A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields Theoretical linguistics is the branch of Linguistics that is most concerned with developing models of linguistic knowledge Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the In Linguistics, lexis (in Greek λέξις = word describes the storage of language in our mental Lexicon as prefabricated patterns ( Lexical units Semantics is the study of meaning in communication The word derives from Greek σημαντικός ( semantikos) "significant" from Lexical semantics is a subfield of linguistic Semantics. It is the study of how and what the words of a language denote (Pustejovsky 1995 Statistical Semantics is the study of "how the statistical patterns of human word usage can be used to figure out what people mean at least to a level sufficient for information access" Logical positivism asserts that structural semantics is the study of relationships between the meanings of terms within a sentence and how meaning can be composed from smaller elements Prototype Theory is a mode of graded Categorization in Cognitive science, where some members of a category are more central than others Pragmatics is the study of the ability of Natural language speakers to communicate more than that which is explicitly stated Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary field of study that identifies investigates and offers solutions to language-related real life problems One hotly debated issue is whether the biological contribution includes capacities specific to language acquisition often referred to as Universal grammar. Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable Humans to acquire use Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of Society, including cultural norms expectations and context on the way Language is used Linguistic anthropology is that branch of Anthropology that brings linguistic methods to bear on anthropological problems linking the analysis of Semiotic Generative linguistics is a school of thought within Linguistics that makes use of the concept of a Generative grammar. In Linguistics and Cognitive science, cognitive linguistics (CL refers to the school of linguistics that understands language creation learning and usage Computational linguistics is an Interdisciplinary field dealing with the statistical and/or rule-based modeling of Natural language from a computational Descriptive linguistics is the work of analyzing and describing how Language is spoken (or how it was spoken in the past by a group of people in a speech community Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics) is the study of language change Comparative linguistics (originally comparative Philology) is a branch of Historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages in order to Etymology is the study of the History of Words &mdash when they entered a language from what source and how their form and meaning have changed over time Stylistics is the study of varieties of Language whose properties position that language in context. In Linguistics, prescription can refer both to the codification and the enforcement of rules governing how a language is to be used Corpus linguistics is the Study of language as expressed in Samples ( corpora) or "real world" text See also History of grammar Linguistics as a study endeavors to describe and explain the human faculty of Language. A linguist in the academic sense is a person who studies Linguistics. This article discusses currently unsolved problems in Linguistics. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of In Linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between Languages in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand Dialects separated by great geographical distances may not be mutually comprehensible. According to the Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache paradigm, these dialects can be considered Abstandsprachen (i. The Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache ( framework is a tool developed by sociolinguists for analysing and categorising the status of language varieties e. , as stand-alone languages). However, they can be seen as dialects of a single language, provided that a common standard language, through which communication is possible, exists. A standard language (also standard dialect, standardized dialect, or standardised dialect) is a particular variety of a Language that
In sociolinguistics, a language continuum is said to exist when two or more different languages or dialects merge one into the other(s) without a definable boundary. Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of Society, including cultural norms expectations and context on the way Language is used A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of
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Scandinavian languages
The Germanic languages and dialects of Scandinavia are a classical example of a dialect continuum, from Swedish dialects of Finland, to Swedish, Gutniska, Älvdalsmål, Scanian, Danish, Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk), Faroese, Icelandic, as well as many local dialects of the respective languages. The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the Old Gutnish was the dialect of Old Norse that was spoken on the island of Gotland. Elfdalian ( Övdalsk or Övdalską in Elfdalian Älvdalska or Älvdalsmål in Swedish) is a linguistic variety of the Danish ( d̥ænsɡ̊ is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Norwegian ( norsk) is a North Germanic Language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language Bokmål (lit "book language" or Dano-Norwegian is the most commonly used of the two official Norwegian written Standard languages the other Nynorsk (literally "New Norwegian" is one of the two official Norwegian Standard languages the other being Bokmål. Faroese ( føroyskt ˈføːɹɪst or) often also spelled Faeroese (cf Icelandic ( is a North Germanic language, the language of Iceland. The Continental Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian) are close enough and intelligible enough that some consider them to be dialects of the same language, whereas the Insular ones (Icelandic and Faroese) are unintelligible to the other Scandinavian speakers. Some, however, would argue that Swedish and the southern dialect of Scanian are far apart enough to be considered different languages, assuming that the other Scandinavian languages are also separate languages and not dialects.
