Even though it's confusing sometimes, I love the concept of how languages slowly diverge and evolve from ancestor languages, almost in the exact same way that animals split into different species over long periods of time from their ancestors.
I agree. It's very interesting. And, yes, there are many parallels to biological evolution. There is one big difference with biological evolution, though. Completely unrelated languages can blend together forming pigins and creole languages. In biology, completely unrelated animals can't breed like that. But when we're talking about the evolution of languages like the Italic romance language and the Iberian romance languages there are many parallels to the evolution of related animals.
"Taiwanese" is an interesting one, because technically it can refer to either: a) Taiwanese Mandarin, which is a dialect of "Standard Mandarin" (known as _Guoyu_ in Taiwan) that contrasts with the Mainland Chinese dialect of the same language (known as _Putonghua_ in Mainland China), or... b) Much more commonly - Taiwanese Hokkien, usually just called Taiwanese, which is a dialect of Hokkien, a.k.a Southern Min, which very similar to the dialects of Hokkien spoken in southern Fujian Province across the strait in Mainland China. Of course... Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc. are often referred to as dialects of Chinese. But they've diverged so much from the common ancestor language that in my opinion they're basically different languages. Not unlike the relationship between the Romance languages of Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, etc... and their relationship with Latin. Okay, I'm done nerding out now. :]
台灣話 more commonly refers to Taiwanese Min, yet for the English word Taiwanese I don't think the latter is the more common usage. More or less same rare. People will specify Mandarin or Min generally.
@@GyacoYu Interesting, that has not been my experience. My impression is that English speakers tend to use the term Chinese when speaking of Mandarin (regardless of the dialect in question) while Taiwanese refers to Hokkien/Min. It is, admittedly, less precise, but then your average native English-speaker would have difficulty finding Taiwan on a map much less recognizing Min as the name of a language/dialect. Perhaps your English-speaking acquaintances are just a more linguistically aware bunch than the yahoos I hang out with?
Interestingly, in German we say dialect when it is a native variety to German, and accent when it is noteable influence from somewhere else. So in example you can have a dutch accent or a bavarian dialect but not the other way around. So effectively in German it means something different.
That is an excellent point. Some linguists use this definition, too. A dialect is a natural variety of a language, and an accent is a system of errors that someone displays when speaking a foreign language due to interference from his native language. So someone who speaks Russian as a native language speaks German with a Russian accent. And someone who speaks Chinese as a native language speaks German with a Chinese accent.
@@tenminutespanish Exactly. Hence an Austrian and a Swiss both speak Dialects at least according to the German (colloquial) understanding. You're welcome, in fact I'm happy to have brought up something of interest in this comment section.
3 года назад+5
Thanks for your very precise but detailed videos. We learn a lot every time!
I could tell that your diagram was really about Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Norn. On an unrelated note, I am proud of my New England dialect, which causes me to pronounce “aunt” “ahnt”, even though it limits intelligibility with other Americans. I rely on paid interpreters.
That's fascinating. In the case of Arabic, there are different dialects, almost each country has it's own dialect and they are somehow mutually intelligible ( but not 100%). Countries that are neighbours are very mutually intellegible comapring to other countries, and they have a similar accent too ( For ex: Golf countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Quatar and Kuaït / Maghreb countries like Tunisia/ Algeria/ Morocco) The thing is that even in the country itself, there are numerous "sub-dialects" from one region to another ( I don't think they are accents since the difference is more than just prononciation) For ex in Algeria, which is a very large country, dialect of eastern states are similar and the more you get closer to Tunisian borders the more they sound like Tunisian dialect, whereas in the western states, the more you get closer to Moroccan borders the more they sound like Morrocan dialect.
I have always wondered about your background in Spanish too. That's so cool to learn you're really an expert. Was there anything in particular that sparked your interest in Spanish? Also I was wondering if you have any favourite Spanish books or movies? Right now I'm reading Donde nadie me espere by Piedad Bonnett to learn some Colombia-specifc vocab. It's turned out to be a great book so far. -Meaghan
Meaghan! How have you been? Nice to hear from you again. To answer your question, I have been fascinated with Spanish since I was I child. I can't explain it. When I was younger I felt a constant sense of urgency to learn everything I could about the Spanish language and Hispanic culture. I'm sure I drove my family and teachers crazy with it. I L-O-V-E-D the years I lived in Ecuador. And after I returned to the states, I studied Spanish for years in college. Eventually I went on to something else as a profession, but I've never lost the love of the language. I could go on and on, but I don't want to bore you. Regarding Spanish literature, I really love anthologies of Latin American short stories. But I have to admit that my favorite genre is science fiction, and there's not a lot of that produced in Spanish. Most Spanish science fiction is translated into Spanish from other languages, and usually into Peninsular Spanish. I've recently read a wonderful book entitled Herederos del Tiempo which was translated to Spanish from English. Congratulations to you on reading authentic Spanish literature! That's awesome! I had a nice long chat with a woman from Colombia just today. It was super cool. I love the Spanish of the Andean nations.
