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Dialect vs Macrolanguage - What's the difference?

dialect | macrolanguage |

In linguistics terms the difference between dialect and macrolanguage

is that dialect is a variety of a language (specifically, often a spoken variety) that is characteristic of a particular area, community or group, often with relatively minor differences in vocabulary, style, spelling and pronunciation while macrolanguage is a language consisting of widely varying dialects, or a group of very closely related languages.

dialect

English

(wikipedia dialect)

Noun

(en noun)
  • (linguistics) A variety of a language (specifically, often a spoken variety) that is characteristic of a particular area, community or group, often with relatively minor differences in vocabulary, style, spelling and pronunciation.
  • * A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.
  • *
    • And in addition, many dialects of English make no morphological distinction between Adjectives and Adverbs, and thus use Adjectives in contexts where the standard language requires -ly'' Adverbs: compare
    (81) (a)      Tex talks ''really quickly'' [Adverb + Adverb]
            (b)   %Tex talks ''real quick     [Adjective + Adjective]
  • A dialect of a language perceived as substandard and wrong.
  • * 1967 , Roger W. Shuy, Discovering American dialects , National Council of Teachers of English, page 1:
    • Many even deny it and say something like this: "No, we don't speak a dialect around here. [...]
  • * 1975 , Linguistic perspectives on black English , H. Carl, page 219:
    • Well, those children don't speak dialect , not in this school. Maybe in the public schools, but not here.
  • * 1994 , H. Nigel Thomas, Spirits in the dark , Heinemann, page 11:
    • [...] on the second day, Miss Anderson gave the school a lecture on why it was wrong to speak dialect'. She had ended by saying "Respectable people don't speak ' dialect ."
  • A language.
  • A variant of a non-standardized programming language.
    • Home computers in the 1980s had many incompatible dialects of BASIC.

    Usage notes

    * The difference between a language and a dialect is not always clear, but it is generally considered that people who speak different dialects can understand each other, while people who speak different languages cannot. Compare species in the biological sense.

    Derived terms

    * dialectal * dialectic

    Related terms

    * dialectally * dialectical * dialectician * dialectics

    See also

    * dialogue * ethnolect * idiolect * sociolect

    Anagrams

    * ----

    macrolanguage

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (macro) + (language).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (computing) A system for defining and processing macros.
  • * 2006 , G. Brent Hall and Michael G. Leahy, "Internet-Based Spacial Decision Support Using Open Source Tools", Chapter XIII of Shivanand Balram and Suzana Dragi?evi?, Collaborative Geographic Information Systems , Idea Group Inc., ISBN 9781591408468, page 238:
    • Much of the emphasis in spatial decision-support research continues to focus on developing tools, typically using macrolanguage scripting exclusively or scripting linked to compilable programming and commercial geographic information system software, such as workstation Arc/Info and desktop ArcGIS.
    Usage notes
    * This is more commonly written as two words: (term).

    Etymology 2

    From .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (linguistics) A language consisting of widely varying dialects, or a group of very closely related languages.
  • * 1993 , in La Trobe working papers in linguistics , volumes 6-8, page 161:
    • A linguist working with the criterion of mutual intelligibility would recognize six languages in central and western Victoria, most of them covering large areas. These widespread languages would not have been recognized as languages by the speakers themselves and they have no native name. The largest macrolanguage covers most of western Victoria north of Ballarat and Hamilton.
  • * 1996 , Bertil Tikkanen, "Languages of interethnic communication on the Indian Subcontinent (excluding Nepal)", in Stephen Adolphe Wurm et al. (editors), Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas , Volume II.1, Walter de Gruyter, ISBN 978-3-11-013417-9, page 787:
    • The Indo-Aryan languages or macrolanguages' of the plains merge into each other, being on the local level made up of enormous dialect continua (e.g. PANJABI-HINDI-BIHARI-RAJASTHANI-PAHARI). ¶ These fluid ‘' macrolanguages ’ (indicated by capital letters, e.g. HINDI) may have “dialects” which are mutually unintelligible and hard to classify.
  • * 2007 , Jose A. Fadul (general editor), Encyclopedia iana: Student Edition , Lulu.com, ISBN 978-1-4303-1142-3, page 6:
    • Modern Arabic is classified as a macrolanguage with 27 sub-languages spoken throughout the Arab world.

    See also

    *