ANTHRO 33 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Diglossia, Code-Switching, Grammar
Document Summary
A language is a dialect with an army and a navy - max weinreich. Dialects (mutually unintelligible, but writing system overlaps) Distinguishing between languages and dialects is as much about politics, power, ethnic identity, culture, and indigenous rights as is it about language structure. Dialect is often used to describe only ways of speaking that are of lower status in a society. There are more multilinguals than monolinguals in the world. Most research on language focuses on monolingual speakers and a huge proportion of studies focus on english. Around the world, more children are educated in 2nd or 3rd language than in 1st. In the us, around 20% of families speak a language other than english at home. Learning two languages simultaneously confuses a child. Bilinguals have to translate from their weaker language to their stronger language. Children who grow up bilingual will be great translators. Historical belief: learning two languages is confusing for children.
