Languages, Dialects and Social Behaviour
“A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” ― Max Weinreich
A language is generally understood as a collection of dialects and linguistic varieties. All languages exhibit some form of internal variation, and exist in a number of different varieties. However, when we normally talk about a language, we refer to the variety that is standardized and accepted by society as the ‘proper’ language. Here, the line separating a dialect from a language has always been a bit blurred. A common belief is that a dialect is a ‘local, non-prestigious and powerless variety of a real language’. It is often thought of as a substandard language that is excluded from polite society, and connotes various degrees of inferiority (that is passed on to the speakers of a dialect too).
