# The point of learning dialects



## Etcetera

I somehow realised that we're talking mostly of learning _languages_. But what about dialects, folks, what about dialects which can be sometimes as interesting as languages are? 
When I asked people at the Italian-English forums about Piedmontese last week, some of the replies I've received sounded to me somewhat strange - as though the people couldn't actually believe I may have a real interest in a dialect. But I do have this interest for Piedmontese, and I'm just happy that I've managed to find an opportunity to learn it. BTW, I'd argue if it is a separate language or just a dialect of Italian and nothing more!
Tell me, am I the only one who has so great a curiosity about dialects as to actually learn them?


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## Miguelillo 87

Of course not etcetera. As a matter of fact I want to learn Nahualt,That's the original language of mexican people. Here ther're some scholls which teches it. Appaling the schedules are not so available for fit in my fast-living. But believe me is a language i woulb be very happy to speak.
I thonk most of the people does not interes on them cause they(dialects) Does not have a commercial value but they have such a big cultural value.
Bravo for you.
8I hope i can learn from yor behaviour)


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## vince

Dialects are interesting too. I am interested in Brazilian a lot more than I am in European Portuguese, so much that whenever I write in Portuguese, I slip in a lot of Brazilianisms in grammar and vocabulary that are considered "errors" by scholars.

I understand why some people might want to learn the standard language, because it usually has more (perceived) prestigious accent and choice of words, which are more universally understood than a local dialect.

But I frown upon such criticism when the "dialect" is actually a distinct language. i.e. I believe Piedmontese is a dialect of Lombard, an Italian language. By societal and political factors, it has been stigmatized as a dialect meant only to be spoken. The same goes for Chinese "dialects" like the Cantonese, Minnan, and Wu languages. Very annoying when some Chinese people say, "that is all just slang and bad pronunciation, speak Mandarin and don't write in "dialect"!" Excuse me, but Cantonese and Lombard are languages just like Standard Chinese and Standard Italian, and they should have written forms that are allowed to be used in any situation, formal and informal.


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## Miguelillo 87

As you say Vince sometimes people believe that to speak or to say word on dialects is to show that you weren't educated or something like that. But I think that's so stupid. Here on México things are a little bit better, For example we have added a lot of nahualt words into our daily speaking Even they are accepted by RAE. (The royal Spanish academy of language) For example.- Guajolote instead of say pavo (turkey)
or Molcajete,Petate, Huachichil 
Words like that that have reamined in our language since Aztec times!!!


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## TimeHP

My father and my mother never talked to my sisters, me and my brother in dialect. They talked ligure with other relatives, but they told us that the dialect could 'damage' our Italian. So I could understand it but I was not able to speak dialect when I was younger. Now I can speak it better but it sounds a strange kind of dialect (I wouldn't speak it with those old fishermen sitting near the sea and talking about fishing line or nets...).
I'm also interested in dialects from other countries but I prefer to learn the languages before...
I think that dialect has some expressions that are very expressive: I can't find the same expressivity in languages.
Example:
Once I heard someone telling a friend that he was eating too much.
He said in dialect:
_Ti te desbuzzi (buzza = belly)_
This means that the belly is going to explode. But in dialect it sounds perfect

Ok, sorry, a bit off topic...

Ciao


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## Etcetera

vince said:
			
		

> But I frown upon such criticism when the "dialect" is actually a distinct language. i.e. I believe Piedmontese is a dialect of Lombard, an Italian language. By societal and political factors, it has been stigmatized as a dialect meant only to be spoken.


Piedmontese is a dialect of Lombard? How it can be so? 
I've checked Wikipedia, and that's what I found there:


> It is geographically and linguistically close to the northern Italian dialects Lombard, Emiliano-Romagnolo and Ligurian, as well as to French and Provençal.


Same is said by several other sites.


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## vince

With adjacent dialects it's hard to say. Especially when these dialects don't have standardized written forms, it's hard to draw the borderline between where one language ends and another language begins.
This reminds me of how Chinese people view Taishanese and Cantonese as separate "dialects" when in fact they are part of the same language since they are roughly mutually intelligible. To be more specific, they are of the "Yue" language.

Though I can imagine that Piedmontese might differ from Lombardy since there were times when they were located in separate kingdoms.


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## Etcetera

Knowing the history of Italian kingdoms, I'd rather suppose that Lombard might have more features in common with German, whereas Piedmontese is commonly known as a language which is somehow closer to French and especially Occitan than to Italian of Tuscany.


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## fenixpollo

Miguelillo 87 said:
			
		

> Of course not etcetera. As a matter of fact I want to learn Nahualt,That's the original language of mexican people.


