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Regionalism and Cultural misunderstanding | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6879 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 1 of 10 02 November 2006 at 3:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Does every language have regional dialects? Even languages in smaller countries? I suppose some of those countries would have languages that are more international anyway, like Gibralter, for example. Haiti speaks its own language, or are their variations of that, or is it ultimately simply considered a dialect of French rather than a language all its own?
And then the second part of this question: It seems to me that people from the rural areas of their country are more often then not looked down upon, at least in terms of their language use. In America if you hear a dialect being parodied, it's usually a dialect from an area known for being rural, and the target of the joke is usually identified as a country-bumpkin. It's not very often that I hear someone from a bigger city being parodied, even cities with noticible accents, like in those in the North East. I'm not writing this to express frustration, so don't get me wrong. On the contrary. I know that cultural differences go deeper than language, but they also have something to do with it, so I thought I'd share this story, especially since it involves both a linguistic and cultural misunderstanding: The other night a friend and I were speaking with a mutual acquaintance from Washington, and she rather carelessly used the word "hick" which bothered both my friend and I, since we are from rural areas. She tried to explain that where she's from, it's just a word to describe someone from the countryside, but my friend and I both felt the word to be a bit degrading. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7026 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 10 02 November 2006 at 4:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I suppose they do and perhaps the larger the country, the more varieties there are.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. By the way, it's Gibraltar.
You're right. I've yet to learn about a country where this does not happen. If anyone does know, please enlighten me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6779 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 3 of 10 02 November 2006 at 5:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think "hick" refers to more to a certain type of country person — someone with unsophisticated tastes or a backwards way of doing things. Mind you, we Canadians, with our good-natured sense of humour, aren't afraid to refer to ourselves as hicks sometimes. You might as well get used it: language will always have pejorative terms that its speakers use to distinguish themselves from other sub-cultures. Rural dwellers have their own pejorative words for urban dwellers: "city slicker", for example. Stereotypes and labels are all part of human nature and human communication. That doesn't necessarily mean they're mean-spirited! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6901 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 4 of 10 02 November 2006 at 5:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think that this is a problem in pretty much every country, not just the US. With regards to dialects and even minority languages, the further away from the national 'standard' the language or dialect is, the less prestige it will have in the eyes of many. This is not a nice way to think and is a nasty stereotype but it's the cold hard truth.
In the USA, southern accents are looked down upon as less educated or the language of 'hicks' (as Journeyer put it). In the UK, 'BBC' English is seen as the more educated form of English, while speakers from Liverpool and Newcastle, for example, will be looked down upon by their southern neighbours. In Spain, the Andalucian dialect is seen as the language of peasants (as someone I knew bluntly put it) and in France, Parisian French is seen as the language of prestige. In China, all Chinese dialects and languages are shunned in favour of the Beijing dialect, at least if someone wants to get ahead in life. With regards to Gibraltar, I guess we have a similar problem but it is not as pronounced as it is elsewhere (no doubt because it is a much smaller place than most). Spanish is seen as the vernacular language, the language you speak amongst friends, colleagues and family, but it is also seen by some as the less prestiguous language as English is the official language of business, education and government. Having said that, I have noticed a great many people back home will not take too kindly to people who speak perfect English and use 'fancy' words. Anyone with a high proficiency in English is regarded as a 'snob' and I know a few friends and acquaintances of mine have to dumb their language down so as to avoid snide comments! In every country, you will find similar patterns and the languages which are regarded lowly are more or often than not ones associated with country folk or poorer regions. Stereotypes exist everywhere. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6879 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 5 of 10 02 November 2006 at 7:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Sorry about the misspelling. What I meant, Patuco, is that the size or whatever of a country is not the determining factor in whether or not is has a language all its own. (Granted, each country might put its own spin on the language, though :-)).
I didn't mean to complain about being called a hick. Captain Haddock, it's the same with us. :-) I mean, I can laugh about it as much as the next guy, but when we are calling ourselves that we know that we know that we aren't backwards, or marry our sisters, or walk 18 miles barefoot through 6 foot deep snow drifts to our one-roomed school house and back home to our cabin uphill both ways. :-) Stereotypes exist, sure. I joke about them, too. But what bothered me about the way this person said it is that she was oblivious to the possiblity that it might be a pejorative term. In this case it rubbed me the wrong way. Anyway, I didn't mean to rant. Is it the southern parts of a country, in most places? As was pointed out above, the Southern accent in the US is looked down upon. Here where I'm living, in Germany, Bavarian German (which is in the south) is often described as not the prettiest, but I'm not sure it's the same thing as how it would be in the US. Edited by Journeyer on 02 November 2006 at 7:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6670 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 6 of 10 02 November 2006 at 8:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I just Googled "Dutch dialects," "Danish dialects" and "Hebrew dialects" and got results each time. I chose those languages because they are associated with smaller countries.
There are probably a number of languages with only a few dozen or hundred speakers that don't have dialects. It might be possible to state a general rule that the more speakers a language has and the more scattered they are, the more likely that language is to have dialects. I don't think that people with urban accents are parodied that much, but I wouldn't say that those accents always carry much prestige. People seem to assume that their accent or variety of the language is the "right" one, and there just happen to be more people in urban areas than rural areas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6779 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 7 of 10 02 November 2006 at 8:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm reminded of the King of the Hill episode where Bobby's parents help out Connie's parents by hiring her mom to teach Bobby Laotian. Connie gets all excited that she and Bobby will have a "secret language" to use at school, but then her mom cuts in "no, I'm going to teach him the proper Southern dialect!"
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6714 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 10 02 November 2006 at 9:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Even very small populations can have lots of dialects. In this respect even Danish is a big language with five million speakers. But as a matter of fact our dialects are dying out or being absorbed in the standard language (based on Low Copenhagenese). If you really want to see dialects on the loose then go to Frisian, Sardic or Romansch. All these languages are spoken by just a few thousand people, but they been split into as many dialects as there are in much larger language communities, and in fact the native speakers from these small languages have not even been able to rally behind one single written standard. There are other dialect bundles with millions of speakers that have never really integrated into one language, - Basque is one case, but even more significantly the Swiss German dialects have remained spoken dialects, while High German is used for writing and as the offical language. If the Swiss had wanted to develop a distinct common language based on this bewildering array of dialects they probably could have done it, but they have chosen to consider the German of Germany as their standard, while between themselves they continue to speak their local dialects. Edited by Iversen on 02 November 2006 at 12:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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