@@tenminutespanish I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply, I wrote a long reply right away but i lost my internet connection and didn't have the energy to retype it at the time lol. I can understand your fascination with Spanish, once I found it, it has been one of my most enduring obsessions. I have been so interested in Latin American Spanish for the past few years and only now am I turning my attention towards Peninsular Spanish. I feel like my interest has been doubly renewed! So many new idioms, verbs, and slang, to learn, and a whole new culture and peoples to learn about. Spanish is such a rewarding language to learn! I wish I could be more disciplined about studying though, I feel stuck in B2 right now. But it's a fun journey!
@@michipichu B2 is really great! I think it's hard to get past that level without being immersed in the language. I know that life doesn't always permit us to do everything we want, but if someday you are able to live abroad for a year or two, that would undoubtedly get you where you want to be with your Spanish. Regarding Spain, I didn't have any firsthand experience with Peninsular culture or Peninsular Spanish until more than 10 years after I had returned to the States from South America. Then I took my young family to Spain a couple of times to travel around and see what it is like. We LOVED Spain. Loved it. Peninsular Spanish is super cool, the other historical languages of Spain are very interesting, the culture of Spain is so rich, and we had nothing but wonderful interactions with Spanish people. I just can't say enough good things about Spain.
@@tenminutespanish I'm so glad to hear you had such a positive experience in Spain! I have been talking to some Spanish people online and they are very nice, it's so true. I will go abroad hopefully in a year, I really would like to get to level C2 and I think you're right- I have to have immersion for that. Thanks for the advice as always!! :)
I live in swedish speaking finland and we say dialect more because our regional varieties have variation like 3 word genders instead of 2, no plurals and generally stuff other swedish speakers dont have/have but its still mutually understandable with all other swedish speakers at least that Ive ever met and calling them accents makes it sound like the differences are way fewer
Because it is an accent . There are changes in phonetics , differences in slang , word choices from a set of synonims , but not major grammar differences . In written language it would be even less noticeable.
Dialectal differences within the variants of Castilian Spanish are very minor, even across the world, when compared with "dialects" of German, Italian, Chinese, Slovenian, Arabic and others, where often these variants are seen by linguists as being separate languages. In Spanish the regional varieties have a very strong common reference to the standard varieties and are very strongly mutually intelligible. In the past, often the terms dialects of Spanish was applied to other very closely related languages like Ladino, Asturian, Leonese, or Aragonese, which would be like comparing English to Scots.
I agree with what you’re saying here. To add to the discussion: Comparing dialects of Spanish and what people think of as "Italian dialects" is not a fair comparison. What are called "dialects" in Italy aren’t dialects OF ITALIAN. They are historic dialects of Italic Romance, which makes them sister languages with Italian. In a fair comparison, the “dialects” of Italy are on equal footing with historic dialects of Iberian romance: Galician, Aragonese, Asturian, Catalan, and Castilian. Once the level of comparison is fair, the degree of difference is similar. What we call dialects of German diverged from each other much longer ago, and are more like comparing Spanish and Portuguese. Arabic began to spread around the world over a thousand years ago. Comparing middle eastern Arabic and those dialects of Arabic that are more divergent (such as the ones found in northern Africa) would be like comparing Spanish and Romanian. And the divergence between the most divergent dialects of Chinese happened longer ago than that. I don't even know what a reasonable comparison would be. Spanish and some language that descends from a sister language of Latin. Greek? It isn’t that there is a fundamental difference between Spanish and other languages. The difference is in how different cultures define words like “language” and “dialect”. We call Spanish and Italian “languages” and not “dialects” for political reasons: they are each the official form of communication of independent nations. If the Roman empire hadn’t broken up into smaller entities, we might very well refer to Spanish and Italian as "dialects" of the wider Roman language, just as we refer to different varieties of Chinese or Arabic as “dialects”. And if the ancient Chinese Empire had broken up into many smaller entities, we undoubtedly wouldn’t refer to varieties of Chinese as “dialects” today, but rather “languages”. Again, these distinctions aren’t linguistic, but political.
@@tenminutespanish I totally agree with you. Working in Germany I got to work with and befriend Germans from many regions, and they would have either accents in Standard German, but also could go full out in speaking their "dialects" which are really different languages. What would annoy is whenever, without any knowledge of Spanish, they would compare proper Bavarian and Hochdeutsch, to Mexican Spanish and Spanish from Madrid. I would often have to tell them that both types of those Spanish are just dialects of the same Spanish Castilian language, and much closer than the German "dialects" are to each other. They would have trouble believing this, given the large distances between the countries. Like you said, it's very political, and you get cases like Kurdish where many languages are just called Kurdish, or even Kartvelian, where on some level every language (like Mingrelian) is just called a dialect (completely unintelligible) of Georgian.