 Miguel, I think you and I have had this conversation before, about the definition of a "dialect".  In Mexico, the general population calls a "dialect" any language other than Spanish that is spoken in the country.

My definition of a "dialect" is that it is a variation/variant/derivative of another language.  So for me, _Nahuatl is not a dialect of Spanish but a separate languag_e.  

I don't know how Piedmontese relates to Italian.  Sounds like it might be its own separate language.  All of that is just splitting hairs, though, and probably best left to the taxonomists.  

If the reason for learning a language (or dialect) is to communicate with the people who speak it, then the study of any language (or dialect) has value, no matter how many people speak it.


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## vince

This brings up an interesting question. Should Nahuatl and other non-IE languages spoken in Mexico be considered dialects because they are referred to as such in Mexico?

Unless of course there exists a word in Mexican that means "dialect" in the European sense. But if there isn't, should us non-Mexicans refer to Nahuatl as a "dialect"?

I mean we refer to Piedmontese and Cantonese as dialects because they are referred to as such in Italy and China respectively (though unlike Nahuatl, they are related though unintelligible to the national language).


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## Etcetera

To my knowledge, Piedmontese is now regarded as a separate language (at least in Piedmont itself). The point is that it used to be a dialect of Italian, but then it became more and more merged (I'm not sure it's the right word here, but I can think of nothing else) with French and Occitan.



> If the reason for learning a language (or dialect) is to communicate with the people who speak it, then the study of any language (or dialect) has value, no matter how many people speak it.


Fenix is right, undoubtedly. Besides, one more reason for learning either a language or a dialect can be just a person's curiosity for languages. I think there are people who gladly learn languages which may have no practical value for them - they just enjoy the sound of the language, for instance...


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## vince

Do you know about the status of other Italian "dialects" like Lombard, Emilio-Romagnese, Ligurese, Napolitan, etc?

Are people's attitudes generally changing about "dialects"? Are everyday people considering them regional languages now?


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## TrentinaNE

Apparently an _Italian-Nones_ dictionary was recently published in Trentino (Nones being a "dialect" of the Trentino province in northeast Italy).


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## Etcetera

Oh, Vince, I really don't know much about Italian dialects - except Piedmontese...
However, you can look into this thread (we were talking about Piedmontese here, and you can find several examples towards people's attitude towards dialects). And here is a thread about Neapolitan language/dialect, where other Italian dialects were discussed as well.

As for Ligurese, I think we can ask Time to tell us more about it!


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## fenixpollo

Etcetera said:
			
		

> Besides, one more reason for learning either a language or a dialect can be just a person's curiosity for languages. I think there are people who gladly learn languages which may have no practical value for them - they just enjoy the sound of the language, for instance...


OK, now... that's just plain _weird_.


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## Etcetera

Oh, I know I'm a really weird girl!


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## TimeHP

> Are people's attitudes generally changing about "dialects"? Are everyday people considering them regional languages now?


 
In Italy people use dialect less than in the past. Italian dialects aren't considered regional languages and young people tend to ignore them.



> Knowing the history of Italian kingdoms, I'd rather suppose that Lombard might have more features in common with German, whereas Piedmontese is commonly known as a language which is somehow closer to French and especially Occitan than to Italian of Tuscany.


 
Actually dialects from Liguria, Piemonte, Lombardia, Emilia Romagna are in the same group (gallo romanzo or galloitalico). They have a lot of words in common and Ligure and Piemontese have a lot of words that are similar to French as well. 

Ciao


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## danielfranco

Well, not until I set foot out of my native Mexico did I realize that Spanish could be spoken in soooooooooooo very many different ways. Ditto, English in the USA vs. Great Britain. So, when we contribute to these forums I think we are in fact learning many different dialects of Spanish and English. I can't say for sure about the other languages represented in these forums, but I'm sure that - unless everyone participating there comes from the same town - there's also many dialects of those languages represented there.

In fact, then, all of us are interested in learning different dialects, _ja?_


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## Txiri

In the _Glossary of Linguistic Terminology_, Mario Pei, dialect is defined as:

A_ specific branch or form of a language spoken in a given geographical area, differing sufficiently from the official standard or literary form of the language in one or all of the levels of the language (pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and idiomatic use of words) to be viewed as a distinct entity, yet not sufficiently different from the other dialects of the language to be regarded as a separate language;  a dialect often has its own literary form, and the distinction between language and dialect is often difficult to formulate on either literary or political bases;  major dialectal areas are somewhat arbitarily established on the basis of the coincidence of bundles of isoglosses, but the term is often loosely applied to the speech form of a minor locality.  _


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## TrentinaNE

TimeHP said:
			
		

> In Italy people use dialect less than in the past. Italian dialects aren't considered regional languages and young people tend to ignore them.


