Introduction
What is a language? What is a dialect? What is the difference between them? I think that language is way of human communication and consists of its sounds. And dialect is way how we pronounse these sounds. We live in one country, for example, Latvia, but in different regions of Latvia we pronounse sounds in different way.
There are 3.000 and 6.000 languages currently spoken in the world.
I will write this report about language and dialects in different places in USA. It is interesting for me because we often don’t understand some english speaking people because he speaks in his own dialect. It can make problems in communication.
LANGUAGE AND DIALECT
Language is often defined as "an open system of arbitrary but conventional sound symbols used for the purpose of human communication." The system of a language, or its grammar, consists of its sounds (phonemes), its arrangement of sounds into meaningful units morphemes or words) and sentences (syntax). . At present, linguists estimate that "there are between 3,000 and 6,000 languages" currently spoken in the world.
Harvey A. Daniels gives the following example: a person's sound system and word store might allow him or her to say the following words:
"eat four yesterday cat crocodile the."
The person's "grammar arranges these elements in a meaningful order":
"the crocodile eat four cat yesterday."
This grammar "also provides the necessary markers of plurality, tense, and agreement":
"The crocodile ate four cats yesterday."
A 'dialect' refers to "a variety of a particular language which has a certain set of" rules for sounds (phonology), for word formation (morphology and vocabulary), and arrangement (syntax). Usually languages are said to be mutually unintelligible, whereas dialects of a language are said to be mutually understandable. In other words, speakers of English cannot understand Japanese without special training. However, speakers of British English can normally understand speakers of American English. In addition, some linguists who focus on regional and social varieties of a language like English make a distinction between accent and dialect. 'Accents' are varieties of a given language that differ only in pronunciation. 'Dialects' are "varieties of a given language that differ pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. "Where do dialects start? How do new languages come about? The answer to both questions seems to be the same. When a group of people "lives, works, and talks together" regularly, there is considerable "natural pressure to keep the language uniform." However, if the group divides and half of the people move far away from the others, and if the two subgroups do not stay in contact, the language of each group will change in ways that are dissimilar. Let's say the original group of people lived in Rome, where some stayed, while others went to Gaule (present-day France). As time passed the language of each group, which was originally identical, began to differ. In early stages, the linguistic changes permitted mutual understanding: both subgroups spoke different dialects of the same language, that is spoken Latin. Eventually members of the first group in Rome were not able to understand those in the group who had moved to Gaule, and those who had moved away were not able to understand those in Rome. This is exactly what happened in the case of the French and Italian languages, which both started out as spoken or Vulgar Latin.
DIALECT
Dialect defined: One of the varieties of a langauge arising from local or regional speech peculiarities such as pronunciation, stress, grammar, vocabulary, and ideom. The word was first used in 1577 and was derived from the Latin dialectus [way of speaking]. Dialects can become languages: Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and Rumanian began life as regional dialects of Latin.
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