@@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc Yes, I completely agree. The difference isn't the distance between the dialects in terms of kilometers, but in centuries. The Spanish dialects diverged much more recently than those of the other languages you have referenced
@@tenminutespanish Plus we've had mass media, the printing press, and many centuries of joint education. I find it extraordinary how even poorly educated indigenous people in Mexico can speak a Spanish that is completely intelligible to a any person in Spain. The separation is not just recent but has been occurring as forces keep the glue together for a longer time. The foundations for dialectal differentiation started over 1500-1800 years, so no wonder some of these dialects are so different from each other. They would have been even more different had they not been so in contact with each other and the strong glue of German nationalism and Hochdeutsch.
My undergraduate degree is Spanish translation & interpretation. My masters degree is Structural Spanish Language. I have lived, studied, worked and traveled in several Spanish speaking countries. I'm sort of a Spanish nerd. What is your background and interest in Spanish?
@@tenminutespanish Thanks for sharing your experience and for your willingness to help me, I really appreciate it. I was half-joking when I said I want a spanish PhD because I'm already pursing an engineering degree.
@@tenminutespanishIt's really interesting because from my perspective you seem smarter than any engineer I know because of how well you understand and present these complex topics on your channel. These topics seem like they require more study than my calculus classes. When I watch your videos I think to myself that I wish I was as smart as you :)
@@teamo8033 Thank you for the compliment. As the old saying goes, "Anything is easy when you know how to do it." The thing you're an expert in is so far over my head it seems like magic to me.
Hi Ten Minute Spanish, I know that you have a lesson on the letter P, but was wondering if you have ever addressed PR. My Spanish teacher can´t explain to me how to get the sounds to flow together correctly and I feel like the R suffers if I try to do P correctly. Thanks!
I've never made a video on that topic. I'll add it to the queue. I can't think of any advice right now other than practice. I'll bet that if you practiced saying the word "pronto" 100 times a day, you'd have it in a week.
Excellent and very informative video clip. My first language was Spanish and now I am studying two Arabic dialects (Egyptian and Levantine). I admit that I often correct individuals when they refer to Latin American Indigenous languages as dialects or when Filipinos refer to their native languages as dialects. It's the same with Italians when they refer to their regional languages as dialects.
I will confess, I don't have detailed-enough knowledge of tonality to break it down by dialect that way. I can do general differences between Spanish and English.
Thank you very much. I'm happy you like my videos. For the time being I don't have plans to do videos on grammar. You can find grammar anywhere. There are libraries of books on Spanish grammar. You can buy used high school and college Spanish grammar books for pennies. There are many websites and RUclips channels on grammar. Any videos I made would be redundant. When I make a video it's because I don't think there's much information on that topic. Pronunciation (phonology) is particularly poorly taught, so I do videos on that. Dialectology is probably going to be the direction I take this channel in the future.
Una deuda enorme con las lenguas pre existentes a la llegada de los europeos tiene Latinoamérica. En Argentina ocurre que hay chicos quechua parlantes que comienzan la escolaridad sin saber castellano, y recién hace pocos años comenzaron a capacitar maestros bilingües.
In Mexico we still preserve around 68 different languages one of them is the Mexican Spanish dialect, the other 67 languages have their own dialects or variants as well, depending on the region they're spoken.
Great question! You're obviously using your brain. I love it. The answer is that there is no fixed rule, and you can call them "dialects" if you clarify in what sense you're using the word. BUT we normally use "dialect" for more immediate branches from a node. So, dialects of Proto-Indo-European would include Pre-Proto-Germanic, Proto-Balto-Slavic, Proto-Celtic, Proto-Italic, Proto-Helenic, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Proto-Indo-Aryan, etc. Each of these had many dialects, and each of those had many dialects, and so on. There are so many nodes separating English and Hindi that we don't generally think of them as dialects. BUT, as i said, we certainly could use the word that way. Just because we usually don't doesn't mean it is logically incorrect. Imagine this scenario, imagine English, Spanish, Hindi, and Greek were the only living descendants of Proto-Indo-European. Would we have a problem calling them "dialects" of Proto-Indo-European? I don't think so. And yet, whether there are other descendants or not doesn't change the relationship between those four. So, it shouldn't change how we think of them. Very interesting question. Here's an analogy. Imagine if someone living 1,000 years ago had only 4 living descendants. We would probably have no problem saying that those people are relatives, because they have a common ancestor. But if someone from 1,000 years ago has 5 million descendants. We'd probably no longer think of them as relatives, even though the relationship between them is exactly the same. It doesn't make logical sense, but that's how we think about things.
Hold on. So, in the case of english, would, say, US midwest, southern drawl, east coast, and like British and Australian all be considered dialects of english? Not accents? I've always found it strange we call them accents from a different English speaking region. And also from another language entirely. To me, there should be a defined difference.
Depends. Depends on if you're using linguistcs definitions or common definitions. Also, if you're only talking about how the different varieties sound, then maybe you're talking about accents. But if you're talking about all the ways those varieties differ (including words and grammar), then you're talking about dialects. I agree with your second point. Some linguistics prefer "dialect" for different varieties of language and "accent" for when someone speaks a language with foreign pronunciation.