Continental West Germanic
The many dialects making up German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Low German and Yiddish are often cited as another canonical example. The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Dutch ( is a West Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people 22 million of which are from the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname Afrikaans is an Indo-European language, derived from 17th century Dutch and classified as Low Franconian Germanic, mainly spoken in Low German or Low Saxon (in Germany: Plattdüütsch or Nedderdüütsch; in Netherlands: Nedersaksisch or Nederduuts Yiddish (yi [[wiktייִדיש ייִדיש]] yidish or yi [[wiktאידיש אידיש]] idish, literally "Jewish" is a nonterritorial High They form a single dialect continuum, with three recognized literary standards. A literary language is a register of a Language that is used in Literary Writing. Although Dutch and Standard German are mutually intelligible only to a certain degree, there are transitional dialects that are, for example Limburgish, spoken in parts of the Netherlands and Belgium, and the Low Franconian dialects across the border in Germany (although Limburgish is nowadays sometimes considered a language in its own right). Limburgish, or Limburgian or Limburgic ( Dutch: Limburgs, German: Limburgisch, French: Limbourgeois The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands The Kingdom of Belgium is a Country in northwest Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts its headquarters as well as those Low Franconian, or Low Frankish, is a group of several West Germanic Languages spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium ( Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Although part of the same dialect continuum, the northernmost Low Saxon dialects are in many ways actually farther from High Alemannic/ Swiss German than from English.
Another example was the area where the river Rhine crosses the border from Germany to the Netherlands. The Rhine (Rhein Rijn Rhin Reno Rain Rhenus is one of the longest and most important Rivers in Europe at 1320 kilometres (820 mi with an average discharge Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. The Netherlands ( Dutch:, ˈnedərlɑnt is the European part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which consists of the Netherlands the Netherlands On both sides of this border, the people living in the immediate surroundings spoke an identical language. They could understand each other without difficulty, and would even have had trouble telling just by the language whether a person from the region was from the Netherlands or from Germany. However, the Germans here called their language "Deutsch" (German), and the Dutch called their language "Nederlands" (Dutch), so from a conceptual view they are now speaking different languages. A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them
Slavic languages
North Slavic continuum
Another such network of dialects is the continuum of northern Slavic dialects. These for reasons of tradition are further separated into eastern and western branches: Russian, Belarusian, Carpatho-Rusyn and Ukrainian are recognized as literary standards; all rolling smoothly into Polish, Slovak and Czech, which are in turn closely connected to the Sorbian languages, spoken by the Slavic populations of eastern Germany. The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. The West Slavic languages is a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, and Sorbian. Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages The Belarusian language, or Belorussian,(беларуская мова BGN/PCGN: byelaruskaya mova, Scientific: belaruskaja mova Rusyn (ry русинськый язык) is an East Slavic language (along with Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian, with which it shares Ukrainian (in Ukrainian украї́нська мо́ва ukrayins'ka mova,) is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. Polish ( język polski, polszczyzna) is the Official language of Poland. The Slovak language ( slovenčina, slovenský jazyk, not to be confused with Slovenščina) sometimes referred to as "Slovakian" Czech (ˈʧɛk čeština ˈʧɛʃcɪna in Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers it is the majority language in the The Sorbian languages are classified under the Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Collectively, these dialects form one of two continua. They are geographically separated from the South Slavic dialects by the heavy concentration of the principal non-Slavic populations of Romania, Hungary and Austria. Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Hungary (Magyarország 'mɔɟɔrorsaːg) officially in English the Republic of Hungary ( Magyar Köztársaság, literally Magyar (Hungarian Republic Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich
