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Fri 20 Jul, 2012 05:53 am
What does dialect mean?
@Avendarito,
Dialect is a word which describes about conversations
@Avendarito,
You can go into Google and type any unfamiliar word and then the word
definition after it, and get a definition. I typed
dialect definition and this is what I got:
di·a·lect/ˈdīəˌlekt/
Noun: A particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group.
Synonyms: idiom - speech - vernacular - patois
Dialect refers to the manner of speaking a language pecurliar to a region of a set of people. So, for example, people in the southern United States use pronunciations and locutions which are not typical of other Americans. Their speech is a dialect. As an example, an American southerner who is unimpressed with what you say might respond with: "Who don't care is me." That expression is only used in parts of the rural American south, so it's dialect.
The French do not use explosive consonants, such as the manner in which German and English speakers pronounce "b," "d" and "p." Many of the French speakers of Alsace and Lorraine, on the German border, do pronounce those consonants explosively, and that makes their speech a dialect. Other Frenchmen make jokes about the way they speak.
Although dialect is usually associated with regional speech, it can also be a product of an insular group (such as Jews who spoke a special variety of High German now called Yiddish), or of a social class. In England, for example, the speakers of regional dialects were most often the members of the lower classes. In his novels, Thomas Hardy is famous for rendering the peculiar dialect of the people of Dorset and Devon. One character says "thou beest" (pronounced bee-est) rather than "you were" in the subjunctive mood. In another case, a character says "thou bain't" meaning "thou be not" rather than "you are not." The use of the second person singular forms after higher social classes had abandoned them is a feature of this class-based dialect.