I can't believe people believe dialect means another language similar to the standard language. It's a variation of the standard language 🤦♂️. As a Spanish speaker, I'm sad that you had to make this video
There may be areas that use the term to mean a variety of the language that does not have as much prestige; however, it can also be a badge of honor. Take the folks in Medellin Columbia. They are very proud of their "dialect" as Paisas. Dominicans don't use the term dialect so much as patois. They will tell you straight up that they machuca the language and that it is a patois of Spanish. Peruvians claim they have NO accent. What of the "Chilangos" of Mexico City? They are hated by some and loved by others...namely themselves. They love their own accent/dialect. Same goes for Brazil's different regions. What they speak in Rio is nothing less than a dialect. The NE, Sao Paulo and the South...Brasilia...all distinct. Here in the US...you think Texans are offended by the "dialect" title of their English? Personally, I see accent as the difference between larger geographic areas and dialect simply on a smaller scale. England has a different accent than in the US. But if you roam around London you will hear different dialects of English (prior to the recent mass immigration and introduction of foreign accents). I am speaking strictly of those dialectical differences that London had organically. Naw...people that get upset of these things are the same -ists and believe in the same -isms that like to attack anyone claiming they are and -ist of some sort. They are bullies, plain and simple. Ignore them.
I can agree with your definition of language/dialect/accent. However precisely following your definitions, it is just wrong to call Mexican/Argentine a dialect of Spanish. We have the same morphology, grammar, word order and word choice. Only phonology changes.
The definition I describe is not my definition. It is the definition most widely used by linguists who specialize in this field. And the definition doesn't require that there be differences in morphonology, grammar, word order or word choice. The definition only requires that two regional varieties of a language be distinguishable from each other in some way. Differences in phonology are sufficient to distinguish between dialects. By that definition, regional varieties that are neighbors and that are only barely distinguishable are still different dialects. Regarding Mexican and Argentine, there are differences in all the following areas. Here is one example of each: Morphology -- Argentine generally uses vos verb conjugations (vos sos, vos tenés) while Mexican generally uses tú (tú eres, tú tienes). Grammar -- Argentine Spanish has a preference for leísmo. Word choice - There are significant differences in regional vocabulary between Mexico and Argentina. Whole dictionaries have been written on Mexican and Argentine vocabulary.
You are right. People use the word dialect in a wrong way, to refer to a variety which has no prestige. We should then talk about sociolects. Spanish has no dialects, but of course there are varieties of the language. However, they are not to identify with the Spanish speaking countries, but with larger areas: español septentrional, español atlántico, caribe, andino, etc.
1) My point was not that people use the word “dialect” wrong. My point was that different people use words differently. 2) The word “sociolect” does not refer to languages of lesser prestige, such as the example in my video of Quichua vs. Spanish. In that case, we would simply refer to Quichua as a “local language” or “indigenous language”. The word “sociolect” refers to different varieties of the SAME language spoken by different social classes. For example, in Mexico city the wealthy class speak Spanish one way while the working class speak Spanish another way: one sociolect OF SPANISH versus another sociolect OF SPANISH. 3) Spanish most certainly DOES have dialects. 4) You are correct that Spanish dialects do not correspond with country borders. So, it is not strictly accurate to say “Argentine dialect” or “Chilean dialect”. I will make a video introducing Latin American dialects in the future.
Dialect (when properly used, as in linguistics courses) is NOT a pejorative word. It quite simply denotes a given form of a language. As such, General American English and RP (British) English are dialects as well. (Sorry, TV and radio personalities, but you're not getting out of this one.) People who deny speaking a dialect or who strut their stuff and brag about having "no accent" do so out of pure snobbery and nothing more, regardless of whether their native language is Spanish, English, or any other language spoken on the planet. They're actually no "better" or "smarter" than anybody else, but they think denying that they speak a dialect or claiming to have "no accent" will make them sound as if they are. Sorry, but that isn't so.
Even though it's confusing sometimes, I love the concept of how languages slowly diverge and evolve from ancestor languages, almost in the exact same way that animals split into different species over long periods of time from their ancestors.
I agree. It's very interesting. And, yes, there are many parallels to biological evolution. There is one big difference with biological evolution, though. Completely unrelated languages can blend together forming pigins and creole languages. In biology, completely unrelated animals can't breed like that. But when we're talking about the evolution of languages like the Italic romance language and the Iberian romance languages there are many parallels to the evolution of related animals.
"Taiwanese" is an interesting one, because technically it can refer to either:
a) Taiwanese Mandarin, which is a dialect of "Standard Mandarin" (known as _Guoyu_ in Taiwan) that contrasts with the Mainland Chinese dialect of the same language (known as _Putonghua_ in Mainland China), or...
b) Much more commonly - Taiwanese Hokkien, usually just called Taiwanese, which is a dialect of Hokkien, a.k.a Southern Min, which very similar to the dialects of Hokkien spoken in southern Fujian Province across the strait in Mainland China.
