Language varies. Despite technically speaking the same language, when a Brit speaks to an American in English, there are plenty of opportunities for confusion and “Hey, wait a minute, what did you say? I don’t understand.”

So with that in mind, how does language vary? What are the ways in which language can be different? In this post, we’ll take a look at some common words to do with language variation you’ll come across as a language learner.

Dialect

Dialect is probably the big one worth starting with. After all, you’re probably familiar with the phrase “A language is a dialect with an army and a navy”.

Instantly you can see this is going to be a fun post with lots of room for discussion in the comments, which by the way is totally cool. I’m not a linguist, I’m not an authority in this, and I’d love to hear your interpretations of these terms too.

So just what is a dialect?

A dialect is a way of speaking that is distinct enough to be considered a variation of a language yet familiar enough to be understood as that language.

For example, American, Australian, and British English could all be considered dialects of the same language: English. With that in mind, if you’re reading this then you know English, but do you understand everything being said in this interview?

However, what makes this such a complex and interesting thing is when we then include things such as Scottish English, Welsh English, Northern Irish English, and English English (referring to English spoken in England).

But of course, on an even deeper level, we could say that there’s even more. Let’s take England alone now as our example.

Cockney, Received Pronunciation, Geordie, Brummie…to name just a few.

The more you know about a language, the more dialects you can identify when you hear people speak.

Accent

But surely, these words can be used to describe accent too, right?

I’ve definitely used the term “Cockney accent” in the past, just as one example. Also, “Cockney accent” brings up more Google results than “Cockney dialect”.

So where do accents and dialects differ?

The distinction between accent and dialect can become kind of hazy, but, to put it simply, whereas dialect refers to pronunciation and vocabulary and grammar structures used that may differ from the “expected” version of a language, accent tends to refer only to the sounds or pronunciation that combine to create a particular accent.

Oxford Living Dictionaries shares a great example of the ‘Bath A’ in British English accents.

Typically, you would expect accents from the North of England to say the word ‘bath’ with a short ‘a’ sound like the ‘a’ in ‘cat’.

However, down south, people are often expected to add almost an ‘r’ sound to the end of that ‘a’, that they’re already making a longer vowel of. So the word ‘bath’ would sound something more like ‘barth’.

This has always been of interest to me personally because where I grew up, in Northamptonshire, aka the middle of England, aka The Midlands that are always ignored in The North vs The South debate, I found myself using a mixture of both, often depending on the speed I speak or whether or not that word is at the start, middle or end of a sentence.

As you can see from this clip, it’s quite a heated debate in the UK…

Pidgin

Another variation on language is the creation, often naturally, of pidgin languages.

This occurs in most cases via trade. When one language meets another and people need to trade for economic purposes, a pidgin, not a bird but rather a mixture of the two languages that can be understood by both parties, forms.

What’s incredible about pidgins is how they are sometimes relatively easy to understand for speakers of one language and sometimes…not so much.

For example, Nigerian Pidgin, which now has a BBC News page in the language could be considered on the easy end of that spectrum.

Top headlines include “Ghana: See as dis girls conquer autism” and Why BBC Pidgin Facebook Live with Dino Melaye no work.

However, Fanagalo, a Zulu based pidgin from South Africa may be trickier for English speakers to understand.

Zonke nyoni pezulu yena khala kakhulu means “All the birds above, they cry loudly/a lot”.

The video below shows some examples of Nigerian Pidgin English filmed on the streets of Lagos. See how much you can understand with your knowledge of your version of English!

Creole

There are many cases in history when a pidgin becomes a language in it’s own right, in which case it becomes a creole language. Maybe you’ve heard of Haitian Creole, Belizean Kriol or Papiamentu? All are examples of a pidgin that has evolved to become used in more situations that just the necessities to trade etc.

The exact moment of when a pidgin language becomes a creole isn’t fully agreed on by linguists, but many claim it is when the pidgin language is taught to the next generation.

