msu.edu · Web viewWithin syntax, we find a basic set of syntactic categories (such as: sentence, verb phrase, noun phrase, noun, verb, relative clause, etc.) even though each language

The Language/dialect ProblemDavid J. Dwyer, Dept. of Anthropology, Michigan State University

AbstractThe question of what distinguishes a language from a dialect is examined by comparing current definitions (popular, linguistic and political) against actual usage. Each of these definitions are shown to be lacking in part due to an implicit acceptance of the opposition as a natural phenomenon. A new definition recognizing the opposition as a social construct is offered. Examples of the colonial imposition of this opposition on Shona and Tsonga demonstrate the potency of this Eurocentric concept.

1. Background

Constructionism (Burger and Luckmann 1966) holds that some types of

phenomena represent human inventions or creations as opposed to naturally occurring

phenomena. The problem that constructionism poses, is not so much one of being

unaware that some of our world is constructed and that some of it is natural, but rather

one of separating the two. The danger in accepting constructed phenomena as natural

is that we take them to be objective (independent of our own being), and unproblematic.

The question of constructionism is of more concern in the study of social as

opposed to physical phenomena. Furthermore, it would seem reasonable to expect this

kind of thing to happen in areas of human social activity: theological positions, political

disputes, literary analysis and perhaps even economics. But at first blush, it would

seem unlikely that linguistic analysis could also be involved. Yet, this is precisely what

this paper is about, that the distinction between language and dialect are not natural

categories but are human constructs. In this particular case, I claim that the existence

and use of writing was one of the main factors that has shaped this European view of

language and dialect. One of the consequences of this Eurocentric view was that in the

process of the colonialization of Africa, African linguistic, political and ethnic actualities

were characterized to conform with European ideas.

2. The Problem

The linguist is often asked: "What is the difference between a language and a

dialect?” In formulating the answer, the linguist wants to make sure that non-linguists

are disabused of the following popular claims made about the term dialect:

1) Dialects are structurally inferior to languages, lacking formal grammatical rules and standards of speaking;

2) Dialects are communicatively inferior to languages, lacking the full range of

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 2

expressibility found in languages;3) Dialects are orthographically1 inferior to languages, lacking their own system of

writing.In short, dialects are inferior to languages. These claims lead the popular

conclusion that languages are varieties of communication used by Westerners and by a

few exceptional Non-westerners such as the Japanese, Chinese, Arabs and Ethiopians,

while dialects are mainly used by Non-westerners and intellectually backward

Westerners, particularly those found in isolated, rural communities.

2.1 Grammatical Inferiority. Linguists object to this point of view because they are

aware that the study of the formal properties of the world's languages reveals no formal

distinction between Western and Non-western languages with respect to the first point.

In fact, the study of linguistics rests on the assumption that because of the nature of the

human mind, all languages share a number of common properties called linguistic

universals. Furthermore, much of what is done in linguistic research is to investigate

individual languages to see how these linguistic universals play out in them.

This approach has proven to be extremely successful, enabling all languages to

be examined within the same framework. We see that all languages share the same

semiological systems (phonology, lexicon and syntax) and within each system, that all

languages share the same types of properties.

$ Within phonology, all languages draw from the same potential set of

phonological contrasts, known as distinctive features (such as: consonant/vowel;

voiced/voiceless, stop/fricative, etc.). These distinctive features combine to form

segments, syllables and phonological phrases. Each language draws from this

universal potential to form a set of contrastive signs called phonemes. The nature of

the patterning of these phonological entities can be characterized in terms of

phonological rules stated in terms of these distinctive features.

1) Within the lexicon, words consist of smaller units called morphemes and that morphemes are represented by strings of phonological signs, called phonemes.

2) Within syntax, we find a basic set of syntactic categories (such as: sentence, verb phrase, noun phrase, noun, verb, relative clause, etc.) even though each language differs in the way that it handles these categories. For example, all languages have sentences composed of a noun phrase and a verb phrase, though they may differ in the order that they are presented. Much of the study of syntax has to do with discovering how the grammatical structures of individual languages reflect the universal grammar.


Because of these common and universal features of human language, linguists

find that the claim that some languages are structurally inferior is fundamentally wrong

and totally opposed to the empirical findings of their field.

2.2 Expressibility. In addition, while linguists do find that all languages encounter some

difficulties in expressing certain notions, this is a far cry from saying that some concepts

are fundamentally inexpressible in some languages. In fact, linguists frequently

encounter non-western languages that have developed grammatical and lexical devices

that enable the straightforward presentation of notions of considerable complexity, at

least from the Western perspective. Benjamin Lee Whorf pointed out many such

differences in which Non-western languages were vastly superior to Western ones.

When comparing the devices for reporting information, Whorf (1956) remarked that

“Hopi, when compared to English, is like that of a rapier compared to a bludgeon.” I

argue below that the suffix -kan in Bambara represents the phenomenon of language

variation more suitably than the English terms language and dialect.

Consequently, linguists find that the second claim of communicative inferiority is

equally wrong and opposed to the fundamental principles and empirical evidence that

linguists have encountered. As far as linguists are concerned, there are no clear-cut or

substantial differences in structural composition or communicative capacity between

languages, let alone between Western and non-western languages. Furthermore

linguists object to such claims, not only because of their wrongness but because they

have the potential to serve the ideological claims of Western intellectual superiority.

2.3 Writing. Linguists do not find the third claim as objectionable, especially when it is

rephrased as:

3'. Western languages tend to have writing systems while Non-western languages often do not.

