I intuitively know this, kind of like I intuitively know what a species is. I also accept that language is imperfect and there’s gonna be messy bits where things don’t fit right (again, like a definition of a biological species).
But if linguists and other languagey folks were to put a group of English speakers on another planet and let them live there for x amount of time, going back to study their language from time to time, what markers would they look for to say “this is now not a group with new slang, this is a group with a new dialect”? And “this is not the same language as the English spoken on Earth”?
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Dialects pronounce words differently and can even call the same object differently (roundabout vs traffic circle, 18-wheeler vs semi-truck, etc.) but you can ultimately understand one another even if some difficulty (I know 1 family where the wife’s side are New York Italians and the husband’s side are good ol boys from Alabama, there is indeed some difficulty), a different language is like English vs Chinese, you have no clue what the other is saying.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_language_is_a_dialect_with_an_army_and_navy)
It’s an arbitrary distinction, and in practice it’s often based on who has the political power to identify themselves as speakers of a separate language rather than a dialect of a common language.
Dialects are often regional or tied to specific groups and while they can make some changes to pronunciation, vocabulary and even grammar it is still part of the same language. You would say it has become a new language when it is no longer mutually intelligible between speakers with dialects.
In some cases extremely thick accents in combination with fast speech can make it impossible for two people speaking the same language to understand each other, but if they just slowed down and attempted to speak as clearly as possible they would be able to communicate.
Scandinavians are a good example because while they like to joke around how each other’s languages are unintelligible guttural sounds they would still be able to communicate fairly well if they spoke slowly, clearly and used body language in cases where the words are not similar enough in their respective language.
Icelandic however will be largely incomprehensible to them in both speaking and writing even though all four languages share the same origin, so they will mostly only be able to recognize basic, ancient words that are similar in most European languages like mother, father etc.
There is a Yiddish saying linguists have taken a liking to: A language is a dialect with an army and a navy. That is, what defines a language vs dialect is just as much about political power and nation-building as it is true linguistic criteria.
Because “language” and “dialect” are both loaded words, especially in colloquial speech, let’s use something else neutrally to refer to both of them: variety. Two varieties that belong to populations who wish to distance themselves from each other will be less likely to decide they speak the same language, while two varieties belonging to people who wish to ally themselves with each other ethnically or nationally might be considered the same, in both cases without much thought paid to mutual intelligibility.
There are some standard, stock examples people use to talk about these.
Norwegian and Swedish exist on a dialect continuum; people geographically close to each other speak more similarly; while those further speak more differently. It’s a gradient. We could call it all one thing, or divide it up into many smaller varieties. The reason we have it divided into two is based in the Norwegian and Swedish ethnic and national identities.
Arabic is another stock example; there are varieties of Arabic that are absolutely not mutually intelligible. However, it is extremely common in the Arab world to also use a standardized, prestigious form of the language, creating a situation called *diglossia*, where two varieties are used by the same community. The “high” form is shared by many distinct populations whose local varieties are quite different. The combination of shared Arab cultural identity and the ability to use the standardized form means people generally consider Arabic one language, even though it can be difficult to go from some varieties to some others and be understood.
Meanwhile, Hindi and Urdu are very similar varieties; they do have some differences, and they are written with different scripts, but they are very much mutually intelligible. They are instead different languages because of India and Pakistan’s relations and desire to disassociate from one another.
We even have this in English. Shared history and anglophone ties make us consider it all the same, but mutual intelligibility might be pretty difficult between a Scot and an American Southerner, particular if both are from rural areas. And it’s not just pronunciation, either; various varieties currently called English have notable grammatical differences. African American English has a rich tense-aspect system that is foreign and opaque to mainstream American English speakers. Southern American English often makes use of double modals (e.g. “might could”). And that’s to say nothing of differing vocabulary.
Labeling of language vs dialect *can* be based on linguistic criteria, but these are clearly not the sole factors. We have to pay attention to who gains something, and what they gain, by deciding that two things are separate languages or dialects of the same language.
In my lifetime I went from speaking two languages to speaking like 6 without doing anything. Sincerely, someone born in Yugoslavia.
Also fun fact, standard Croatian and standard serbian are almost identical while the dialects within each country sound like completely different languages compared to themselves.
The essential distinction between a language and a dialect is not just a messy gray area; it literally doesn’t exist, in that linguists have taken no real interest in the question. The issue is entirely political. This distinction is not academic in nature.
Maybe language is like a car manufacturer and dialects are the various models?
Coming from a Chinese American, I have always been under the impression that languages more so refer to the written language, whereas dialects are the spoken language. It is my understanding that in countries as large as China, there became different interpretations and pronunciations of the written languages and boom, a new dialect. Hardcore definition-wise though, no one seems to know
> what markers would they look for to say “this is now not a group with new slang, this is a group with a new dialect”? And “this is not the same language as the English spoken on Earth”?
I think your thought experiment is flawed because the distinction between language and dialect is not a matter of linguists looking at the language, it is a matter of how the speakers of those languages interact (which is of course influenced by things like “mutual intelligibility”)
So I’d rather look for things like
– If an Earther (who speaks English) travels to Mars, does he have to take language classes in order to communicate with the Martians? Or is he just told “this is a list of 20 important words that have a different meaning in Martian English, oh, and be prepared to be mocked for your Earther accent”?
– Do the Martians have specialized vocabulary for every area of life? Or is the vocabulary only markedly different for everyday topics, while for scientific or philosophical topics it’s nearly identical to English?
Of course, the whole thing is still fuzzy, and in the end there’s still a lot of leeway for the Martians for either proclaiming “Martian” as its own language even though it’s virtually identical to English (see: Serbian and Croatian), or conversely for insisting it’s just a dialect of English even though the two are vastly different (see: Mandarin and Cantonese).
I speak English but my English is scattered with idioms and grammatical differences that are part of my area’s dialect so although I speak the same language as every other English speaker there are quirks in the way that I speak that are there because of my dialect.
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