LANGUAGE AND DIALECT

What's the difference between  "language" and "dialect"? 

To study dialects we must first decide how to determine when two similar forms of a language are merely dialects of the same language and when are they separate languages.  The difference between dialect and language is not clear-cut, but rather depends on at least three factors, which often contradict one another.

1. The first criterion is purely linguistic, mutual intelligibility.  Although this is a distinction that we have all heard of, it isn't clear that there is any clear distinction that can be drawn between the two. A criterion ofmutual intelligibility is often applied as a test of whether a pair of speakers is speaking two different languages or one or two dialects of the same language: if the two speakers can understand one another, then they must be speaking the same language.  Can the speakers of two different language forms readily understand one another?  If they cannot, then the two forms would normally be considered separate languages -- at least by linguists.  Such is the case with Dutch, German and English, which are not mutually intelligible, or are mutually intelligible only to a small degree.  There are at least 5000 forms of speech across the world that are as different from one another as German is from English.  These would normally be considered separate languages.  If language differences cause only minimal problems in communication, there is a tendency to call the variants dialects of a single language: such is the case with British, Australian, American English and the English of India--all dialects of English.       
2. The second criterion is cultural and takes into account the opinion of the speakers:  do the speakers themselves think of their form of language as a variety of a more standard form of speech?  Is there a neutral or standardized form of the language that speakers look to as the norm?  This is certainly true of the varieties of English spoken in the United States.  Most anyone speaking Southern English or Brooklynese would consider their language forms to be local variants of American English; they would also recognize certain newscasters as speaking English without an accent.  In fact, some people use the word dialect to mean "an accent," although an accent is only the sound aspect of a dialect; dialects also differ in grammar and vocabulary.  Most speakers of American English would also consider American English and the English spoken in Britain--which subscribes to a slightly different standard--to be variants of a single language.  (As you know, there are differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, punctuation, etc. between standard American English and British English.) On the other hand, the Germanic languages of Scandinavia show a high degree of mutual intelligibility, but few if any Danes or Norwegians would claim that their language is a substandard dialect of Swedish.  Each language--Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic--has its own, separate literary standard, even though the language forms themselves show a fairly high degree of mutually intelligible. 

Most language forms that share a single literary standard are mutually intelligible.  A few are not.  The several main dialects of Chinese are not at all mutually intelligible in their spoken form.  The best known, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese, are more different from one another than German is from English.  Yet all of them use a single standard written form.  This is possible because Chinese characters are based only very loosely on sound.  Therefore, many Chinese speakers consider their very divergent spoken forms to be variants of a single standard language, unified by the use of written characters with shared meanings.  In terms of spoken form, the so-called "dialects" of Chinese could easily be considered separate languages;  in the speakers' view, they are dialects of the same language--at least as far as the written language is concerned.

3. A final criterion in differentiating language from dialect involves a language's political status, a factor that is external to the form of the language and sometimes even at variance with the culture of the speakers.  Do the political authorities in a country consider two language forms to be separate languages or dialects of a single language? Extremely different, non-mutually intelligible language forms may be called dialects simply because they are spoken within a single political entity and it behooves the rulers of that entity to consider them as such:  this was the case with Ukrainian and Russian in the days of the Russian Empire, where Ukrainian (called Little Russian) was considered a substandard variety of Russian (called Great Russian). This could also be said to be the case with the so-called dialects of Chinese in the People's Republic of China.

On the other hand, language forms that are quite mutually intelligible can be considered separate languages also for purely political reasons.  Such is the case with Serbian and Croatian in the former Yugoslavia.  Linguistically, these two language forms are more similar than the English spoken in Texas and New York; linguists, in fact, usually called them both by the name Serbo-Croatian.  However, for entirely political reasons the Serbs and the Croats have deliberately invented separate literary standards to render their language more divergent than it really is.  Furthermore, the Croats, being Catholics, use the Latin alphabet, while the Orthodox Serbs use a version of Cyrillic.   A similar situation pertains is other cases, notably Hindi/Urdu, and Bengali/Assamese. 

The best we can do in defining a dialect as something different from a language is to say the following:  If two language variants are mutually intelligible, they are dialects of the same language rather than separate languages -- provided, of course, that there is no overriding political reason to think otherwise.  And, if two language variants are not mutually intelligible, they are different languages -- unless there is some overriding political or cultural reason to consider them the same language.  One exasperated linguist, Uriel Weinreich, said that a language is simply a dialect with an army and navy. Thus, the difference between dialect and language is partly linguistic and partly a matter of opinion based on extra-linguistic considerations.