I know there are exceptions to every generalization, but just wanted to mention that I have some twentysomething cousins who grew up in Torino but spent most summers in Val di Non (Trentino), and they are actively keeping up the _nones_ dialect (as well as traditional games like _la morra_). It's kind of cool!  But I don't know how common their interest and enthusiasm are.

Elisabetta


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## cuchuflete

Thanks to Txiri for the Mario Pei quote.  We have had dozens of threads about dialects, and whether a given form of a language is or isn't a dialect.  One linguistic scholar, in a very heated debate a year or more back, offered a definition of a language.
If my recall is any good, I believe it said that every language was a compilation of multiple dialects.  Even the so-called 'standard' form of a language was also considered a dialect.
It comes down to taxonomy.  Those speakers of a standard form who look with disdain on a dialect are putting (false) pride in front of emotional and intellectual curiosity.  That's their loss.

Etcetera...keep on learning and enjoying!

I've found scholarly sources that declare Galego to be a dialect of Portuguese. I've also seen scholarly sources that declare, with equal certainty, that Portuguese is a dialect of Galego.  I don't really care who wins the battle of classification.  Both languages/dialects/whatever you may wish to call them are living, rich means of communication, and are a key expression of the cultures of their speakers.


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## linguist786

I must say I'm very interested in the different "dialects" of my mother tongue - I love noticing patterns and stuff. Unfortunately, however, there is no-one else on this forum that speaks Gujarati! lol

Also, I am interesting in the créole (réunnionais) dialect of French - I can understand it quite easily when seen written - less so when it's spoken. I hope to get fluent in that (by living there - most probably by spending my year abroad of my degree in Réunion Island)


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## vince

Txiri said:
			
		

> In the _Glossary of Linguistic Terminology_, Mario Pei, dialect is defined as:
> 
> A_ specific branch or form of a language spoken in a given geographical area, differing sufficiently from the official standard or literary form of the language in one or all of the levels of the language (pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and idiomatic use of words) to be viewed as a distinct entity, yet not sufficiently different from the other dialects of the language to be regarded as a separate language;  a dialect often has its own literary form, and the distinction between language and dialect is often difficult to formulate on either literary or political bases;  major dialectal areas are somewhat arbitarily established on the basis of the coincidence of bundles of isoglosses, but the term is often loosely applied to the speech form of a minor locality.  _



There are many forms of language that would be considered languages under this definition but are almost unanimously regarded as dialects by their native speakers. E.g. the furthest-removed Italian "dialects" like Sardinian and Friulian, and the Chinese "dialects". Also, under this definition, Bulgarian and Macedonian would be dialects of the same language, and so would Danish/Swedish/Norwegian.

There's no use declaring a single definition when no one follows it, unfortunately.


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## moodywop

cuchuflete said:
			
		

> Both languages/dialects/whatever you may wish to call them are living, rich means of communication, and are a key expression of the cultures of their speakers.


 
As usual, Cuchu has concisely reminded us all of a basic, incontrovertible truth that should be obvious to language lovers like WR members but which seems to escape many of my fellow Italians.

However it isn't just about taxonomic classification. There is a crucial misunderstanding which has added unnecessary confusion.

I have just read the previous threads on the topic. I'm amazed at how nobody has pointed out that the confusion stems from the two completely different senses of the word "dialect" in Italian and "Angloamerican" linguistics. 

Note this telling caveat added to the definition of "dialetto" in *all *Italian dictionaries:

*dialetto *a *language system* used in a restricted geographic area
*NB in Angloamerican linguistics, a regional or social variety of the standard language*

Because the "language system" sense is the primary one in Italian, Italian scholars are forced to avoid using the word "dialetti" to refer to "regional/social varieties". They make a clearcut distinction between e.g. the regional variety of Italian used in Veneto(_Italiano regionale)_ and the Venetian dialect(_dialetto_).

Unfortunately linguistics is not studied in Italian schools and is only an ancillary subject in universities. That's why you can read ludicrous, misleading statements in the IE forum, such as:

_Dialects are variants of Italian_

_Dialects are corrupted forms of Italian_

Every time the subject comes up Italians insist that a "dialect" is not a "language". That's because they confuse "language"(a language system with its own phonology, grammar and lexis) with "national language".

Any Italian language scholar would laugh at the notion that a dialect is not an autonomous language.

