 'auto' while perhaps someone from elsewhere would say 'coche', leading to a basically incorrect point of difference being measured in this study between the two dialects
    - duckmysick 2y ago
      Why would it be incorrect? Sometimes two or three different words describe the same thing and that's ok. If you poll enough people you can get a rough idea if one version is more dominant that the other, if there's an even split, or if different regions in the same country prefer different versions. Similar to soda/pop/coke in the US. You can design a study with a high level of data granularity. You could even track differences in pronunciation and grammar if you wish so.
servilio 2y ago
I agree with you, differences in pronunciation, cadence, etc. should be taken in account as well. Though measuring those could take longer, if possible.

wongarsu 2y ago

You don't even have to go all the way to China. The English countryside has multiple so called "accents" that are basically unintelligible to a speaker of London English, with plenty of famous examples in popular media (e.g. [1][2]). Similarly, Germany has plenty of mutually unintelligible dialects. They are all related to each other and any two geographically adjacent dialects are mutually intelligible, but as distance grows it becomes harder to bridge the gap (which is why everyone learns Standard German nowadays). Luxembourgish meanwhile is in every sense a dialect of German with French influences, but due to having an army is considered its own language. 1: https://youtu.be/Hs-rgvkRfwc https://youtu.be/Hs-rgvkRfwc 2: https://youtu.be/Z660sool2L4?t=49 https://youtu.be/Z660sool2L4?t=49

theshrike79 2y ago

Danes and legibility isn't something people say often, even Danes themselves can't always understand other Danes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk