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Topic: Mutually intelligible


In the News (Fri 5 Sep 08)

  
  Mutually intelligible languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a property exhibited by two or more distinct languages when speakers of one or more of the languages can readily understand at least one or more of the other language(s) without intentional study or extraordinary effort.
Mutually intelligibility can be asymmetric between the languages, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understand of the first.
Russian and Polish are largely not mutually intelligible but Ukrainian is mutually intelligible to some degree to both, being believed by many to be an intermediary form in the dialect continuum.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Mutually_intelligible_languages   (887 words)

  
 Dialect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An opposite example is the case of the Chinese language whose variations are often considered dialects and not languages despite their mutual unintelligibility because they share a common literary standard and common body of literature.
Macedonian, although mutually intelligible with Bulgarian and often considered to be a Bulgarian dialect, is touted in Republic of Macedonia as a language in its own right.
Another problem occurs in the case of diglossia, used to describe a situation where, in a given society, there are two closely-related languages, one of high-prestige, which is generally used by the government and in formal texts, and one of low-prestige, which is usually the spoken vernacular tongue.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Dialect   (1587 words)

  
 MSN Encarta - Print Preview - Language
If two speech varieties are not mutually intelligible, then the speech varieties are different languages; if they are mutually intelligible but differ systematically from one another, then they are dialects of the same language.
Intelligibility has a large psychological component: If a speaker of one speech variety wants to understand a speaker of another speech variety, understanding is more likely than if this were not the case.
In addition, chains of speech varieties exist in which adjacent speech varieties are mutually intelligible, but speech varieties farther apart in the chain are not.
encarta.msn.com /text_761570647___32/Language.html   (1105 words)

  
 Estonian
Estonian is closely related to Finnish; the two are mutually intelligible and share an estimated 83.5 percent of their respective vocabularies.
The Baltic Finnic languages are mutually intelligible, and some experts consider them to be dialects of the same language.
Despite the many divisions, all dialects and variants are mutually intelligible.
www.lmp.ucla.edu /profiles/profe02.htm   (1115 words)

  
 Talk:Mutually intelligible languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Therefore mutual intelligibility virtually does not exist for these two languages.
I considered moving the line to mutually intelligible languages, but didn't think that was right either, because they're just regional variations of the same language rather than separate languages.
An interesting different section may be languages that are not mutually intelligible, but intelligible one-way and unintelligible the other way.
en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Talk:Mutually_intelligible_languages   (1028 words)

  
 Encyclopedia: Dialect
Historical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time, by means of examining languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax, as well as the surviving records of ancient languages.
A pair of languages is said to be mutually intelligible if speakers of one language can readily understand the other language.
A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater.
www.nationmaster.com /encyclopedia/Dialect   (4139 words)

  
 Wir Ain Leid - Language or Dialect?
"A language is a collection of mutually intelligible dialects" - A definition which conveniently characterises a dialect as a subpart of a language, and provides a criteria for distinguishing between one language and another.
Adjacent dialects are usually intelligible but dialects which are further apart may not be mutually intelligible.
In places far apart the 'dialects' spoken are mutually unintelligible, though all across the dialect continuum a chain of mutual intelligibility exists.
www.scots-online.org /grammar/lang.htm   (1704 words)

  
 Pidgin. Who is Pidgin? What is Pidgin? Where is Pidgin? Definition of Pidgin. Meaning of Pidgin.
Bislama, as it is now called in Vanuatu, is fairly mutually intelligible with Tok Pisin.
As tropical islands were colonised their society was restructured, with a ruling minority of some European nation and a large mass of non-European laborers.
Russenorsk - combined Russian and Norwegian to create a mutually intelligible form of communication for Arctic fishermen.
www.knowledgerush.com /kr/encyclopedia/Pidgin   (330 words)

  
 Dialect - Encyclopedia.WorldSearch   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Max Weinreich has provided this definition: "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy".
Macedonian, although mutually intelligible with Bulgarian and often considered to be a Bulgarian dialect, is touted by Macedonia n nationalist s as a language in its own right.
Italians and Spaniards, for example, can understand each other when speaking what are their supposedly separate "languages," whereas Lombard s and Sicilians, speaking what are supposedly "dialects" of the same language, cannot.
encyclopedia.worldsearch.com /dialect.htm   (1522 words)

  
 [No title]
For those reasons, one of the common definitions of language advanced by researchers of core linguistics is the one based on mutual intelligibility: Two instances of language are varieties of the same language if, and only if, speakers of these varieties can communicate with each other.
The study of bilingual individuals takes the complications involved in defining 'language' one step further by insisting that languages that had previously been treated as distinct now be seen as one code for purposes of communication among a set of speakers (immigrants, say, or a family headed by bilingual parents).
In analogy to the problems involved in defining 'language' as mutually intelligible varieties, one could argue to which extent a hybrid between two closely related vegetables, peas and green beans, say, is different from either, and whether this is in turn different from mangetout.
www.chez.com /phiallfish/und_essays/Sociolings.html   (1294 words)