More importantly, however, linguists do not see the literate/non-literate distinction

to be a fundamental one in the analysis of language structure. After all, the users of any

language can develop a workable writing system without too much difficulty or too much

investment in time.

We are reminded, for example, of the Cameroonian leader Njoya who developed


a writing system almost overnight and immediately put together a five-volume book on

the history of his Bamoun people (Ndam Njoya 1977). Here in North America, we find

the example of the Cherokee who, following the development of a writing system, began

publishing a newspaper and books of literary and practical merit.

A second reason linguists give for de-emphasizing the importance of writing is

that for all of us, language use is primarily oral, even for those of us who use a writing

system, and that in all cases the written form of the language is derived from the spoken

form.

Thus, linguists do not find the claim of the lack of a writing system to be of any

great import. While it may be argued that the presence of writing, like any technology,

can have an effect on a given society (cf. Goody 1968, 1987 and Street 1984 and

1993), writing does not lead to a structural superiority of any sort.

3. The linguistic distinction between languages and dialect.

Having seen in the preceding sections that linguists object to the popular

characterization of the difference between language and dialect, we now ask to how the

linguist seeks to characterize this difference? Bearing in mind, that there is some

variability in the way linguists define their subject matter, let us proceed with the

following widely accepted characterization.

3.1 The Linguistic definition. Beginning with the term idiolect, which is the way

an individual speaks, particularity the structural aspects (the phonology, lexicon and

syntax) of this speech, a dialect can be said to consist of a set of very similar idiolects

admitting to only minor variations. From this perspective, a language can be said to

consist of the set of mutually intelligible dialects. Two dialects are said to be mutually

intelligible when a speaker of different dialects can understand each other without too

much difficulty. Thus while British and American English, or Northern and Southern

American English, or African-American and European-American English exhibit modest

structural differences, these differences are not so great that they prevent mutual

intelligibility and consequently they would characterized as having dialectal, rather than

language, differences.

However, using this criterion, we would have to conclude that, prior to the

Norman invasion of 1066 when they were mutually intelligible, English and Norwegian


were dialects of the same language, even though today they represent different

languages. Linguists go on to add that even though one of the dialects of a given

language may be chosen as the literary dialect (the one in which written texts are

generated), that fact in no way elevates that dialect as structurally or communicatively

superior in the sense described above.

The linguistic view of the language/dialect distinction has the advantage over the

popular view in that it unambiguously denies the claim that Western languages are

superior to non-western ones.

3.2 The Problem with the linguistic definition. Yet, while the linguistic definition has

overcome its Eurocentric bias, it doesn't work. That is, when the definition is applied

rigorously, it fails to explain why the linguistic entities like German, Igbo, and Chinese

are termed languages and why mutually intelligible "dialects" like Swedish and

Norwegian are considered different languages. For example, last summer I had the

opportunity to observe a Norwegian and a Swede conversing easily on the topic of what

each was doing in my house. Each spoke in her own language and each had little

difficulty in understanding the other. Since we accept the fact that Swedish and

Norwegian are mutually intelligible, they would be considered dialects of the same

language using the linguistic definition.

Likewise, a Spanish friend of mine, whom I met in graduate school and who now

represents an American company in Europe, noted that when he travels to Italy for a

meeting, he uses no translator; he speaks Spanish to his clients and his clients speak

Italian to him. This is, I am told, a common practice. Admittedly, it may take a bit of

time for one to "catch on" to the other "dialect," the same can be said for some "dialects"

of English, but nevertheless, using the linguistic definition, Italian and Spanish would

have to be considered dialects of the same language.

In addition, the linguistic criterion of mutual intelligibility would exclude certain

dialects traditionally associated with a particular language. For example, the German

“dialects” of Switzerland are not mutually intelligible with those of northern Germany and

in some cases, not even with other German "dialects" found elsewhere in Switzerland.

The linguistic definition states that these varieties can not both be dialects of German,

but must belong to separate languages.


A third weakness in the linguistic definition is one of indeterminacy; that is, it

encounters many situations where a given dialect could be assigned to either of two

languages. For example, standard German and standard Dutch are not mutually

intelligible, but between Amsterdam to Berlin, one finds mutual intelligibility from one

town to the next all along the way. Thus, using the criterion of mutual intelligibility, one

could assign border dialects to either language.

Thus, the linguistic definition clashes with our popular characterizations

Norwegian and Swedish as separate languages and German as a single language. It

also formally fails to resolve boundary problems as in the Dutch-German situation.

4. The Political distinction between language and dialect.

The problems of the linguistic definition have led many linguists, half seriously, to

propose that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy, i.e., a government. After

all, Norway and Sweden have different governments today, as do Spain and Italy and

the Netherlands and Germany. In fact, this distinction could be used to exclude

Catalan, a Romance “language” spoken in the Barcelona area of Spain because it is not

backed up by a government. Ironically, then, we discover that this capricious

characterization of language and dialect seems to characterize these situations more

successfully than the linguistic one. In fact, we can even extend this distinction to

situations of mutually unintelligible "dialects."

While we tend to think of Chinese as a single idiom accessible to all Chinese,

many of the so-called dialects of Chinese are not even close to being mutually

intelligible. Igbo is spoken by over 3 million people in eastern Nigeria. Yet, here, too,

not all dialects of Igbo are mutually intelligible. Some people claim that not all dialects

of English are mutually intelligible. When National Public Television presented a 15 part

series on The Story of English many of the English "dialects" presented were subtitled

because they were not clearly mutually intelligible to all viewers.

