There are many ways to define a way a society or culture speaks in terms of is it a language or dialect. Some of the definitions are cut and dry, and some leave the definitions up for debate. The easiest way to explain the difference is this. If two people speak differently there can only be two possibilities. If the two can understand each other, the way people speak is considered a dialect of the same language, if the two cannot understand each other, then they are speaking separate languages.
This concept is called mutual intelligibility. However, while the dialect criteria of "mutual intelligibility" works most of the time, there are other criteria that distinguishes dialect from language.
When a person says "He done did it" while another says "He did it" both are using different dialects because grammatical differences are involved (Crystal, D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language). This is not so much the case when comparing Sicilian versus Italian, but you can see where there are contradictions.
It is also clear from the table above that cultural history, whether it be different, similar, and overlapping will also play a role into defining they way people speak as a dialect or a completely different language. What we really have to look at are how similar are the vocabulary, the pronunciation, the grammar, and the usage? Later, in a different link that is devoted to Sicilian versus Italian I will be able to show where there is overlap, and where there is still quite a large distinction. If possible, I will also have audio samples so you can even hear the difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment