The Language/dialect Problem
David J. Dwyer, Dept. of Anthropology, Michigan State University
Abstract
The 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;
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2) Dialects are communicatively inferior to languages, lacking the full range of
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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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,
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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
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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
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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.
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A 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-
page 11
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Most 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.
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Under 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
Logographic
Syllabic
Consonantal
Alphabetic
Principle
1 symbol per word
1 symbol per
syllable
1 symbol per
consonant
1 symbol per
segment
Languages
Chinese, Mayan
Japanese, Cherokee,
Amharic
Arabic, Hindi, Hebrew
English Example
2x3=6
I.O.U,
X-mass
no example
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.
5.2 Consequences of the Literary Distinction. The construction of the language/dialect
distinction is not without its consequences. For example, associated with literary
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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?
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6.1 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
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is 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
orthographic 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
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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
until 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.
Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002
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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
greater 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:
Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002
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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
Christian Missions in the Shona-speaking area
Language
Variety
Korekore
Zezuru
Missions
Within Area
None
Roman Catholic Church
Manyika
Karanga
Roman Catholic Church
Anglican Church
Methodist (United)
American Board Mission
(American Methodist)
Dutch Reformed Church
Kalanga
Ndebele
London Missionary Society
London Missionary Society
Witwatersrand, was
called in to conduct a
survey and make some
recommendations.
Ndau
Working with Doke was
an advisory committee
Representation on
Doke Commission
None
Rev A. Burbridge,
Catholic Church
Rev B.H. Barnes,
Anglican Church
Rev B.H. Barnes,
Anglican Church
Mrs. C.S. Louw,
Dutch Reformed Church
No Representative
No Representative
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.
1) 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
Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002
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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 Shonaspeaking 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.
In 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
Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002
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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,v 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
work 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.
Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002
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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
the 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:
Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002
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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.
To 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
Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002
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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
and 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
Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002
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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.
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1987 The Interface Between the Written and the Oral. Cambridge U. Press.
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ENDNOTES
Dwyer: The Language-Dialect Problem 8/21/2002
page 27
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.
v.The term ‘Gwamba’ itself has an interesting etymology being originally the name of a
village head and subsequently a term for ‘easterner’.