Even though the dialects of Chinese are not mutually intelligible, they are under

one government, at least according to the Peoples Republic of China. The same could

be said for Igbo, which was the language of Biafra when it attempted to secede from

Nigeria during the Nigerian civil war though in reality the characterization of Igbo as a

single language is a colonial formation. In addition, the rather arbitrary division between


Dutch and German is explained by the presence of a political border. Those in the

Netherlands speak Dutch, and those in Germany speak German.

The political distinction has the advantage of overcoming the problems of mutual

intelligibility and arbitrariness encountered by the linguistic distinction, yet this distinction

too is flawed. We note that China has two governments (Mainland China and Taiwan),

German has three (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and English has at least six (the

U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. Finally, Arabic is the official

language of over 15 countries. There are also a number of governments that recognize

the legitimacy of more than one language within its borders: Belgium, Switzerland,

Canada, and a good number of African countries. However, we also encounter

languages without any governmental connection.

A Mende-speaking friend of mine in Sierra Leone asked me about my field

research, which was to compare the historical development of the Southwestern Mande

languages of Sierra Leone and Liberia. These languages include, in addition to Mende

and Loko of Sierra Leone, Bandi, Lorma and Kpelle of Liberia and are about as closely

related as the Romance languages, which include: French; Spanish; Italian among

others. My friend informed me that he could understand the news broadcasts from

Liberia which were in Bandi.

By the linguistic definition, Mende and Bandi would be dialects; by the political

definition, they are anomalous for neither has a government. The official language of

Sierra Leone and Liberia is English. Throughout the world, minority (and sometimes

majority) languages exist without formal recognition, and would therefore by the political

distinction because they lack this governmental connection, be considered dialects.

4.1 The Naturalness of the Language/Dialect Distinction. At this point, we seem to have

encountered a dead end, for no current distinction seems to work. The popular

distinction fails empirically and in its Eurocentricity. The linguistic distinction fails

empirically, and the political distinction, while appealing in some respects, fails

empirically as well. This conundrum leads us to suspect that the problem is not the

definition, but the distinction between language and dialect is not a natural one but a

social construct.

As such, the distinction between language and dialect is not a universal category,


and so one would expect to find other ways of characterizing language variation.

Bamanankan, the most widely spoken language of the Republic of Mali, has no lexical

distinction between language and dialect. However, it does have a productive suffix -

kan that means something like ‘manner of speaking of’. Thus, Bamana-kan means ‘the

manner of speaking of the Bamana (also known as the Bambara)’ which would translate

into 'the language of the Bamana’. Likewise, Hausakan would translate as ‘the Hausa

language.’ But one also finds the word Bamakakan meaning ‘the manner of speaking in

Bamako (the capital of Mali)’. In this case, we would translate the word as ‘the dialect of

Bamana spoken in Bamako.’ Finally, Abdulakan would translate as the ‘idiolect of

Abdula’.

Here we find a situation where the distinction between language and dialect is

not only not made, but apparently not needed. Interestingly, many linguists are now

using the term (language) variety to refer to a way of speaking without having to

characterize the type as either a language or a dialect.

This lack of distinction between language and dialect may help to explain a

situation I encountered in Cameroon as a Peace Corps Volunteer (Dwyer 1993). While

working in the town of Jotin on a community development project, I was asked to carry

out a language survey. No sooner had I started than things began to get confusing.

One of my first questions to a Jotin farmer was "what language do you speak?” Actually

my question was in Cameroon Pidgin English, the lingua franca of the area and was

phrased as follows:

Huskayn tok yu detok?What language you continually speak?

The answer I received was an "I don't know." I of course was dumfounded. How

could you not know what language you spoke? At the time, I simply gave up, but in

retrospect, perhaps the Bambara distinction will help clarify things. The farmer

obviously knew he spoke language; the question was what kind. If the farmer had a

notion of language something like the Bambara suffix -kan, then the question would turn

out to be incomprehensible: "What manner of speaking do you speak?

If this were the question, then no wonder it appeared perplexing. The answer

might have been something like: "I speak in the manner of Jotin." But that was so


obvious no intelligent person would even bother to ask. Yet, the question was being

asked by a foreigner, and some measure of politeness was in order. Hence the answer:

"I don't know."2

Both of these examples bring out the point that the distinction between language

and dialect is not a natural phenomenon as Westerners assume. We see from these

African examples that the distinction is unnecessary. Bambara allows for the

characterization of degrees of differences of the way people speak without drawing a

sharp line between language and dialect. For example, it is possible to say in Bambara

that the difference between Bamakakan and Segukan is not as great as between

Bamakakan and Hausakan without having to resort to the pidgin-holing categories of

language and dialect. If this is so, then why have Europeans developed a distinction

between language and dialect?

5. A literary distinction between language and dialect.

The languages of Bamanakan and Pidgin tell us that the language dialect

distinction is not universal, and furthermore reminds us that it is a social construct.

What is interesting about this distinction is that it tends to be found only in places where

there is a literary tradition. As noted above, linguists have not found the distinction

between literate and non-literate languages at all useful for this distinction has no

influence, as stated above, on the complexity of the structure or on the communicability

of the language variety. However, this is not to say that the development of writing is

without influence. Beginning with the work of Goody (1968, 1987) and followed by

others including (Goody and Watt 1979) and Street (1984, 1993) the existence of a

literary tradition has consequences for the society that adopts it. Accordingly, I suggest

a literary basis for the language/dialect distinction.