South Slavic continuum
A separate south Slavic dialect continuum features Slovene and the Serbo-Croatian language; the latter is a network of several major dialects and three literary standards (Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian). Slovene or Slovenian ( slovenski jezik or slovenščina, not to be confused with Slovenčina) is a South Slavic language The Serbo-Croatian language or Croato-Serbian language (cрпскохрватски језик srpskohrvatski jezik) is a South Slavic Diasystem Bosnian language (Bosnian bosanski jezik) sometimes referred as Bosniak language or Bosniac language is a South Slavic language native Croatian language ( hrvatski jezik) is a South Slavic language which is used primarily in Croatia, by Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina in neighbouring Serbian (sr-Cyrl српски језик sr-Latn ''srpski jezik'' is a South Slavic language, These form the western branch of South Slavic dialects which are in turn linked to an eastern branch, comprising Standard Bulgarian and Standard Macedonian which properly form a dialect continuum and share a set of grammatical features that set them apart from all other Slavic languages, with the Bulgarian standard being based on the more eastern dialects, and the Macedonian standard being based on the more western dialects. Bulgarian (български език IPA: ɛzˈik is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic linguistic group Macedonian () is the official Language of the Republic of Macedonia and is a part of the Eastern group of South Slavic languages.
Romance languages
The Italo-Western branch of the Romance languages, which comprises Italian, Occitan, Spanish, Catalan, French, Sardinian and Portuguese, as well as other languages with fewer speakers, is sometimes presented as another example, although the major languages in this group have had separate standards for longer than the languages in the continental West Germanic group, and are not commonly classified as dialects of a common language. The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages, or Neolatin languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family comprising all Italian ( or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people as a First language, primarily in Italy. Occitan ( IPA BrE: /ˈɒksɪtn/ AmE: /ˈɑksəˌtɑn/ known also as Lenga d'òc or Langue d'oc (native name occitan Catalan ˈkætəˌlæn ( català kətəˈla or) is a Romance language, the national and official language of Andorra, and a co-official French ( français,) is a Romance language spoken around the world by 118 million people as a native language and by about 180 to 260 million people Portuguese ( or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain and northern Portugal. A standard language (also standard dialect, standardized dialect, or standardised dialect) is a particular variety of a Language that A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος dialektos) is a variety of a Language that is characteristic of a particular group of In recent centuries, the intermediate dialects which existed between the major Romance languages have been moving toward extinction, as their speakers have switched to varieties closer to the more prestigious national standards. In Linguistics, language death (also language extinction, linguistic extinction, and sometimes pejoratively as linguicide) is a process This process has been most notable in France, due to the French government's refusal to recognise minority languages, but has occurred to some extent in all Western Romance speaking countries. Language change has also threatened the survival of stateless languages with existing literary standards, such as Occitan and Catalan.