Of course... Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, Shanghainese, etc. are often referred to as dialects of Chinese. But they've diverged so much from the common ancestor language that in my opinion they're basically different languages. Not unlike the relationship between the Romance languages of Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, etc... and their relationship with Latin.
Okay, I'm done nerding out now. :]
Thank you for that contribution!
Mexican Nahuatl!
台灣話 more commonly refers to Taiwanese Min, yet for the English word Taiwanese I don't think the latter is the more common usage. More or less same rare. People will specify Mandarin or Min generally.
@@GyacoYu Interesting, that has not been my experience. My impression is that English speakers tend to use the term Chinese when speaking of Mandarin (regardless of the dialect in question) while Taiwanese refers to Hokkien/Min. It is, admittedly, less precise, but then your average native English-speaker would have difficulty finding Taiwan on a map much less recognizing Min as the name of a language/dialect. Perhaps your English-speaking acquaintances are just a more linguistically aware bunch than the yahoos I hang out with?
Interestingly, in German we say dialect when it is a native variety to German, and accent when it is noteable influence from somewhere else. So in example you can have a dutch accent or a bavarian dialect but not the other way around.
So effectively in German it means something different.
By the way, great video as always.
That is an excellent point. Some linguists use this definition, too. A dialect is a natural variety of a language, and an accent is a system of errors that someone displays when speaking a foreign language due to interference from his native language. So someone who speaks Russian as a native language speaks German with a Russian accent. And someone who speaks Chinese as a native language speaks German with a Chinese accent.
@@kmit9191 Thank you!
@@tenminutespanish Exactly. Hence an Austrian and a Swiss both speak Dialects at least according to the German (colloquial) understanding.
You're welcome, in fact I'm happy to have brought up something of interest in this comment section.
Thanks for your very precise but detailed videos. We learn a lot every time!
Thank you for your kind remarks. I'm very happy you liked the video.
I could tell that your diagram was really about Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Norn. On an unrelated note, I am proud of my New England dialect, which causes me to pronounce “aunt” “ahnt”, even though it limits intelligibility with other Americans. I rely on paid interpreters.
Was it that obvious?
That's fascinating. In the case of Arabic, there are different dialects, almost each country has it's own dialect and they are somehow mutually intelligible ( but not 100%). Countries that are neighbours are very mutually intellegible comapring to other countries, and they have a similar accent too ( For ex: Golf countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Quatar and Kuaït / Maghreb countries like Tunisia/ Algeria/ Morocco) The thing is that even in the country itself, there are numerous "sub-dialects" from one region to another ( I don't think they are accents since the difference is more than just prononciation) For ex in Algeria, which is a very large country, dialect of eastern states are similar and the more you get closer to Tunisian borders the more they sound like Tunisian dialect, whereas in the western states, the more you get closer to Moroccan borders the more they sound like Morrocan dialect.
I have always wondered about your background in Spanish too. That's so cool to learn you're really an expert. Was there anything in particular that sparked your interest in Spanish? Also I was wondering if you have any favourite Spanish books or movies? Right now I'm reading Donde nadie me espere by Piedad Bonnett to learn some Colombia-specifc vocab. It's turned out to be a great book so far. -Meaghan
Meaghan! How have you been? Nice to hear from you again. To answer your question, I have been fascinated with Spanish since I was I child. I can't explain it. When I was younger I felt a constant sense of urgency to learn everything I could about the Spanish language and Hispanic culture. I'm sure I drove my family and teachers crazy with it. I L-O-V-E-D the years I lived in Ecuador. And after I returned to the states, I studied Spanish for years in college. Eventually I went on to something else as a profession, but I've never lost the love of the language. I could go on and on, but I don't want to bore you. Regarding Spanish literature, I really love anthologies of Latin American short stories. But I have to admit that my favorite genre is science fiction, and there's not a lot of that produced in Spanish. Most Spanish science fiction is translated into Spanish from other languages, and usually into Peninsular Spanish. I've recently read a wonderful book entitled Herederos del Tiempo which was translated to Spanish from English. Congratulations to you on reading authentic Spanish literature! That's awesome! I had a nice long chat with a woman from Colombia just today. It was super cool. I love the Spanish of the Andean nations.
@@tenminutespanish I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply, I wrote a long reply right away but i lost my internet connection and didn't have the energy to retype it at the time lol. I can understand your fascination with Spanish, once I found it, it has been one of my most enduring obsessions. I have been so interested in Latin American Spanish for the past few years and only now am I turning my attention towards Peninsular Spanish. I feel like my interest has been doubly renewed! So many new idioms, verbs, and slang, to learn, and a whole new culture and peoples to learn about. Spanish is such a rewarding language to learn! I wish I could be more disciplined about studying though, I feel stuck in B2 right now. But it's a fun journey!
@@michipichu B2 is really great! I think it's hard to get past that level without being immersed in the language. I know that life doesn't always permit us to do everything we want, but if someday you are able to live abroad for a year or two, that would undoubtedly get you where you want to be with your Spanish.
