Dialect vs Variant - What's the difference?
dialect | variant |
(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.
*
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:
* 1975 , Linguistic perspectives on black English , H. Carl, page 219:
* 1994 , H. Nigel Thomas, Spirits in the dark , Heinemann, page 11:
A language.
A variant of a non-standardized programming language.
Showing variety, diverse.
Showing deviation or disagreement.
(obsolete) Variable.
Something that is slightly different from a type or norm.
(genetics) A different sequence of a gene (locus).
(computing) A variable that can hold any of various unrelated data types.
As nouns the difference between dialect and variant
is that dialect is (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 while variant is something that is slightly different from a type or norm.As an adjective variant is
showing variety, diverse.dialect
English
(wikipedia dialect)Noun
(en noun)- 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]
- Many even deny it and say something like this: "No, we don't speak a dialect around here.
[...]
- Well, those children don't speak dialect , not in this school. Maybe in the public schools, but not here.
[...] 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 ."
- 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 * dialecticSee also
* dialogue * ethnolect * idiolect * sociolectAnagrams
* ----variant
English
Alternative forms
* variaunt (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)Noun
(en noun)- All breeds of dog are variants of the species “Canis lupus familiaris”.
- The word "kerosine" is a variant of “kerosene”.