A less arguable example of a dialect continuum within the Italo-Western languages are the Romance languages of Italy. The official language of Italy is Standard Italian, a descendant of the Tuscan dialect and a direct descendant of Latin (some 75% of Italian words are of Latin origin For many decades since its unification, the above attitude of the French government was reflected in Rome by the Italian government which affected the adjoining dialects of this continuum spoken in Northern Italy. Rome ( Roma ˈroma Roma is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city with more than 2 These include Venetian and Piedmontese among others. Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken by over two million people mostly in the Veneto region of Italy. Over the years however, under pressure from the Northern League, the Italian government has yielded in allowing public signs and other media to use both local and national standard dialects in most affected areas. Lega Nord (Northern League LN whose complete name is Lega Nord per l'Indipendenza della Padania (Northern League for Independence of Padania) is an Italian
The eastern branch of the Romance languages is dominated by the dialects collectively classed as Romanian. Romanian or Daco-Romanian ( dated: Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation limba română, ˈlimba roˈmɨnə is a Romance Outside of Romania's present borders, these dialects continue into neighboring Moldova and are collectively called the Moldovan language, though it is disputed whether or not it constitutes a separate language. Romania ( dated: Rumania, Roumania Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova ( Republica Moldova) is a Landlocked country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania History and politics South of Romania, these dialects can be traced into Bulgaria, Macedonia, Serbia, Albania, and Greece, though the number of speakers decreases dramatically south of the Danube. The state of Bulgaria (България transliterated bg-Latn ''Balgaria'' The country preserves the traditions (in ethnic name language and alphabet of the First Bulgarian The Republic of Macedonia (Република Serbia (Србија Srbija) officially the Republic of Serbia (Република Србија Republika Srbija) is a Landlocked Country This article is about the country in southern Europe For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Albania topics. Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία The westernmost Eastern Romance language is found in Croatia on the Istrian peninsula. Croatia (Hrvatska ˈxȓvatska officially the Republic of Croatia ( Republika Hrvatska) is a southern Central European country at the crossroads between Known as Istro-Romanian, it was once thought to be the closest surviving relative of the extinct Dalmatian language. Istro-Romanian is an Eastern Romance language, or a Dialect of the Romanian language. Dalmatian is an extinct Romance language formerly spoken in the Dalmatia region of Croatia, and as far south as Kotor in Montenegro However, the two languages are only distantly related, and it doesn't appear that a single dialect continuum existed.
Turkic language-dialect continuum
Turkic languages are best described as a language-dialect continuum. Geographically this continuum starts at the Balkans in the west with Balkan Turkish, includes Turkish in Turkey and Azerbaijan language in Azerbaijan, extends into Iran with Azeri and Khalaj, into Iraq with Turkmen, across Central Asia to include Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, to southern Regions of Tajikistan and into Afganistan. Turkmenistan ( Türkmenistan; also known as Turkmenia) is a Turkic country in Central Asia. Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( Uzbek: O‘zbekiston Respublikasi or Ўзбекистон Республикаси is a doubly Kazakhstan, also Kazakstan ( Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, qɑzɑqˈstɑn Казахстан, Kazakhstán,) officially the Kyrgyzstan (ˈkɻ̩gɪztɑn (AmE or /'kɝgəztan/ (BrE Kyrgyz: Кыргызстан; Russian: Киргизия or Киргизстан or Кыргызстан Tajikistan (təˈdʒɪkɨstæn or /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/ Тоҷикистон tɔʤikɪsˈtɔn or, Persian تاجیکستان taajikestaan officially the Republic of Afghanistan /æfˈgænɪstæn/ officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ( Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت, In the south, this continuum starts in northern Afganistan, northward to the Chuvashia. In the east it extends to the Republic of Tuva, Xinjiang autonomous region in Western China with Uygur language and into Mongolia with Khoton. This entire territory is inhabited by Turkic speaking peoples. There are three varieties of Turkic which are geographically outside this continuum: Chuvash, Yakut and Dolgan. Dolgans (долганы self-designation долган тыа-кихи саха are a Turkic -speaking people who mostly inhabit Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia These languages have been geographically separated from the other Turkic languages for extensive period of time and Chuvash language stands out as the most divergent from other Turkic languages. There are also Gagauz speakers in the Moldavia and Urum Speakers in Georgia.
The Turkic language-dialect continuum makes internal genetic classification of the languages problematic. Chuvash and Yakut are generally classified as significantly distinct, while the remaining Turkic languages are quite similar, with a high degree of mutual intelligibility between not only geographically adjacent languages, but also between languages/dialects which may be some distance apart. Structurally the Turkic languages are very close to one another, and share basic features such as SOV word order, vowel harmony, and agglunation. Grenoble, Lenore A. (2003). Language Policy in the Soviet Union, Language Policy , Vol. 3. Springer-Verlag. Springer Science+Business Media or Springer (ˈʃpʁɪŋɐ is a worldwide Publishing company based in Germany, which publishes textbooks academic ISBN 978-1-4020-1298-3.