5.1 The Literary definition. Specifically, I propose that the Eurocentric distinction

between language and dialect arose in response to a situation imposed by the

development of writing. One of the "consequences of literacy" was the development of

two types of systems of communication. These came to be called in English "language"

and "dialect" such that a language has a writing system while a dialect does not. As

can be seen, this definition is a rephrasing of point two in section one above. In this

rephrasing, however, I have avoided the claim of intellectual superiority for dialects with


writing systems without denying the benefits of writing.

To elaborate, we can now offer a literary characterization of the distinction

between a language and a dialect.

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 11A language consists of a literary dialect, the variety used to represent the language in writing. Any variety which uses that literary variety for writing is also part of the language but its oral form is considered a dialect. Literary dialects, and hence languages are distinct when their orthographic traditions differ with respect to their alphabetic and lexical inventories, spelling conventions, word divisions and punctuation.

-11-

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 12Most importantly, this definition recognizes that the language/dialect distinction is

a social construct and not a universal characterization. As such, it only applies in

situations where a literary tradition is operative. It cannot be applied to situations where

such a tradition has not taken root. In addition, it should be understood that the

definition makes no claims to the superiority of the written tradition, but only that when

such a tradition exists, the language/dialect distinction will conform to the definition.

It should also be clear, that while the literary dialect is in many ways the most

visible aspect of a language, the language also includes all the participating dialects.

Thus, the variety of English that I speak is a dialect, but the variety that I write is a

language. With this distinction we begin to see monolingual3 nations as consisting of a

literate dialect (language) along with any number of spoken dialects. Furthermore, this

definition resolves the paradoxes encountered by the other definitions.

The German/Dutch continuum is easily accommodated, given that the Dutch

dialects owe their allegiance to written Dutch and the German dialects owe theirs to

written German. The fact that there are dialects of German in Switzerland does not

challenge this view, as it would using the political definition because these dialects, too,

owe their allegiance to written German. English as well, despite its six armies and

navies has only one written system to which all dialects subscribe. By this definition,

the African languages of Chewa, spoken in Zambia, and Nyanja, spoken in Malawi

(despite their mutually intelligibility), are thus recognized as different languages, not

because of separate armies and navies, but because of slightly different orthographies.

Likewise, the virtually identical languages of Serbian and Croatian stand as distinct by

virtue of their differing orthographies, and not because of their recently developed

armies.

Another such example is that of Romanian and Moldavan. These two Romance

"languages” are virtually identical and clearly mutually intelligible. But while Romania is

an independent country, Moldavia is part of Russia. To emphasize this difference,

Moldavan is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, the same one used for Russian while

Romanian is written with a roman alphabet.

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 13Under this definition, Norwegian and Swedish are different languages because

they have different writing systems. Norwegian, and Japanese represent an interesting

situation for they have multiple orthographies, but this fact does not jeopardize this

definition for all dialects of Norwegian owe their allegiance to both writing systems and

all Japanese dialects to its three writing systems.

Chinese provides one of the most interesting tests of this

distinction, for Chinese is one of the few languages in the world

using a logographic writing system. Logographic writing systems

differ from phonological writing system in that symbols are used

to represent words as opposed to representing sound, whether

syllables or individual sound segments as is shown in the

following table.

Writing Type Principle Languages English ExampleLogographic 1 symbol per word Chinese, Mayan 2 x 3 = 6Syllabic 1 symbol per

syllableJapanese, Cherokee, Amharic

I.O.U,X-mass

Consonantal 1 symbol per consonant

Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew no example

Alphabetic 1 symbol per segment

Greek and Greek imitators

two times three

Logographic, syllabic and alphabetic modes. .

To get some idea of how logographic symbols work, one has only to look at the

international icons, graphic road signs or for that matter the Arabic numbering system.

The logographic symbol "5" stands for a word (or a concept) and not a sound. This fact

makes it possible for extremely different languages, English (five), French (cinq), Mende

(loolu), etc. to use the same symbols, for they attach to lexical signs (words) and not to

the sounds of the language at the representational level.

In fact, this is the important point about Chinese. Because the Chinese writing

system does not depend on sound representation, varieties that are vastly different and

nowhere near mutual intelligibility, can owe their allegiance to the same writing system.

Thus, it can be maintained that despite the disparity of Chinese varieties of speaking,

they can still be considered dialects of the same language.

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 145.2 Consequences of the Literary Distinction. The construction of the language/dialect

distinction is not without its consequences. For example, associated with literary

dialects is an expectation of invariance. That is, the standard literary dialect, particularly

when written, admits to very little variation, in areas of syntactic usage, word usage and

spelling. While it is true that the literary dialect does admit to some variation in spelling,

particularity in proper names, this is very different from the variations that are found in

spoken language, even in the spoken versions of the literary dialect.

I suspect that the reason for this invariance has less to do with making a text

easier to read than with the status of the literary dialect. That is, the lack of variance in

the literary dialect allows for a distinction between language and dialect to be viewed as

one between proper and deviant forms. Consequently, when one finds variation in the

speech of others it is perceived as ungrammatical, inelegant and unsophisticated rather

than simply an alternative form of self-expression. This notion of deviance leads to the

potential for exclusion and devaluation of those who do not use the literary dialect.

Once a literary dialect is established, speakers of nonliterary dialects may come

to see the literary dialect as the mechanism of their social oppression leading them to

eschew not only the literary dialect, but access to writing (Freire and Macedo 1987).

This may even lead such people to see themselves as linguistically and socially deviant

or even inferior to users of the written dialect. Thus, while there can be no question

about the advantages that the literary dialect offers to its users, there can also be no

denying that its existence poses serious problems to a society with egalitarian

aspirations.