  
 Angola - The Definition of Ethnicity   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Some of the languages in any set may be more or less mutually intelligible, especially in the areas where speakers of a dialect of one language have had sustained contact with speakers of a dialect of another language.
In principle, dialects of the same language are considered mutually intelligible, although they are not always so in fact.
On the one hand, a set of communities lacking mutually intelligible dialects may for one reason or another come to share a sense of identity in any given historical period.
www.country-data.com /cgi-bin/query/r-557.html   (958 words)

  
 UCLA Language Materials Algerian Arabic Language Profile
A closely related mutually intelligible dialect is spoken in Tunisia.
Algerian, Libyan, and Tunisian variants of Arabic are closely related and apparently mutually intelligible.
Although Moroccan Colloquial Arabic is part of the western subdivision of Arabic it is apparently not mutually intelligible with Algerian Arabic and other dialects of northwest Africa.
www.lmp.ucla.edu /profiles/profa01.htm   (1634 words)

  
 LILT:Specific languages
are not usually mutually intelligible, although as in most linguistic topics, this is a matter of degree.
Spanish and Portuguese are mutually intelligible to some extent.
The attribution of the label ‘language’ occurs as much for socio-cultural as linguistic reasons, which is why there is a debate about whether Scots, for example, is a language or a dialect.
www.arts.gla.ac.uk /SESLL/EngLang/LILT/specificlgs.htm   (77 words)

  
 Northern Songhay Languages in Mali and Niger
It was found that Tagdal and Tabarog are mutually intelligible and that speakers of both of these varieties consider that they speak the same language, for which all accept the name Tagdal.
As a property of the language itself, the level of inherent intelligibility of a given dialect to speakers of a second dialect should be constant throughout the entire population of the latter.
Intelligibility testing results show clearly that neither Tadaksahak nor Tasawaq are inherently intelligible to the Igdalen or the Iberogan.
www.sil.org /silesr/1999/008/nsonghay.html   (4912 words)

  
 Linguists' Definition: mutual intelligibility   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
How do we define mutual intelligibility: sometimes speakers of form A claim to understand form B, but speakers of form B deny that they understand form A. e.g.
a chain of mutually intelligible `lects' where there is never any clear break in m.i., but speakers of dialects at one end don't understand speakers of lects at the other end: Paris to Lisbon; Calcutta to Bombay; the Arabic `dialects' e.g Yemeni to Maghrebi; many (sub)dialects of Chinese.
Many spoken dialects may be mutually unintelligible, but the literary dialect unites them, and they all learn it as the language of education.
ccat.sas.upenn.edu /~haroldfs/messeas/langdial/node2.html   (514 words)

  
 Nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
While each have their own standard language variant and a name for it, they speak a mutually intelligible languages.
These dialects are mutually intelligible, but have fixed phonetic, morphological and lexical differences.
The question of standard language of Bosnia and Herzegovina is resolved in such a way that three constituent nations have their educational and cultural institutions in their respective national standard languages: Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian.
www.informationdepot.us /n/na/nations_of_bosnia_and_herzegovina.html   (1428 words)

  
 Chinese Dialects FAQ   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
A separate dialect is a form of speech different than your own that you can still understand (intelligibility) and the speaker of that dialect can still understand you (mutual intelligibility), though sometimes with difficulty, or you may not recognize the use of some words.
Not surprisingly, when looking at phonological intelligibility between the languages and dialects, the numbers rise a bit, meaning that the overall structure of shared words are quite similar indeed.
Finally, if we look at overall intelligibility between the languages, which incorporates both lexical and phonological data, those languages that are most intelligible to Mandarin are Jin 61%, Xiang 58% and Gan 56%, naturally as these border the Mandarin speaking areas.
www.glossika.com /en/dict/faq.htm   (4244 words)

  
 Ashoka Fellow Profile - Kwesi Prah
Dialects within each root grouping are mutually intelligible.The idea is timely in the Pan-African context because of the current shift away from written colonial languages as a basic building block of an educated citizenry.
For instance, Zulu, Xhosa, Swati, Ndebele, Shangaan, Ngoni, Tumbaka, and Ntsenga are 85 percent mutually intelligible as spoken languages, and all fall into the root group called Nguni.
One of the first effects of this project is that it reduced the perception of differences among the people who speak different dialects of Gbe.Kwesi has developed a cost-effective strategy to spread the idea of clustering dialects into common written languages by linking orthographers to governments and foreign donors.
www.ashoka.org /fellows/viewprofile3.cfm?reid=96505   (743 words)

  
 Swedish (language)   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
It is mutually intelligible with the other Scandinavian languages, Danish and Norwegian.
Standard Swedish is the national language that evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in the 19th century and was well-established by the beginning of the 20th century.
By generally accepted criteria of mutual intelligibility, the Mainland Scandinavian languages could very well be considered to be dialects of a common Scandinavian language.
www.totalbike.com /wiki/Swedish_(language)   (5793 words)

