a language is a dialect with an army and a navy
on what it takes to legitimise a language
“A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” — Max Weinreich
Is there actually a distinction between a language and a dialect?
Linguistically, there is no clear line of separation. A dialect is a variety of speech tied to a region or social group, differing in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. This sounds very similar to a language. A dialect also differ from slang, which is more informal, vocabulary-driven, and fast-moving.
There seems to be no definition out there to explain why Mandarin is a language and Cantonese is sometimes treated as a dialect, or why the Scandinavian tongues are considered separate languages despite being mutually intelligible, or why African languages were long dismissed as dialects of one another.
There differentiation appears to be a product of power. Linguistic legitimacy follows political legitimacy. When a group controls territory, institutions, and resources, their way of speaking gets elevated to “language” status: codified, standardised, taught in schools. The speech of those without power gets called a dialect, a patois, a vernacular.
The hierarchy of languages isn’t a natural one, it’s a constructed one. This matters because the way we categorise language shapes what we believe about the people who speak it, and what they believe about themselves.
“…rather than the cultural, linguistic, and ethnic logic already present on the ground, lumped groups together who had no organic basis for unity.”