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In this case, the distinction between the "standard language" (i.e. the "standard" dialect of a particular language) and the "nonstandard" (vernacular) dialects of the same language is often arbitrary and based on social, political, cultural, or historical considerations or prevalence and prominence.
The words dialect and accent are often used synonymously in everyday speech, but linguists define the two terms differently. Accent generally refers to differences in pronunciation, especially those that are associated with geographic or social differences, whereas dialect refers to differences in grammar and vocabulary as well. [14]
Accents vary significantly between ethnic and language groups. Home-language English speakers, Black, White, Indian, and Coloured , in South Africa have an accent that generally resembles British Received Pronunciation , modified with varying degrees of Germanic inflection due to Afrikaans.
The dialects can differ markedly in their phonology, to the point that two speakers using two different dialects can find each other's accents mutually unintelligible. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Indian English is a "network of varieties", resulting from an extraordinarily complex linguistic situation in the country.
Regional dialects in North America are historically the most strongly differentiated along the Eastern seaboard, due to distinctive speech patterns of urban centers of the American East Coast like Boston, New York City, and certain Southern cities, all of these accents historically noted by their London-like r-dropping (called non-rhoticity), a feature gradually receding among younger ...
New England English is, collectively, the various distinct dialects and varieties of American English originating in the New England area. [1] [2] Most of eastern and central New England once spoke the "Yankee dialect", some of whose accent features still remain in Eastern New England today, such as "R-dropping" (though this and other features are now receding among younger speakers). [3]
Based on fragments of early studies on the dialect, there seem to have been few distinctions across large areas: in the early 14th century, the traditional Northumbrian dialect of Yorkshire showed few differences compared to the dialect spoken in Aberdeen, now often considered a separate Scots language.
In sociolinguistics, an accent is a way of pronouncing a language that is distinctive to a country, area, social class, or individual. [1] An accent may be identified with the locality in which its speakers reside (a regional or geographical accent), the socioeconomic status of its speakers, their ethnicity (an ethnolect), their caste or social class (a social accent), or influence from their ...