SPCH 010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Boston Accent, Mutual Intelligibility, General American
14 Mar 2018
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Document Summary
There are different versions of the same language. Both southerners and northeasterners speak english. but they speak different versions of english. The first thing to understand is that all languages are constantly changing (evolving). Faeder ure thu the eart on heofonum, si thin nama gehalgod . Our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. A language may change in two (or more) different ways. These 2 varieties become different dialects of the same language. If they change in different ways too much, they will become mutually unintelligible (can"t understand one another) and therefore become different languages. Linguists define a dialect as any variety of a language that is shared by a group of speakers. A key criteria that is often used is mutual intelligibility. If two groups of speakers can understand each other, then they speak different dialects of the same language. If two groups of speakers cannot understand each other, then they speak different languages.
