Eli5: the difference between a language and dialect?
In: 12
It’s actually quite simple. A language is. . . uh, a language is a bunch of words that mean something, that a lot of people are. . . wait, so.
A language is a group of words used to communicate ideas. A different language will use different words; for example, in English we say “Hello” to greet someone. In Japanese, the word would be “Kon’nichiwa.”
An _accent_ is when a person who speaks Japanese as his main language begins to speak English, but he still uses the same pronunciations as when he speaks Japanese.
A _dialect_ is similar to an accent, but instead of it being a person whose second language is, for example, English, speaking it the same way he speaks Japanese, it would be someone whose _first_ language is English speaking it the way people in his particular area speak it.
So for instance, a person from the north might pronounce the word “happening” as “hap-en-ing,” whereas someone in the south might pronounce it “hap-in-in’.”
Moreover, one might also use different words. A person in the north might say “Hello,” while in the south he might say “Howdy” or “What’s happenin’, cuz?” or, “Hoo-whee! Tha’ some good eatin’, I tell you h’what.”
These differences are dialectical.
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