6. The political distinction revisited.

While the revised literary definition seems to capture the semantics of the

language/dialect distinction more precisely than the political definition, it is nevertheless

worthwhile asking why the political definition, despite its failure to cover all situations,

does seem to characterize a good number of situations quite well. What then is the

connection between the literary definition and the political one?

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 156.1 Monolingual Policy. Given that a state is a political entity charged with managing

the affairs of its citizens, it follows that among other things, a state is charged with

dealing with regulating education, political elections and mass communications, all of

which contain a dimension of language (using the literary definition) use. Consequently,

a state will be involved in decisions about language policy, whether they are consciously

articulated or not. A state must decide in what language(s) to educate its citizens, in

what languages to carry out the affairs of government, political deliberations, the judicial

process, mass communication, etc. And because of practical difficulties associated with

a multilingual language policy (cost of duplication, efficiency, and national unity), a

monolingual policy turns out in most cases to be the most practical one. The existence

of numerous multilingual countries in the world indicate that a monolingual policy is not

inevitable. Frequently multilingual states have two or more sizable populations for

which each population sees a specific language as essential to its identity and is

reluctant to abandon both the language and group identity in favor of a nation-wide

identity and language.

6.2 Nations. We take the term nation to refer to a state that has a common culture,

language and tradition.4 In nations, we expect to find that the name of the state and the

name of the language are etymologically related (e.g., Germany, German; France,

French; Spain, Spanish). Almost every Western nation has minority populations

speaking languages other than the official language, a fact that indicates that the

monolingual policy has been imposed rather than a situation that has evolved on its

own. Some countries like Belgium, Switzerland, Canada recognize two or more official

languages. Other countries contain significant populations where unofficial languages

are spoken. In France, one finds Basque in the south and Breton in the north being

spoken as a first language by sizable groups. In Spain, one finds Basque to the west

and Catalan to the east. In the United States, Spanish is spoken by at least 20% of the

population.

In many of these countries where minority languages are not officially

recognized, there is an effort for greater recognition and often for political autonomy that

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 16is often opposed by the government. In France and Spain, for example, the Basque

language was completely ignored in favor of using a unifying monolingual language

policy. In both France and Spain, the Basque feel that they have been overlooked

culturally, politically and economically. This has led to a Basque movement for political

autonomy. One of the major arguments for legitimizing autonomy is that just cited:

because Basque is a language distinct from French and Spanish, it stands for a unique

ethnicity, culture, in short, a nation. Consequently, as a nation, the Basque speakers

have the right to form an independent state.

Also in Spain, where Catalan (spoken in the Barcelona area) is mutually

intelligible with Castilian Spanish, and for that matter with the spoken French just over

the French border, similar arguments have been advanced for political autonomy.

Because Catalan is mutually intelligible with Spanish it can, using the linguistic

definition, be considered a dialect of Spanish.

Without an argument for being a distinct language, the case for being a distinct

nation and its demands for political autonomy are considerably weaker. However, if the

literary definition between language and dialect is used, Catalan can show itself to be

an independent language by establishing a distinct orthographic tradition. This has

been done. Today, one finds "bilingual" signs in Barcelona proclaiming the

independence of Catalan as a language and along with it, the right of its speakers to

political autonomy. It is thus quite common, as illustrated by the Catalan situation, that

the debate for political autonomy plays itself out at the level of the legitimacy of an

1.The term "orthography" refers to the system of writing used by a language.

2.There is another possible interpretation. That is, while my question was the correctly translated into Pidgin, the term tok does mean "language," but as can be seen from the example the word tok has a broader range of meaning. In fact, the word tok also means ‘discourse’ or ‘speech’. Thus the farmer could have translated my question as: "what sort of discourse do you engage in? This would appear to be a rather strange question to ask someone following a question about the size and health of his poultry flock.

3.In section 6, many apparently monolingual countries are shown to be multilingual.

4.Using this definition, it is clear that some states are more nation-like than others.

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 17orthographic tradition.

7. The Eurocentric framework.

What is important in this struggle for and against autonomy by groups within a

state is that the language/dialect question is seen by the players as part of the natural

order and not a social construct. Thus, the issue in the struggle is not the reality of the

distinction, for that is taken for granted, but whether the claim of language status by the

local group conforms to that (constructed) reality. That is, if the local group can be

shown to possess a language distinct from the official state language, then it can make

a claim that it deserves to be a nation and has a right to self-determination. Whether or

not the local-group succeeds in this enterprise, the language/dialect distinction is

sustained.

This paper has argued for the perspective that the language/dialect distinction

has arisen as a human construction and not, as is sometimes believed, a natural

phenomenon. To further illustrate this point, I draw on a body of growing literature

being developed by historians in their study of the colonial period of southern Africa.

Both of these cases involve the imposition of the Eurocentric Language-Nation

framework on an African situation by European colonizers and missionaries as they

went about their business. What is remarkable about both of these examples, which I

term "the crystallization of Shona" and the "invention of Tsonga" is that while many of

the European participants were aware of the discrepancies between their framework

and the empirical facts, this did not deter them in the least. Lest this paper be taken as

a diatribe against missionaries, colonials or Europeans, let it be said, that these

examples merely illustrate the general human capacity to overlook imperfections in

one's own constructs, especially when one possesses substantial power over others in

the pursuit of one's own interests.