In episode 7 of Language Stories, Unbelizeable, Timothy McKeon talks more about this topic. Click here to listen and watch the episode.

Timothy has also written a highly informative series on creoles for Wikitongues that you can check out here.

Here’s Rose speaking Haitian Creole. If you speak French, you might be surprised at being able to pick out the odd word here and there!

Patois

Here’s where things get really interesting. The term patois doesn’t really have one formal definition from linguists. Rather, it’s used to describe many things, some already discussed in this post, from creole to pidgin to dialect and vernacular.

Despite not having a formal definition, the general agreement is that the word patois refers to a “non-standard” variety of a language. We’ll get onto the whole standard/nonstandard argument later in this post.

Sometimes, patois can be used in a derogatory way. However, a common example of patois that’s more widely accepted is Jamaican Patois.

Sean Paul discusses some of his Jamaican Patois lyrics in his song No Lie (featuring Dua Lipa) here.

Vernacular

Vernacular is another one where things begin to get you scratching your head.

A vernacular generally refers to a much more colloquial use of a language (that could possibly be described as a dialect) in comparison with the formal or “standard” variety of a language.

This video below is a great explainer on African American Vernacular English (AAVE).

Lingua Franca

Nope, this doesn’t mean ‘French’ or ‘language of Franca’ or anything like that.

Lingua franca refers to a language that is used between two or more people who don’t natively speak the same language but who have a common language in common they can use to communicate.

For many situations nowadays globally, this is English. For example, a Chinese native speaker speaks with a French native speaker. Neither of them speaks the others language (the French speaker doesn’t speak Chinese and vice versa) so to communicate, they use English as a lingua franca.

Jargon

This is the real fluency test, right? Can you talk about rocket science in another language? Shania Twain still wouldn’t be impressed much but you’d be using tons of jargon so high five for that.

(I’m kidding by the way, there’s plenty of versions of fluency in my opinion.)

Jargon is the language used in a specific situation that may not be clear to someone on the outside of that sphere.

Jargon is all the words that the person working in the computer shop throws at you in order to bombard you with information they know you won’t understand and confuse the heck out of you.

Another example is teachers. Teachers are notorious for using TLAs (or Three Letter Acronyms if you’re not up with the jargon). From SATs to LSAs, there’s plenty to stump someone sat in a room full of teacher talk.

Slang

Even beyond everything we’ve already mentioned in tis post so far, there’s always slang.

Ahh slang. Just when you think you’ve mastered a particular accent or dialect of a language, along comes the slang. Fun times.

What’s fascinating about slang is..well, come to think of it there’s plenty of things. Let’s take this one by one.

1. Slang varies even within accents and/or dialects.

The slang used within your own school, workplace or home may be met with some blank faces when you speak with the kid from the school on the other side of town, the guy from the office on the 6th floor, or your neighbour’s living room.

Slang can be highly localised and that is incredible.

2. Slang changes. Fast.

Some slang is like a mayfly. It lives gloriously and to its fullest potential (+ possibly annoyance) for a mere 24 hours before shrivelling up and dying, only to decompose and shape the slang of the future.

On the other hand, some slang does linger a little longer. Some slang even comes back from the dead from time to time. Who’d have thought that if you have legit beef with that scrub, you may well be dating back quite a few years with that slang?

Well now I’m confused. Why would you do this to me?!

I know, I know.

You started reading this post thinking “Awesome! I love language! Let’s learn about language varieties!” and now you’re more like “I’m never going to learn a language again.”

I’m sorry. But also, not really.

You see, as I mentioned at the start of this post, language varies.

It’s completely natural, completely normal, and completely fascinating.

If it didn’t, we’d all still be speaking like Shakespeare Chaucer Whoever The Heck Wrote Beowulf Whoever The Heck Came Before Beowulf.

We have to accept language variety as a fact of language. And we also have to accept that language variety shapes the language to come. And that’s a good thing.