one of the student who has recently joined your school has spent most of her/ his life in kashmir.She / he is an excellent singer but her/ his dialect and Pronunciation are different from yours. how will you help her/ him to sing in unison with your school choir.
Answers
We often talk about languages, particularly in the translation industry, but we only rarely step back and think about the fundamental concept of language. Today, we’re doing just that.
What is the difference between a language and a dialect? It’s a surprisingly difficult question, once you get into the detail, but one that’s well worth looking into if you are interested in languages. And one thing we’ve discovered over the past decade of work as a translation agency is that those who translate for a living are often fascinated by the concept of language itself. So, let’s indulge that passion by looking at the differences between languages and dialects.
What Is a Language?
How do you define something with as many cultural and linguistic factors as an entire language? There are actually various ways that we can go about it:
1. A language is a method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way.
2. A language is a system of communication used by a particular country or community.
Both pretty clear definitions, but one can’t help but feel that they don’t quite reflect the complexity of the way we think about language. At what point does a language become a dialect, or vice versa, for example? While there’s no clear-cut division between the two, it’s certainly possible to consider ways in which we can differentiate between a language and a dialect.
What Is a Dialect?
In terms of its dictionary definition, a dialect is ‘a particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group.’ This implies that we can view a language in the role of parent, with a range of dialects stemming from it. A great way to view the difference between language and dialect on paper, but out in the real world, the distinctions between the two quickly begin to blur.
We’ll look at this in further detail below. First, let’s get the matter of accents out of the way.
What Is an Accent?
While we’re on the subject of linguistic variation, it’s worth taking a quick detour to consider accents. Accents affect the way that a language is pronounced. They can vary hugely within a country but, as a general rule, an accent relates to pronunciation only. When different regions use different words to describe the same thing, they can reasonably be considered to be using different dialects, rather than simply different accents.
The Geordie dialect in England is a good example of this. Geordies are those who hail from the Newcastle and Tyneside area of North East England. They are known for their distinctive speech patterns – as highlighted by pop star Cheryl Cole, whose Geordie accent was so strong that she was dropped as a judge from the US version of the X Factor due to her inability to be understood by all those with whom she was working.