  
 [No title]   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
1.2.1 One view: Mutual intelligibility A language is a collection of mutually intelligible dialects; two varieties that are mutually intelligible are dialects of the same language.
chains of (locally) mutually intelligible varieties, present particular difficulties: Linguistic differences are geographically cumulative so, although there may never be any clear break in mutual intelligibility because adjacent varieties are always mutually intelligible, speakers at one end of the continuum may not understand those at the other end (e.g.
So the main problem with citing mutual intelligibility as the defining characteristic of dialects is that mutual intelligibility is a linguistic criterion, but, paradoxically, ‘language’ and ‘dialect’ are not really linguistic notions at all: Cf.
kiri.ling.cam.ac.uk /psych/a.docs/Dialect   (1804 words)

  
 Slovak language   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Nowadays the ability to completely understand Czech, however, seems to disappear with a part of the youngest generation (and this is definitively the case with the Czech children in the opposite direction).
The Polish language and Sorbian language s are somewhat intelligible to both Slovak and Czech, but they have different professional terminology and higher style expressions - the more you keep your language style low and simple, the better you are understood.
Also, at the dialect level, only western Slovak can be considered fully mutually intelligible with the Czech language.
www.serebella.com /encyclopedia/article-Slovak_language.html   (3973 words)

  
 A Language is a Dialect with an Army   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Whether a language is an "independent" language or a dialect, can't be decided solely on the basis of the intelligibility test.
Danish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible to a very large degree, but they are two languages, all the same, since there are two states and two populations that behave as if they were two languages.
The relationship between English and Scots is comparable to Danish/Norwegian as far as intelligibility goes, but not as far as Army and Navy goes.
www.olestig.dk /scotland/weinreich.html   (200 words)

  
 untitled
Language refers either to a single linguistic norm (when there is just one dialect) or to a group of related norms (each of which is a dialect).
some unitary system of linguistic communication which subsumes a number of mutually intelligible varieties.
Many Croatians: they are two different languages Case 3 (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) They are mutually intelligible.
www.uwm.edu /~tslim/lecture/langvsdial.htm   (389 words)

  
 Scandinavian languages   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
The Scandinavian languages are any of the three mutually intelligible North Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia : Danish, Norwegian and Swedish.
They are related to, but not intelligible with, the other North Germanic languages spokenoutside Scandinavia (like Icelandic).
All North Germanic languages diverged from Old Norse about amillennium ago, but the three Scandinavian languages were later strongly influenced by Low Saxon (German), from which they in fact have acquired most of their vocabulary.
www.therfcc.org /scandinavian-languages-37462.html   (110 words)

  
 UCLA Language Materials Ukrainian Language Profile
The three East Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian) are very close to one another and in certain cases have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
While there are no dialects of Russian and Ukrainian that are mutually intelligible, there are mutually intelligible dialects between Belarusian and Ukrainian, and Belarusian and Russian.
The dialects of Ukrainian do not differ extensively from one another and are all mutually intelligible.
www.lmp.ucla.edu /profiles/profu01.htm   (1074 words)

  
 Wikibooks free books and text   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Although you will often hear people refer to Cantonese as a "Chinese dialect", it is important to realize in what sense the word "dialect" is being used.
A dialect of a language means a variety of a language that is still mutually intelligible with other speakers of that language according to definition of western linguistics.
But many of the so-called dialects are not mutually intelligible.
tobagocays.paellaman.com /books.php?title=Cantonese:_About_Cantonese   (567 words)

  
 Population Contact & The Evolution of English
Their typical arguments are that these varieties are contact-based and not mutually intelligible with presumably the more legitimate offspring that, say, colonial English vernaculars are.
The Norse and Normans cannot have been more perfect learners of a foreign vernacular than modern people, especially in settings where they were not fully integrated, since they interacted most directly with their servants and administrative auxiliaries but remained generally removed from the masses of the English population.
In settings involving large proportions of non-native speakersóespecially if the latter are not fully integrated with the native speakersóthey too contribute to the pool of structural features and pragmatic constraints from which are selected the set of features that become characteristic of future generations of speakers.
humanities.uchicago.edu /faculty/mufwene/mufw_engevo.html   (3973 words)

  
 Courier-Journal Newspaper in Education - 4 Your Info Teaching Suggestions   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-06)
Usually people are considered to be speaking dialects of the same language if the dialects are mutually intelligible.
For example, Norwegian and Danish are dialects of the same language because they are mutually intelligible, but they are considered separate languages because they are spoken in independent countries.
The reverse is true of Mandarin and Cantonese which are not mutually intelligible, but are considered dialects of Chinese due to the political and cultural unity of China, and because they share a common written language.
www.courier-journal.com /education/lessonplans/961021dialects.html   (392 words)

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