Regarding Spain, I didn't have any firsthand experience with Peninsular culture or Peninsular Spanish until more than 10 years after I had returned to the States from South America. Then I took my young family to Spain a couple of times to travel around and see what it is like. We LOVED Spain. Loved it. Peninsular Spanish is super cool, the other historical languages of Spain are very interesting, the culture of Spain is so rich, and we had nothing but wonderful interactions with Spanish people. I just can't say enough good things about Spain.
@@tenminutespanish I'm so glad to hear you had such a positive experience in Spain! I have been talking to some Spanish people online and they are very nice, it's so true. I will go abroad hopefully in a year, I really would like to get to level C2 and I think you're right- I have to have immersion for that. Thanks for the advice as always!! :)
You did a great job in explaining dialects, using your American English dialect.
Thank you!
I live in swedish speaking finland and we say dialect more because our regional varieties have variation like 3 word genders instead of 2, no plurals and generally stuff other swedish speakers dont have/have but its still mutually understandable with all other swedish speakers at least that Ive ever met and calling them accents makes it sound like the differences are way fewer
I'm an Argentininan living in Spain, and every time I tell a Spaniard "my dialect of Spanish is differrent from yours" they look at me in a weird way
Because you should say accent.
Because it is an accent . There are changes in phonetics , differences in slang , word choices from a set of synonims , but not major grammar differences . In written language it would be even less noticeable.
Dialectal differences within the variants of Castilian Spanish are very minor, even across the world, when compared with "dialects" of German, Italian, Chinese, Slovenian, Arabic and others, where often these variants are seen by linguists as being separate languages. In Spanish the regional varieties have a very strong common reference to the standard varieties and are very strongly mutually intelligible. In the past, often the terms dialects of Spanish was applied to other very closely related languages like Ladino, Asturian, Leonese, or Aragonese, which would be like comparing English to Scots.
I agree with what you’re saying here. To add to the discussion: Comparing dialects of Spanish and what people think of as "Italian dialects" is not a fair comparison. What are called "dialects" in Italy aren’t dialects OF ITALIAN. They are historic dialects of Italic Romance, which makes them sister languages with Italian. In a fair comparison, the “dialects” of Italy are on equal footing with historic dialects of Iberian romance: Galician, Aragonese, Asturian, Catalan, and Castilian. Once the level of comparison is fair, the degree of difference is similar. What we call dialects of German diverged from each other much longer ago, and are more like comparing Spanish and Portuguese. Arabic began to spread around the world over a thousand years ago. Comparing middle eastern Arabic and those dialects of Arabic that are more divergent (such as the ones found in northern Africa) would be like comparing Spanish and Romanian. And the divergence between the most divergent dialects of Chinese happened longer ago than that. I don't even know what a reasonable comparison would be. Spanish and some language that descends from a sister language of Latin. Greek?
It isn’t that there is a fundamental difference between Spanish and other languages. The difference is in how different cultures define words like “language” and “dialect”. We call Spanish and Italian “languages” and not “dialects” for political reasons: they are each the official form of communication of independent nations. If the Roman empire hadn’t broken up into smaller entities, we might very well refer to Spanish and Italian as "dialects" of the wider Roman language, just as we refer to different varieties of Chinese or Arabic as “dialects”. And if the ancient Chinese Empire had broken up into many smaller entities, we undoubtedly wouldn’t refer to varieties of Chinese as “dialects” today, but rather “languages”. Again, these distinctions aren’t linguistic, but political.
@@tenminutespanish I totally agree with you. Working in Germany I got to work with and befriend Germans from many regions, and they would have either accents in Standard German, but also could go full out in speaking their "dialects" which are really different languages. What would annoy is whenever, without any knowledge of Spanish, they would compare proper Bavarian and Hochdeutsch, to Mexican Spanish and Spanish from Madrid. I would often have to tell them that both types of those Spanish are just dialects of the same Spanish Castilian language, and much closer than the German "dialects" are to each other. They would have trouble believing this, given the large distances between the countries. Like you said, it's very political, and you get cases like Kurdish where many languages are just called Kurdish, or even Kartvelian, where on some level every language (like Mingrelian) is just called a dialect (completely unintelligible) of Georgian.
@@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc Yes, I completely agree. The difference isn't the distance between the dialects in terms of kilometers, but in centuries. The Spanish dialects diverged much more recently than those of the other languages you have referenced
@@tenminutespanish Plus we've had mass media, the printing press, and many centuries of joint education. I find it extraordinary how even poorly educated indigenous people in Mexico can speak a Spanish that is completely intelligible to a any person in Spain. The separation is not just recent but has been occurring as forces keep the glue together for a longer time. The foundations for dialectal differentiation started over 1500-1800 years, so no wonder some of these dialects are so different from each other. They would have been even more different had they not been so in contact with each other and the strong glue of German nationalism and Hochdeutsch.
@@JorgeGarcia-lw7vc Very good points.
How did you learn so much about Spanish? Do you have like a Spanish PhD? I think I want one.
