What a dialect is vs what a language is
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The border between dialect and distinct language is pretty fuzzy.
But generally a dialect is a subcategory of an existing language that has its’ own slang and some unique words, but can overall be mostly understood by anyone who speaks that language.
Once a dialect starts to become too different, it eventually reaches a point at which you could call it a seperate language.
A good example is that english, american english, and australian english are all dialects, we all for the most part understand what each of us is saying, but we have our own unique slang and mannerisms.
Whereas english and german are different languages despite sharing a common ancestor
A *language* is a means of spoken, written, and/or signed communication.
People communicating with one language typically cannot fully understand or communicate with people communicating with a different language.
A *dialect* is a variation of a language that is *mutually intelligible* between speakers of the language.
Bob speaks Language X. Alice and Ted speak Language Y.
Bob cannot understand Alice or Ted, and vice versa, because they speak distinct languages.
Alice speaks Dialect A of Language Y. Ted speaks Dialect B of Language Y. Although they speak different dialects, Alice and Ted can still understand each other because both Dialects A and B are dialects of Language Y.
The old trope is “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.”
Which means that a speech pattern becomes a “language” when it gets a national identity.
By definition: two people speak different languages when the can’t understand each other. If they speak differently, but understand each other, then they speak a different dialects.
* “Understanding each other” is not a binary “yes or no” thing. You can understand each other partially. You can understand each other depending on the subject. You sometimes won’t understand some technical jargon even if a person speaks in your language. So the definition is often expanded to say sth like “about everyday matters”. But how do you define “everyday matters”?
* There exist so called dialect continuums. So people in town A understand people in town B, people in town B understand those in town C etc, but people in town A have no idea what people in town Z are talking about. So how many languages do we have here? If we consider all local Romance dialects, we can, in theory argue that Portugese and French are the same language.
* Sometimes understanding is asynmetric. People speaking language/dialect A have it easier to understand language/dialect B, but people speaking B have problems understanding A.
* Sometimes people speaking some language/dialect are exposed to another. This often happens with minority languages that are not taught in school. How do you reliably tell if a person speaking Kashubian can understand Polish by the virtue of speaking Kashubian if that person also learns Polish at school?
And upon all these come ideological and political things. Megrelians will *want* their language to be considered a dialect of Georgian, because they feel loyal to the Georgian state, while Pakistanis speaking Urdu will *want* their language to be considered a separate language than Hindi. This is where the cynical proverb about army and navy comes from.
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