•But surely the difference is deeper than a snappy aphorism suggests. The very fact that “language” and “dialect” persist as separate concepts implies that linguists can make tidy distinctions for speech varieties worldwide. But in fact, there is no objective difference between the two: Any attempt you make to impose that kind of order on reality falls apart in the face of real evidence.
•And yet it’s hard not to try. An English speaker might be tempted to think, for example, that a language is basically a collection of dialects, where speakers of different dialects within the same language can all understand each other, more or less. Cockney, South African, New Yorkese, Black, Yorkshire—all of these are mutually intelligible variations on a theme. Surely, then, these are “dialects” of some one thing that can be called a “language”? English as a whole, meanwhile, looks like a “language” that stands by itself; there’s a clear boundary between it and its closest relative, Frisian, spoken in Northern Europe, which is unintelligible to an English speaker.
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•But surely the difference is deeper than a snappy aphorism suggests. The very fact that “language” and “dialect” persist as separate concepts implies that linguists can make tidy distinctions for speech varieties worldwide. But in fact, there is no objective difference between the two: Any attempt you make to impose that kind of order on reality falls apart in the face of real evidence.
•And yet it’s hard not to try. An English speaker might be tempted to think, for example, that a language is basically a collection of dialects, where speakers of different dialects within the same language can all understand each other, more or less. Cockney, South African, New Yorkese, Black, Yorkshire—all of these are mutually intelligible variations on a theme. Surely, then, these are “dialects” of some one thing that can be called a “language”? English as a whole, meanwhile, looks like a “language” that stands by itself; there’s a clear boundary between it and its closest relative, Frisian, spoken in Northern Europe, which is unintelligible to an English speaker.