- Dołączono
- 20 Mar 2024
I've been doing some thunking because of a thunk-provoking question I asked myself the other day: What causes accents and dialects to develop? Logically, a dialect/regional accent should develop with the presence of a great enough distance between speakers, assimilation of foreigners & the associated intermingling with the settling/invading population, or a combination of the above two factors.
The first case can be seen in China, where every region (Particularly the mountainous and forested south) has its own accent for Mandarin, Mao famously had a heavy Hunan accent throughout his entire life.
The second case can be seen with the Arab conquests in the 600's to 700's, where overtime the natives adopted Islam and by that extent Arabic, where even in regions close to the Arabian Peninsula and thus the source of the Bedouin armies such as the Levant, Iraq, and Egypt still developed distinct regional dialects.
The last case can be observed with the colonization of the Americas by the Spanish and English, where in Southern America (Particularly the Appalachias) which was the main destination for Scottish and Welsh colonists arose the Southern accent, the North which was settled by Anglo Puritans and the English in general lead to what would become modern American English having its roots in Anglo-English before splitting off somewhere around in the 1800's.
Of course, even with these conditions some languages paradoxically resist accentization such as Russian despite the vast distances between speakers.
Discuss.
The first case can be seen in China, where every region (Particularly the mountainous and forested south) has its own accent for Mandarin, Mao famously had a heavy Hunan accent throughout his entire life.
The second case can be seen with the Arab conquests in the 600's to 700's, where overtime the natives adopted Islam and by that extent Arabic, where even in regions close to the Arabian Peninsula and thus the source of the Bedouin armies such as the Levant, Iraq, and Egypt still developed distinct regional dialects.
The last case can be observed with the colonization of the Americas by the Spanish and English, where in Southern America (Particularly the Appalachias) which was the main destination for Scottish and Welsh colonists arose the Southern accent, the North which was settled by Anglo Puritans and the English in general lead to what would become modern American English having its roots in Anglo-English before splitting off somewhere around in the 1800's.
Of course, even with these conditions some languages paradoxically resist accentization such as Russian despite the vast distances between speakers.
Discuss.