7.1 The Crystallization of Shona. The information presented in this section draws

extensively from the work of Chimhundu (1992). To begin with, the varieties

encompassed by what is now called Shona do appear to represent some sort of

linguistic entity distinct from other neighboring varieties such as Ndebele, even though

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 18until 1931 there was no consensus as to what to call it or how it was internally

constituted. Even more importantly, the area had never been a political entity in the

sense that there was a state which embraced all and only Shona speakers. To be sure,

at one time or another, there were states that embraced some of this area, but such

states usually embraced non-Shona speaking areas as well. More typically, the area

was composed of autonomous, self-governing communities without an over arching

state apparatus. In other words, the current Shona-speaking area has never

constituted a nation in the sense that we have been discussing the term.

Most discussions of the dialects of Shona

refer to the work of Doke (1931) who conducted a

very intensive survey of the Shona-speaking area.

Doke presented his findings about the nature of the

dialectal variation by positing six different “dialect

groups”: Korekore, Zezuru, Manyika, Ndau, Karanga

and Kalanga. This mapping (figure 1) was intended

to impose order on the considerable variation within

Shona. Yet, a map showing such boundaries

exaggerates both the differences between neighboring dialects divided by such

boundaries and the internal cohesion within such boundaries. Today, these dialect

groups are understood to be dialects admitting to little internal variation.

In the early part of the 19th century, a number of Christian Missions settled in the

Shona-speaking area. Each of these denominations set about establishing a literary

dialect for the purposes of making religious literature available to their potential

converts. Partly because these missions worked in different dialectal areas, but more

importantly because these missionaries had little linguistic sophistication and because

the process often involved using interpreters who were not fully proficient in Shona or in

English, variants of written Shona evolved in each of the missions. Because of

differences in the choice in letters to mark phonological contrast, spelling conventions,

word division and word choices, these literary forms suggested that there was far

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 19greater diversity within Shona than actually existed.

Yet, there was an awareness by these mission groups, that underneath the

differences exhibited by various mission orthographies, there was the potential and

interest to develop a unified orthography for the whole of the Shona-speaking area.

This lead to the establishment of the Southern Rhodesian Missionary Conference

(1903-1928). However due to the parochial interests of each of the missions they were

never able to resolve this issue, finally declaring:

This Conference finds itself unable to decide at present between the alternatives of standardizing the two languages of Mashonaland, viz. Chizezuru and Chikaranga, or standardizing a unified language on the four existing [i.e., represented] dialects. We therefore prefer to reserve our opinion until expert advice has been obtained (Doke, C. Report on the Reunification of the Shona Dialects. 1931:5)

As a result, Clement

Doke, a linguist at the

University of

Witwatersrand, was

called in to conduct a

survey and make some

recommendations.

Working with Doke was

an advisory committee

composed not all of the missions involved. From table II we see that the Korekore of

representatives from some, but group and the Kalanga group were not represented and

that same person represented Manyika and Ndau.

Doke was charged with providing a "settlement of the language problems

involving the unification of the dialects into a literary form for official and educational

purposes, and the standardization of a uniform orthography of the area" Doke (1931:iii)

Doke's report contains a number of recommendations, most of which have been

adopted directly or with slight modification.

Christian Missions in the Shona-speaking areaLanguageVariety

MissionsWithin Area

Representation onDoke Commission

Korekore None NoneZezuru Roman Catholic Church Rev A. Burbridge,

Catholic ChurchManyika Roman Catholic Church

Anglican ChurchMethodist (United)

Rev B.H. Barnes, Anglican Church

Ndau American Board Mission (American Methodist)

Rev B.H. Barnes, Anglican Church

Karanga Dutch Reformed Church Mrs. C.S. Louw, Dutch Reformed Church

Kalanga London Missionary Society No RepresentativeNdebele London Missionary Society No Representative

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 201) The commission recommended a unified orthography and that the name of the

language be Shona.2) In establishing the orthography, Doke based word divisions, not on the common

semantically based practice of separating morphemes but on the phonological principle, common to many Bantu languages of penultimate stress. To represent a number of important phonemic contrasts, Doke resorted to specialized phonetic symbols that were later replaced by two letter combinations to render the system reproducible on a standard typewriter.

3) In choosing the vocabulary, this commission relied most heavily on Zezuru and to a lesser extent on Karanga. Manyika and Ndau were drawn on occasionally, and Korekore and Kalanga were completely ignored). Chimhundu points out that this merely reflected the degrees to which each dialect was represented on the commission.

4) Finally, Kalanga, was reclassified as a dialect of Ndebele (another Bantu language) to which it is adjacent, despite the fact that it was recognized by Doke as being mutually intelligible with other varieties of Shona. This was made possible because of its geographical isolation from the other Shona varieties, but more importantly to the fact that it did not have a representative on the Doke commission and to the fact that like Ndebele, it was under the aegis of the London Missionary Society.

5) As a result of this mission activity and the subsequent Doke commission, Shona has been crystallized in the European mold as a single language with a common literary dialect and a common name. The literary form was constructed largely from the Zezuru, due to political as opposed to linguistic grounds. This construction took place without the any significant participation of the Shona-speaking population. Furthermore, since its expulsion from Shona and reassignment to Ndebele, Kalanga is becoming less like Shona and more like Ndebele. Ethnologue (10th Edition, 1984:302), a publication reporting on the status of Bible translations in the world's languages, reports that Kalanga is "rapidly being absorbed by Ndebele, though most rural members speak Kalanga. Portions [of the Bible] in Kalanga need revision. The Shona revision will not serve."

7.2 The Invention of Tsonga. In this section, based largely

on Harries (1987 and 1989), I argue that the language now known

as Tsonga (currently spoken in the northern and eastern

Transvaal, including the southern part of Mozambique), arose, not

in the classical way of a splintering and independent linguistic

development, but through the imposition of a Western perspective

in the pursuit of Western interests.