My undergraduate degree is Spanish translation & interpretation. My masters degree is Structural Spanish Language. I have lived, studied, worked and traveled in several Spanish speaking countries. I'm sort of a Spanish nerd. What is your background and interest in Spanish?
@@tenminutespanish Thanks for sharing your experience and for your willingness to help me, I really appreciate it. I was half-joking when I said I want a spanish PhD because I'm already pursing an engineering degree.
@@teamo8033 Very cool! I greatly admire anyone smart enough to be an engineer.
@@tenminutespanishIt's really interesting because from my perspective you seem smarter than any engineer I know because of how well you understand and present these complex topics on your channel. These topics seem like they require more study than my calculus classes. When I watch your videos I think to myself that I wish I was as smart as you :)
@@teamo8033 Thank you for the compliment. As the old saying goes, "Anything is easy when you know how to do it." The thing you're an expert in is so far over my head it seems like magic to me.
Great video as always!
Thanks.
Hi Ten Minute Spanish, I know that you have a lesson on the letter P, but was wondering if you have ever addressed PR. My Spanish teacher can´t explain to me how to get the sounds to flow together correctly and I feel like the R suffers if I try to do P correctly. Thanks!
I've never made a video on that topic. I'll add it to the queue. I can't think of any advice right now other than practice. I'll bet that if you practiced saying the word "pronto" 100 times a day, you'd have it in a week.
@@tenminutespanish Thank you! Your videos have been a TREMENDOUS help! Thank you!!!
Excellent and very informative video clip. My first language was Spanish and now I am studying two Arabic dialects (Egyptian and Levantine). I admit that I often correct individuals when they refer to Latin American Indigenous languages as dialects or when Filipinos refer to their native languages as dialects. It's the same with Italians when they refer to their regional languages as dialects.
Thanks for the kind words. I agree with everything you've said here about languages and dialects.
What is the Levantine dialect please?
@@nesrineouahab1074 Levantine Arabic is the kind of Arabic spoken in Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. This region is referred to as The Levant.
@@antiokguy Thank you
Can you make a video on tonality, such as the tonality of Colombian Spanish from Antioquia “paisas”
I will confess, I don't have detailed-enough knowledge of tonality to break it down by dialect that way. I can do general differences between Spanish and English.
Hi! I really love your videos. ¿Puedes hacer vídeos de gramática, y cómo aprendes español ser muy fluide?
Thank you very much. I'm happy you like my videos. For the time being I don't have plans to do videos on grammar. You can find grammar anywhere. There are libraries of books on Spanish grammar. You can buy used high school and college Spanish grammar books for pennies. There are many websites and RUclips channels on grammar. Any videos I made would be redundant. When I make a video it's because I don't think there's much information on that topic. Pronunciation (phonology) is particularly poorly taught, so I do videos on that. Dialectology is probably going to be the direction I take this channel in the future.
Una deuda enorme con las lenguas pre existentes a la llegada de los europeos tiene Latinoamérica. En Argentina ocurre que hay chicos quechua parlantes que comienzan la escolaridad sin saber castellano, y recién hace pocos años comenzaron a capacitar maestros bilingües.
Coincido. Lo que sucedió con las lenguas y culturas americanas indígenas fue una enorme pérdida para la humanidad.
@@tenminutespanish por suerte se está revirtiendo.
Un abrazo.
Yo this was a great video
Thank you!
In Mexico we still preserve around 68 different languages one of them is the Mexican Spanish dialect, the other 67 languages have their own dialects or variants as well, depending on the region they're spoken.
Thanks for contributing to the discussion!
If there is no statute of limitations on the use of 'dialect' can we say that English and Hindi are dialects of proto-Indo-European?
Great question! You're obviously using your brain. I love it. The answer is that there is no fixed rule, and you can call them "dialects" if you clarify in what sense you're using the word. BUT we normally use "dialect" for more immediate branches from a node. So, dialects of Proto-Indo-European would include Pre-Proto-Germanic, Proto-Balto-Slavic, Proto-Celtic, Proto-Italic, Proto-Helenic, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Proto-Indo-Aryan, etc. Each of these had many dialects, and each of those had many dialects, and so on. There are so many nodes separating English and Hindi that we don't generally think of them as dialects. BUT, as i said, we certainly could use the word that way. Just because we usually don't doesn't mean it is logically incorrect. Imagine this scenario, imagine English, Spanish, Hindi, and Greek were the only living descendants of Proto-Indo-European. Would we have a problem calling them "dialects" of Proto-Indo-European? I don't think so. And yet, whether there are other descendants or not doesn't change the relationship between those four. So, it shouldn't change how we think of them. Very interesting question.
Here's an analogy. Imagine if someone living 1,000 years ago had only 4 living descendants. We would probably have no problem saying that those people are relatives, because they have a common ancestor. But if someone from 1,000 years ago has 5 million descendants. We'd probably no longer think of them as relatives, even though the relationship between them is exactly the same. It doesn't make logical sense, but that's how we think about things.
