By Dialects, Accents

I'm not biased at all - I just think that having an American accent is non-defining really. There are very few American dialects which make it rather boring in my opinion!

Maj, I don't think understanding of another language that is not your native means that language is a dialect, and the other way round. I speak Indonesian (I live in Indonesia) and I can understand Malay very well, but I believe nobody would say Malay is a dialect. I speak Mandarin Chinese (I am...

Maj - The point I was making was that it can be considered a dialect, that doesn't mean it isn't its own language. The Americans are pushing to consider American English as just American; I'm betting they consider it a language of its own, and why shouldn't they. Yes, it probably could...

I meant a dialect _of_your own language. a dialect of British English?

I would definitely agree with you on that they are called Romance _languages_ that is why I would never call them "dialects". They used to be dialects not that long ago but as you very clearly mentioned they developed from Latin into new languages. A dialect is a form of language that is spoken...

hmm, now what really makes language different from dialect, and dialect from accent? We all know that French, Spanish, Italian, etc are languages developed from Latin, thus called Romance languages. Since they developed from Latin, why can't we call them Romance dialects?

That's an excellent question (post it in TOPICS next time! we need topics like that! ) Spanish and French are Romance dialects, so I'd say the use of 'dialect' does hold in this case too.

Would you guys consider Singaporean English an accent? or it's just one of many English dialects?

Introduction taken from http://www.ead.ufms.br/letras/Literature/01-Origins_Of_English.pdf Origins of English (up to 1066) Historical Background Before the time of the Roman colonization in A.D. 43, Britain was populated by Celts and Britons, relatively primitive people without organized...

There is a great website for all of you - it's a site that automatically translates into different dialects from all over the British isles - it's so funny, it even has an "Ali G" translator! For example, "Would you like a cup of tea?" is this: Scouse: Would yew like a cup o' char? Yorkie...