Arabic
Arabic is a classic case of diglossia. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language In Linguistics, diglossia is a situation where in a given society there are two (often closely-related languages one of high prestige, which is generally used The standard written language, Modern Standard Arabic, is based on the Classical Arabic of the Qur'an, while the modern vernacular dialects (or languages)—which form a dialect continuum reaching from the Maghreb in North Western Africa through Egypt, Sudan, and the Fertile Crescent to the Arabian Peninsula—have diverged widely from that. Literary Arabic (ar اللغة العربية الفصحى "the Eloquent Arabic language" or Standard Arabic is the literary and standard variety Classical Arabic (CA also known as Qur'anic or Koranic Arabic, is the form of the Arabic language used in literary texts from Umayyad The Qur’an ( القرآن, literally "the recitation" also sometimes transliterated as Qur’ān, Koran, Alcoran See Arabic languages for the historical family of dialects The Arabic language is a Semitic language with many varieties The Maghreb (المغرب العربي al-Maġrib al-ʿArabī) also rendered Maghrib (or rarely Moghreb) meaning "place of Sunset This article is about the country of Egypt For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Egypt topics. Sudan (officially the Republic of Sudan) ( السودان al-Sūdān is a country in northeastern Africa. The Fertile Crescent is a Crescent -shaped region in the Middle East, originally incorporating the Levant and Ancient Mesopotamia, and often The Arabian Peninsula (in Arabic: شبه الجزيرة العربية šibh al-jazīra al-ʻarabīya or جزيرة العرب jazīrat al-ʻarab) Because Arabic is written in an Abjad (a phonetic writing system similar to an alphabet), the difference between the written standard and the vernaculars also becomes apparent in the written language and so children have to be taught Modern Standard Arabic in school in order to be able to write it. An Abjad is a type of Writing system in which each symbol stands for a Consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate Vowel.
Chinese
The spoken variants of Chinese are highly divergent, forming a continuum comparable to that of the Romance languages. Spoken Chinese ( comprises many regional variants the largest of which are Mandarin, Wu, Cantonese, and Min. However, all the variants more or less share a common written language, though there are vernacular variations in vocabulary, grammar, and orthography. Written Chinese comprises the written symbols used to represent Spoken Chinese and the rules about how they are arranged and punctuated
The written language originally shared by all dialects was Classical Chinese, which was in normal use up until the early 20th century. Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of Written Chinese based on the Grammar and Vocabulary of ancient Chinese In pre-modern times, Northern Baihua grew up alongside Classical Chinese as a standard vernacular dialect. Vernacular Chinese is a style or register of the Written Chinese Language essentially modeled after the spoken language and associated with The modern standard dialect, Putonghua (often called Mandarin), is largely based on Baihua. Standard Mandarin, also known as Standard Spoken Chinese, is the official modern Chinese spoken language used in mainland China and Taiwan
Within the dialects, gradations do exist between pure local vernacular and the more refined speech of the better educated that incorporates elements from the standard language or written language.