Here are two typical examples of this common misconception:



> *Neapolitan* is a dialect of Italian; not a completely separate language, but a *sub-language* (or dialect) of Italian (the main language)


 


> I believe Neapolitan is an Italian dialect. Although very different from "Italian" as it is formally spoken it is a *direct derivative*


 
Some Italians have claimed that a "dialetto" is not a language because it is mainly spoken rather than written. Fernando rightly retorted:



> So, there was no language before writing???


 
The trouble is, as Cuchu pointed out, that:



> As I see it, the word "dialect" has a strong emotional loading for some people, who perceive it as denoting a lesser form of a language.
> 
> For a student of language who is not pursuing a political or nationalistic or racist agenda, there is absolutely nothing superior about a language in comparison with a dialect. They simply have distinct characteristics


 
As TimeHP said, at some point after WWII people started seeing the use of dialect as a barrier to social advancement and a "lower class" thing, so her parents and mine contradictorily spoke the dialect to friends and relatives while insisting that we only speak Italian. The sad result is that she and I are not very fluent in our dialects. Some of my Neapolitan pupils say they don't want to speak Neapolitan because it makes them seem "vulgar" (here's a typical instance of "internalized stigma"). A forero who visited me in Naples was surprised to hear a woman shout angrily to her child: "Don't speak _dialetto! _Speak Italian!"

Another common objection to dialects is that they undermine national unity:



> There are people and also political parties that want to introduce teaching of dialects at school but i strongly disagree.
> I think that dialects are *a thing of the past* to be revered and preserved as *memories* but that to live in a global world more people share the same language the best it is.


 
Etcetera rightly objected:



> But what about being bilingual? Most children can easily learn two languages


 
The response was:



> I think that being bilingual in case one of the tongues is a dialect is something of a burden


 
A burden? Many of our greatest writers(just think of Pirandello) were perfectly fluent in their local dialect and yet wrote beautiful Italian prose!

But among many Italians the myth still prevails that fluency in a dialect prevents full mastery of standard Italian:



> Many Neapolitans couldn't speak Italian even if they strived


 
My final advice: take anything Italians say about dialects with a generous pinch of salt and stick to descriptions written by language scholars


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## Etcetera

cuchuflete said:
			
		

> Etcetera...keep on learning and enjoying!
> 
> I've found scholarly sources that declare Galego to be a dialect of Portuguese. I've also seen scholarly sources that declare, with equal certainty, that Portuguese is a dialect of Galego. I don't really care who wins the battle of classification. Both languages/dialects/whatever you may wish to call them are living, rich means of communication, and are a key expression of the cultures of their speakers.


Thank you for your encouragement, Cuchu!
And yes, dialects are so bright expressions of culture! Of course, all the works of literature, for example, which are written in a dialect may be translated into the official language of a given country, but we all know pretty well what a large part of the text's meaning and beauty would inevitably be lost in traslation!



> A burden? Many of our greatest writers(just think of Pirandello) were perfectly fluent in their local dialect and yet wrote beautiful Italian prose!
> 
> But among many Italians the myth still prevails that fluency in a dialect prevents full mastery of standard Italian.


I remember reading an article which stated that children can easily learn two languages at time, and they wouldn't mess them. 
A bright evidence of that can be the countries of the former Soviet Union. My Ukrainian friends speak both Russian and Ukrainian freely, because they have to learn both languages when they were little. Of course, Ukrainian isn't a dialect of Russian, but still the two languages have a lot things in common.


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## panjabigator

India is an interesting case.  Most of my friends that are Hindi speakers have parents that originally spoke a different language (ie Punjabi) or a Hindi "dialect" (namely, Bhojpuri, Avadhi, or Marwari).  Nearly all of them can speak great Hindi but none of them no any of there parents dialect....the parents never taught it and only spoke to their family in it.  It makes NO sense to me...

Punjabi has had a script for many years, however people have tried to make it out to be a rustic hindi dialect.  But we have our own literature and standardized form, so its just a political jab, really.  Some speakers have tried to differentiate their language from Hindi by infusing Punjabi with new coined words, to sound different and unique.  In the Tamil language (a language unrelated to Hindi), there was a movement to remove all Sanskrit Tatsama's (Sanskrit direct loan words) to purify their language.

My prediction is that the dialects in India will never die out, however their social status will continue to dip down.  Whats weirder is that the language which is the offical version of Hindi was just the regional Hindi of that reason...it wasnt the official literary dialect for a long time...it was Avadhi and Braj Bhasha that were the literary dialects in India.  But because of the  Mughal settlers in New Delhi, the prestige of Delhi Hindi (ie Khadi Boli, or "standing speech") rose and the literary dialects represented an old fashion form of speech.  Now a days, I guess the thought process is that "let my kid learn standard proper Hindi and English...this damn village dialect will get them nowhere."  It's a shame!


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