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 21In the early 1900s before any substantial European influence, the area currently

inhabited by Tsonga-speaking people (see map) could hardly be said to be either

linguistically or culturally coherent. The earliest known inhabitants of the area were

hunters and traders; they were followed in the 19th century by a series of immigrations

triggered by political and ecological upheavals including Nguni refugees from the south

and in the 1830s and the Gaza civil war refugees during the 1860s.

Although most of the population spoke one Bantu language or another, it could

not be characterized as linguistically homogeneous. Politically the area was

characterized by autonomous villages with a centralized authority, although for much of

the 19th century, these communities fell under the political domination of three different

political entities: the Gaza Nguni to the north; the Swazi to the west and the Zulu to the

south. At no time did this area constitute a self-contained state with its own identity. In

fact, what singled this area as an entity at all according to Harries was its foreignness to

any other known group in the area. In fact, Harries points out that one of the terms for

this area, ‘Tsonga’ is Zulu in origin meaning ‘conquered peoples in costal areas north of

the Zulu, a term that carried pejorative overtones.

Towards the end of the 19th century (1873), this area was assigned to the Swiss

Missionary Society, with adjacent areas going to missionaries of other nationalities and

denominations. Part of the strategy for allocating lands for missionary activities was to

create culturally and linguistically coherent territories.

As in the case of Shona, an important first step for the missionaries was to

establish a written version of the local language in order to create religious texts. Given

that there were several quite-different, Bantu-based varieties being spoken in the area,

the task of producing a written language is portrayed by Harries as "compiling"

(1989:87) a written language as opposed simply reducing the language to writing.

Apparently, this system, which be came to be known as Gwamba,5 was based on a

gradually evolving lingua franca. But the construction of Gwamba by Henri Berthoud

relied on a variety of this lingua franca spoken in the Delagoa Bay area, particularity as

it was used by his evangelical assistants whose first language was Sotho. Berthoud's

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 22work gave rise to the publication of numerous religious texts and manuals during the

1880s.

According to Harries, Berthoud had the view that Gwamba would unite the entire

area under his mission, much like "Jacobine French, High German or Castilian Spanish

had linked large numbers of people in Europe who shared, however distantly, a

linguistic relationship" (1989:86) and thus would consolidate even more firmly the Swiss

Missionary Society's claim to this area.

However, literary Gwamba created problems for the Swiss missionaries working

in the Lorenzo Marques area where the newly- created Gwamba literature appeared

more foreign than that used by the encroaching Wesleyan missionaries. In order to

compete, Henri Junod, another Swiss missionary, constructed another literary variant of

this lingua franca, which he called Ronga. Despite protests from Berthoud who, as

mentioned above, wanted a single literary form to unite the area. Nonetheless, through

Junod's efforts, Ronga established itself as an independent entity in the eastern areas.

Subsequently, Gwamba was relabeled as Thonga by Junod and Shangaan by

Berthoud.

While Junod opposed Berthoud on the issue of Ronga, he nevertheless agreed

that for the sake of the mission, the area should be seen as a homogeneous unit. Thus,

Junod declared Thonga/Shangaan as the northern dialect, Ronga as the southern

dialect and Tswa, a literary tradition cut from the same stock by American missionaries,

as the western dialect. Harries notes that Junod then attempted to create a sense of

nation for this area by constructing cultural artifacts to go along with these constructed

dialectal differences. Despite Junod's unfamiliarity with much of the territory in question,

he had no difficulty in ascribing cultural differences representative of each area

including proverbs, folklore, and other customs.

Today, this language, which is generally known as (Shi)tsonga, represents the

language and literary tradition of the northern part of the area, with Ronga being that of

5.The term ‘Gwamba’ itself has an interesting etymology being originally the name of a village head and subsequently a term for ‘easterner’.

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 23the southern part. The orthographic and spelling conventions employed by each

tradition are such that the similar nature of their origins is no longer obvious. For

example, Ethnologue concludes that Ronga and Shitsonga are only "probably one

language" (254). Thus the linguistic situation, which at the turn of the century could be

characterized as a heterogeneous collection of individuals speaking a variety of (Bantu)

languages, is now portrayed as a homogeneous ethno-linguistic area consisting three

discrete dialects, one of which, due to its different orthographic tradition, has the

appearance of a distinct language. In commenting on these developments, and in

particular the efforts of Junod, Harries observes:

Because of his positivist approach, Junod, unlike Berthoud, failed to see that his

linguistic and related social divisions were human constructs that were in no way

scientifically objective. Unlike microbes or river moths, the Ronga and the

Thonga/Shangaan languages were not awaiting discovery; they were very much the

invention of European scholars and, perhaps even more so, of their African assistants.

The linguistic borders determined by the Europeans conformed to a certain

preconception of what they expected to find (Harries 1989:88).

The example of Tsonga is even more remarkable than Shona, for not only were

the literary forms of Tsonga and Ronga constructed by outsiders, but they had an effect

on the shape of the oral language as well. In addition, once these entities were created,

they were then reimposed on the area to give what was originally a heterogeneous area

the appearance of a coherent linguistic area with discrete subdivisions, each of which

possessed distinct, albeit related, cultural traditions.

8. Summary.

This discussion of the language/dialect problem reveals an evolution in the

thinking about how this relationship should be viewed. The definition offered by the field

of linguistics sought to overcome the pejorative nature of the popular definition that

claimed that some human varieties of speech known as languages, which were for the

most part Western, were superior to others known as dialects, which were for the most

part Non-western.