Of course, the development of the divergent Chinese languages was made much easier because the characters used for writing Chinese are not tied closely to pronunciation as alphabetic or syllabic scripts are. In other words, a Cantonese speaker may write his language much the same as a Mandarin speaker and yet pronounce the written text in an entirely different manner (see Diglossia: Chinese for more information). In Linguistics, diglossia is a situation where in a given society there are two (often closely-related languages one of high prestige, which is generally used
Northern Indian Subcontinent
The languages spoken in Northern India and Pakistan form a dialect continuum. Geography Northern India lies mainly on continental India and a very small part of it lies on the Indian peninsula Pakistan () officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia, Southwest Asia, Middle East and What is called "Hindi" in India is actually Standardized Hindi, the Sanskrit-ized version of the colloquial "Hindustani" spoken in the Delhi area during the time of the Mughals. Hindi ( Devanāgarī: hi [[wiktहिन्दी हिन्दी]] or hi [[wiktहिंदी हिंदी]] IAST:, IPA:) is Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Hindustani (हिन्दुस्तानी ہندوستانی Hindustānī, hɪn̪d̪ʊst̪aːniː also known as " Hindi-Urdu," is a term covering Delhi (दिल्ली ਦਿੱਲੀ دلی d̪ɪlːiː sometimes referred to as Dilli) is the second largest metropolis of India, with a population The Mughal Empire ( Persian and self-designation گورکانی; مغلیہ سلطنت) was an Islamic imperial power which ruled most However, the term Hindi can be used to enclose all its dialects from east to west—from Bihar to Rajasthan. Bihar ( Hindi:बिहार Urdu: بہار bɪhaːr) is a state in eastern India. Rājasthān ( Devanāgarī: राजस्थान raːdʒəst̪ʰaːn is the largest state of the Republic of India in terms of area The Indo-Aryan prakrits also gave rise to languages like Urdu, Gujarati, Bengali, Oriya, Marathi and Punjabi. The Indo-Aryan languages (within the context of Indo-European studies also Indic) are a branch of the Indo-European language family Prakrit (also transliterated as Pracrit) ( Sanskrit: prākṛta प्राकृत (from pra-kṛti प्रकृति according to one Urdu ( ur '''{{Nastaliq اردو}}''' trans Urdū, historically spelled Ordu) is a Central Indo-Aryan language Urdu is a standardised Gujarati (ગુજરાતી Gujǎrātī ? Oriya (ଓଡ଼ିଆ oṛiā) is one of the Indian Languages mainly spoken in the Indian state of Orissa. Marathi (mr मराठी Marāṭhī) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of what is considered western India. Punjabi may refer to The Punjabi language of Pakistan and India Punjabi grammar List of Punjabi Of these, Punjabi can probably be included in the northern Indian continuum. Gujarati is also in some ways close to the dialects of Hindi spoken in the southern Rajasthan region.
Iran and Central Asia
The Persian language in its various varieties - Persian (Iran), Dari (Afghanistan) and Tajik (Tajikistan and other parts of the former Soviet Union) - is representative of a dialect continuum. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. Afghanistan /æfˈgænɪstæn/ officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ( Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت, Tajikistan (təˈdʒɪkɨstæn or /təˈdʒiːkɨstæn/ Тоҷикистон tɔʤikɪsˈtɔn or, Persian تاجیکستان taajikestaan officially the Republic of Although official and written forms of the language vary less from one another, spoken Tajiki of Uzbekistan would be virtually incomprehensible to a Persian-speaker of the Persian Gulf islands, and vice versa. The divergence of Tajik was accelerated by the shift from the Perso-Arabic alphabet to a Cyrillic one under the Soviets. Western dialects of Persian show greater influence from Arabic and Oghuz Turkic languages, while Dari and Tajiki tend to preserve many classical features in grammar and vocabulary.
Finno-Ugric languages
Baltic-Finnic languages may well have been a single dialect continuum before the Viking age; the absence of literal evidence makes this hard to prove. The Baltic-Finnic languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people are a branch of Finnic languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric group Viking Age is the term denoting the years from about 700 to 1066 in European history.
Africa
There are many examples of dialect continua among the languages of Africa, particularly south of the Sahara. There are an estimated 2000 Languages spoken in Africa. About a hundred of these are widely used for inter-ethnic communication Sub-Saharan Africa is a geographical term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries
See also
- Dialect levelling
- Dialectometry
- Diasystem
- Diglossia
- Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache
- Post-creole speech continuum
- Mutual intelligibility
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