How intelligible are Turkish and Azeri? I know they are close enough, but I wonder if it similar to Scottish English vs. American English or farther, more like Spanish vs. Portuguese?
How intelligible are Turkish and Azeri? I know they are close enough, but I wonder if it similar to Scottish English vs. American English or farther, more like Spanish vs. Portuguese?
I don’t mean to be argumentative, but I want to genuinely understand your comparison: Scottish English and American English are the exact same language (sure there are differences that can be assimilated to regionalisms), but Spanish and Portuguese are two different languages (they come from the same root ane grammar is similar, but not the same, the vocabulary is generally different (though similar sounding)).
When you compare Scottish English and American English, I tend to see a relationship more similar to Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese from Portugal.
Cheers, mate!
The question is asking where along the spectrum of divergence these dialects are, so picking examples that don’t have the same level of similarity is the whole point. Different accents within English are on one side of the spectrum (quite similar, mutually intelligible) and Spanish and Portuguese are on the other end, basically completely separate language though people may still be able to communicate with some effort due to cognates and similar grammar.
Thanks! I actually misread the last line by OP (sorry, I read it before going to bed!).
The comparison makes sense now
Whether or not something is a dialect or an accent or a different language entirely is a sometimes poorly defined thing, often muddled by politics or history but also by asymmetric or incomplete intelligibility.
Surely at least most would say Scottish English is a dialect of the same language spoken throughout the rest of Britain and the world, but I would caution saying things like “the exact same language”. Look at “Yugoslavian” or Serbian and Croatian for some other languages that are probably as similar and closely related as Scottish and American English, but are nonetheless considered separate languages by native speakers because it helps them to establish or enforce distinct cultural identities.
They’re not wrong in this case though, Scottish English is the dialect of English spoken in Scotland and the separate Anglic language is known as Scots. The line between the two can be blurry in places, but the terms do specifically refer to the dialect and language respectively.
Not to be confused with Scots Gaelic, an entirely separate Goidelic language spoken in parts of Scotland.
I’m aware, but even there the line between Scots and Scottish English is a pretty blurry distinction. It almost means “Scottish where I can only usually figure out what word that was” more than anything. Serbian and Croatian from my example are even closer than that, very much like Scottish and British or American English, with the main distinction that separates them being just whether it’s written with Latin letters or Cyrillic.
It’s a bit like if there was no Scots language, and the people in Scotland just still used runes to write but spoke the same language, except with even more old animosity fueled by previous governments.
I’m really not sure what point you’re trying to make. You’re objectively wrong about “Scottish where I can only usually figure out what word that was”, and the most obvious point against that is that people living here regularly code-switch between Scots and Scottish English and understand both.
The phrase “naw A’m urnae” is undoubtedly Scots and wouldn’t make grammatical sense in a word-for-word English translation (“no I’m aren’t” or “no I’m are not”), the phrase “dialects used outwith Scotland” is clearly Scottish English. These are very distinctly different, the blurriness I mentioned before is simply from the fact most people speaking Scots also speak Scottish English and code-switch. The fact you seem to be unable to place the line does not mean one does not exist. That’s like claiming blue and green are the same because you can’t identify the exact crossover where blue becomes green.
Scottish English is the dialect of English spoken in Scotland. Scots is a distinct Anglic language which evolved in Scotland. Being unable to draw the line between them does not make them the same thing, and being able to figure out what a word is definitely doesn’t change what language it’s part of.
The point I was trying to make was just that linguistic distance doesn’t necessarily correlate with whether two things are considered distinct languages or merely dialects. There are languages less distinct from each other than Scottish and American English that are considered separate languages, and there are languages more distinct that Scots and English that are considered one language. “It’s the exact same language” isn’t always a useful ruler.
When I said
I was referring to the state of serbo-croatian being similar to that imaginary situation. I understand that Scots is quite different from English, I wasn’t trying to erase the line between them, just to clarify that the amount of difference isn’t as straightforward as it sometimes seems.
https://youtu.be/fhE2WgHIuzc?si=lWUeW1gwvIijOnD6
Not quite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_language
I think they’re talking about this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_English
As the article you just linked to say, “Scottish Standard English is at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum, with focused broad Scots at the other”. Some people consider Scots to be a dialect of English, others don’t.
Either way, American English and Scottish English are very much not “the exact same language”