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 24To overcome this Eurocentric bias, the field of linguistics proposed an objective

characterization of the language/dialect opposition as a natural phenomenon. This

definition claimed, on the basis of an objectively available principle of mutual

intelligibility, that the speech varieties of the world would reveal the natural clustering of

linguistic varieties into discrete collections of mutually intelligible dialects not unlike the

scientific classification of living things.

Despite overcoming the Eurocentric bias of the popular definition, the linguistic

definition failed on both formal and empirical grounds. Formally, the distinction failed

because it encountered numerous indeterminate cases. For example, the definition

yielded situations where a given dialect could be assigned to either of two distinct

languages, such as the case of varieties spoken on the German/Dutch border.

Empirically, the linguistic definition contradicted numerous commonly accepted

situations such as German and Chinese, which embraced mutually unintelligible

dialects, as well as mutually intelligible languages such as Norwegian and Swedish,

Spanish and Italian, and Chewa and Nyanja.

The failure of the linguistic distinction gave rise to a politically based definition

that characterized a language as the idiom of the nation. This definition overcomes the

problems of indeterminacy inherent in the linguistic definition, such as the relationship

between German and Dutch, Norwegian and Swedish and Chewa and Nyanja as well

as the coherence of German and Chinese. In addition, the political definition represents

a shift in perspective to one that claims that the language/dialect distinction is socially

constructed and not a natural one. Unfortunately, the political distinction also is not

without difficulties. First, there is the problem of multinational languages like English,

German and Arabic, which are the national language of several states, and then there is

the problem of subnational languages like Basque and Mende for which no state exists.

The literary distinction arose in response to the political definition. While it too

recognizes that the language/dialect distinction is a socially constructed one, it

proposed that the basis of this distinction be the establishment of a writing system.

Thus, a language consists of a dialect with a writing system (characters, word divisions

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 25and spellings) and a set of dialects that use the writing system.

The literary definition overcomes the difficulties of the political definitions and

conforms to our general understanding of what constitutes a language and its dialects

including: German and Chinese with its mutually unintelligible dialects; the mutually

intelligible languages of Norwegian and Swedish; transnational languages like English

and Arabic and even stateless languages. In addition, by recognizing the state's

preference for a single national writing system, we can see why the political definition

worked fairly well.

In recognizing that this distinction is socially constructed, the definition does not

need to claim that it encompasses all linguistic varieties, for where there is no writing,

the definition does not apply. Bambara, like many African languages, for example, does

not distinguish between language and dialect. In fact, as it becomes clear that the

language/dialect problem is Eurocentric or at least likely to occur where there is a

literary tradition. Yet as a social construction, there is the real possibility that this

distinction is not an automatic outcome of situations where a literary distinction has

been established.

And while the literary distinction unambiguously declares itself to be constructed,

and not a natural phenomenon, this does not prevent the language/dialect distinction

from being viewed as a natural one so much so that it was exported from Europe and

imposed on what we now call Shona and Tsonga.

In examining the language/dialect problem, this paper has not only attempted to

clarify the nature of this distinction, but to point out the distinction between natural and

constructed phenomena and to heighten the awareness that whenever social

phenomena are investigated, this question ought to remain open to empirical

examination.

REFERENCESBerger, Peter and Thomas Luckmann1966 The Social Construction of Reality. Doubleday.Chimhundu, Herbert

Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002 page 261992 Early Missionaries and the ethnolinguistic factor during the ‘invention of tribalism’

in Zimbabwe. Journal of African History 33:87-109.)Doke, C. 1931 A Comparative Study of Shona Phonetics. Johannesburg.Dwyer, David1993 Becoming an Anthropological Linguist. In Anthropologists and the Peace Corps:

Case Studies in Career Preparation. Brian E. Schwimmer and D.Michael Warren editors. Iowa State University Press: Ames. Pp. 43-49. ISBN 0-8138-0493-0.

Freire, Paulo and Donaldo Macedo1987 Literacy: reading the word and the world. Bergin and Garvey: South Hadley,

Mass.Goody, Jack.1968 Literacy in Traditional Society. Cambridge U. Press.1987 The Interface Between the Written and the Oral. Cambridge U. Press.Goody J. and Watt.1979 The Consequences of Literacy." Language and Social Context. P. Giglioli (ed.).

Middlesex, U.K.: Penguin Books. Pp. 311-357.Harries, P.1987 The roots of ethnicity: discourse and the politics of language construction in

South Africa. African Affairs 25-52.1989 Exclusion, Classification and Internal Colonialism: The emergence of Ethnicity

among the Tsonga. The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa. L. Vail (ed.). University of California Press.

Ndam Njoya, Adamou1977 Njoya: réformateur du royaume. Bamoun, Afrique biblio-club; Paris (9, rue du

Château-d'Eau, 75010: Dakar; Abidjan: Nouvelles éditions africaines.Street, Brian.1984 Literacy in Theory and Practice. Cambridge U. Press.1993 Cross-Cultural Approaches to Literacy. Cambridge U. Press.Whorf. Benjamin Lee1956 A linguistic consideration of thinking. Language, thought, and reality; selected

writings (edited and with an introduction by John B. Carroll). M.I.T. Press. Pp. 65-86.

World Bible Translation Society1984 Ethnologue (10th Edition). World Bible Translation Society.

ENDNOTES

Documents

msu.edu · Web viewWithin syntax, we find a basic set of syntactic categories (such as: sentence, verb phrase, noun phrase, noun, verb, relative clause, etc.) even though each language