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Should dialects exist? | ||
Tags: Dialect | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4654 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 1 of 38 29 August 2011 at 10:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I guess It's the most accurate room to post such (admittedly controversial) topic. I had a little cogitation today of dialects and I've reached a conclusion that they shouldn't exist. It's unfair for us, language learners - we learn a language and suddenly we cannot get the message across, because we can't understand a word, even if we know the standard perfectly! So, in my opinion, people talking in dialects should pursue to standard language in their speech or begin efforts to registrate the new languages. Because, for me, situations with "Spanish", "Chinese" or "Arabic" are simply pure hypocrisy.
What's your opinion? Will you get me a bum rap? :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6951 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 2 of 38 29 August 2011 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's rather pointless for learners to resist it especially if the target audience (i.e. native speakers) continues to use some non-standard forms/dialect actively in certain environments. In any case because of public education, most people in a speech community do learn some standard language (but not necessarily something close or related to their native speech). Therefore communication with some outside community is often possible. There is also the matter that some languages aren't really standardized to begin with (e.g. Khanty) but for most learners such languages don't even register in their consciousness because of the languages' obscurity. Anyway, learners will simply choose something that interests them and learn quite quickly that while it may be convenient to think of Arabic, Chinese or even Spanish as labels implying uniformity, they'll also discover that for their learning purposes they will often focus on something less wide-ranging because of the noticeable divergence within these labels. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6498 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 38 30 August 2011 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I live happily with dialects, and in at least two cases (Low German and Scots) I have actually tried to learn them as separate languages (or language variants). I do see the special problems with dialects that are so far from the supposedly neutral standard language that even native speakers have problems with each other's way of speaking, but in most cases dialects just add to the attraction of a language.
Nevertheless the existence of dialects has some consequences for language learners. One consequence for those who study at home without the overwhelming influence of a native teacher is that they receive influences from many different sources, and therefore they learn a mix of different dialects. Personally I don't find that this is a big problem, and I don't see an easy solution except moving temporarily to a suitable place or limit oneself to input from one area. But those who want to sound 100% nativelike will of course have to choose which kind of native they want to sound like. On a somewhat more practical level it is worth searching for some concrete information about the different dialects instead of just trusting one's own unstructured observations. I have for instance once upon a time bought a Portuguese grammar which in several sections explains the Brasilian and European rules side by side - which is an excellent way of doing things. But most dialectologists are by nature interested in minute differences and isolated curiosities, and therefore their books and articles may be more confusing than informative. Edited by Iversen on 30 August 2011 at 6:55am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4654 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 4 of 38 30 August 2011 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I disagree, but I have to say, that I see it from the perspective of the language where local differences are extremely minor. I wish every language was like Polish in this case...
Oh, that's another thing I strongly dislike. I like to mix British, American, Australian etc. English (especially if it comes to pronunciation), but natives mostly hate it and correct all the time (at least that was a British experience of my friend) Edited by prz_ on 30 August 2011 at 12:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6951 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 5 of 38 30 August 2011 at 1:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I actually find open mixing rather jarring as well, although I'd hesitate to correct it unless such mixing would lead to confusion. One of my professors was Canadian and spoke pretty much North American English (sounded a lot like someone from Minnesota) but I noticed that he always pronounced "France" as British people usually do rather than how North Americans whom I've met pronounce it. It stuck out and made me think somewhat cynically or maliciously that he was trying to be snooty or make a point by pronouncing the word in that way. I've heard something similar with people from the former Yugoslavia. In general, they find it odd when seeing/hearing their "languages" openly mixed (i.e. when they mix prescriptions e.g. A Croat and Serb may find it odd when anyone would say something like "Da li imate zrakoplov?" (Do you have an airplane?) since it combines the "Serbianism" of "da li" with the "Croatianism" of "zrakoplov"). If I were to turn this around, how would you (prz_) react if I were to have learned how to speak with Mazurzenie rather than according to my Polish textbooks? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4925 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 7 of 38 30 August 2011 at 3:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm with Chung - it's unnerving. Mixing vocabulary/idioms, less so. Pick your preferred accent and perfect it as best you can. If you're in America and use a British accent or vice versa, people won't really care. It's the consistency that people appreciate. It's no different in any other language with widely varying accents. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5755 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 8 of 38 30 August 2011 at 3:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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If you like mixing English dialects, maybe you could aim for a Mid-Atlantic accent.
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