Hold on. So, in the case of english, would, say, US midwest, southern drawl, east coast, and like British and Australian all be considered dialects of english? Not accents?
I've always found it strange we call them accents from a different English speaking region. And also from another language entirely. To me, there should be a defined difference.
Depends. Depends on if you're using linguistcs definitions or common definitions. Also, if you're only talking about how the different varieties sound, then maybe you're talking about accents. But if you're talking about all the ways those varieties differ (including words and grammar), then you're talking about dialects.
I agree with your second point. Some linguistics prefer "dialect" for different varieties of language and "accent" for when someone speaks a language with foreign pronunciation.
I can't believe people believe dialect means another language similar to the standard language. It's a variation of the standard language 🤦♂️. As a Spanish speaker, I'm sad that you had to make this video
There may be areas that use the term to mean a variety of the language that does not have as much prestige; however, it can also be a badge of honor. Take the folks in Medellin Columbia. They are very proud of their "dialect" as Paisas. Dominicans don't use the term dialect so much as patois. They will tell you straight up that they machuca the language and that it is a patois of Spanish. Peruvians claim they have NO accent. What of the "Chilangos" of Mexico City? They are hated by some and loved by others...namely themselves. They love their own accent/dialect. Same goes for Brazil's different regions. What they speak in Rio is nothing less than a dialect. The NE, Sao Paulo and the South...Brasilia...all distinct. Here in the US...you think Texans are offended by the "dialect" title of their English?
Personally, I see accent as the difference between larger geographic areas and dialect simply on a smaller scale. England has a different accent than in the US. But if you roam around London you will hear different dialects of English (prior to the recent mass immigration and introduction of foreign accents). I am speaking strictly of those dialectical differences that London had organically.
Naw...people that get upset of these things are the same -ists and believe in the same -isms that like to attack anyone claiming they are and -ist of some sort. They are bullies, plain and simple. Ignore them.
Very interesting thoughts. Thanks for participating.
Your videos are good and "boring" at the same time. Good job
Thank you?
@@tenminutespanish :) I think they mean you don't try to make your videos "exciting"--which is fine by me. Thank you for los videos muy interesantes.
@@loopernow Thank you! I'm very glad you like my videos.
I can agree with your definition of language/dialect/accent.
However precisely following your definitions, it is just wrong to call Mexican/Argentine a dialect of Spanish. We have the same morphology, grammar, word order and word choice. Only phonology changes.
The definition I describe is not my definition. It is the definition most widely used by linguists who specialize in this field.
And the definition doesn't require that there be differences in morphonology, grammar, word order or word choice. The definition only requires that two regional varieties of a language be distinguishable from each other in some way. Differences in phonology are sufficient to distinguish between dialects. By that definition, regional varieties that are neighbors and that are only barely distinguishable are still different dialects.
Regarding Mexican and Argentine, there are differences in all the following areas. Here is one example of each: Morphology -- Argentine generally uses vos verb conjugations (vos sos, vos tenés) while Mexican generally uses tú (tú eres, tú tienes). Grammar -- Argentine Spanish has a preference for leísmo. Word choice - There are significant differences in regional vocabulary between Mexico and Argentina. Whole dictionaries have been written on Mexican and Argentine vocabulary.
"Divide et impera" = dialectology + politics= WAR
You are right. People use the word dialect in a wrong way, to refer to a variety which has no prestige. We should then talk about sociolects. Spanish has no dialects, but of course there are varieties of the language. However, they are not to identify with the Spanish speaking countries, but with larger areas: español septentrional, español atlántico, caribe, andino, etc.
1) My point was not that people use the word “dialect” wrong. My point was that different people use words differently. 2) The word “sociolect” does not refer to languages of lesser prestige, such as the example in my video of Quichua vs. Spanish. In that case, we would simply refer to Quichua as a “local language” or “indigenous language”. The word “sociolect” refers to different varieties of the SAME language spoken by different social classes. For example, in Mexico city the wealthy class speak Spanish one way while the working class speak Spanish another way: one sociolect OF SPANISH versus another sociolect OF SPANISH. 3) Spanish most certainly DOES have dialects. 4) You are correct that Spanish dialects do not correspond with country borders. So, it is not strictly accurate to say “Argentine dialect” or “Chilean dialect”. I will make a video introducing Latin American dialects in the future.
Dialect (when properly used, as in linguistics courses) is NOT a pejorative word. It quite simply denotes a given form of a language. As such, General American English and RP (British) English are dialects as well. (Sorry, TV and radio personalities, but you're not getting out of this one.) People who deny speaking a dialect or who strut their stuff and brag about having "no accent" do so out of pure snobbery and nothing more, regardless of whether their native language is Spanish, English, or any other language spoken on the planet. They're actually no "better" or "smarter" than anybody else, but they think denying that they speak a dialect or claiming to have "no accent" will make them sound as if they are. Sorry, but that isn't so.
This is all 100% true.
All languages have dialects
True