What is the difference between language  and dialect and dialect and accent?
397651
In general parlance, the terms are used rather differently from the way linguists use them.\n\nIn everyday terms, a language (e.g. English) can have a number of dialects (e.g. Yorkshire, Brooklyn), where words/pronunciation/grammar may be sightly different.  It can also have a number of accents (ways of pronouncing words).  People speaking the same language but differnet accents or dialects would normally be considered to be able to understand eachother.\n\nLinguists do not use the term 'dialect' as a contrast to 'language'.  In fact, linguists would say that the difference between a language and a dialect is not based on linguistic criteria at all - but on politics/power/geogrpahy and 'identity'.  For example, 'Flemish' - one of Belgium's three official languages - is easily as similar to 'Dutch' - as spoken in the Netherlands as American English is to British English.  However, for political reasons, they are referred to as two languages.  On the other hand, Chinese is often referred to as one language with hundreeds of dialects when actually there are 'dialects' of Chinese that are as far apart from eachother as Swedish and Italian.  However, for political reasons (unifying a large country), it is referred to as one language.\n\nIt can be a hugely emotive issue.  Try standing in a bar in Barcelona and claiming that Catalan is a dialect of Spanish!\n\nIt has been said that a language is a dialect with an army.\n\n'Differences in Language' can be almost infinite as language is so complex.  At one extreme is the 'idiolect' - or unique form of language used by each individual.  But it's possible to identify differences in:\n\nVocabulary (hood v bonnet)\nPronunciation (car = kah v karr)\nGrammar (e.g. use of tenses 'Did you do it already?' v 'Have you done it yet?)\n\nand also in use\n\nSubject areas (e.g. Religious or SCientific language etc.)\n\nas well as user\n(Geographical origins e.g. Brooklyn English)\n(Age/Sex - yes there are differneces in the way men and women use English - more or less so in other languages)\n('Occupational' language - language used in certain contexts only - e.g. advertising, the law etc.)\n(Social status)\n(Sense of identity) - I aspire to belong to a social group so use the language associated with them.
851425
no, spoken, they are completely different. \nhowever, if you can read chinese characters, you may be able to decipher some words (written) in either language but only vaguely,,,,,
1343
What I've noticed is that people with accents don't really have the "accents", but you still can recognise when someone with accent's singing English song. There's something in the way that person pronounces certain letters or words. Take T.a.t.u. for example, they don't have Russian accent in songs but you can hear their English isn't really native, you can hear their pronounciation of some letters are different, in some way softer. And Spanish singers, too, they have some softer pronounciation. And I agree with the rest that it's all about the intonation when you sing so that's why you can't hear their accents.
742277
Loads of info here:\nhttp://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/accent.html
795246
I'm a linguist, so I will give you the definition that linguists use.  By definition, two forms of communication are dialects of the same language if they are mutually intelligible.  That means, if two people who are speaking different forms can understand each other, they are speaking two dialects of the same language.  Likewise, if two people cannot understand each other, they are speaking different languages.\n\nIt turns out in practice that this definition is affected by sociopolitical factors.  For example, the different forms of communication used in China are often called "dialects" of Chinese, even though they are not mutually intelligible, for political reasons.  The Chinese government wants to make it seem like their people are more linguistically unified.  On the other hand, speakers of Norwegian and Danish can understand each other very easily, but they call their dialects by different names because they want to point out that they live in different countries.\n\nAlso, the mutual intelligibility definition is not completely easy to work out, because there are varying degrees of mutual intelligibility between certain dialects of languages.  For example, I am a speaker of American English, and I therefore have the same native language as speakers of Irish English.  However, I haven't been exposed to much Irish English, so sometimes I find it difficult to understand.  I find British English easier to understand because I've been exposed to it on television, for example.\n\nNevertheless, mutual intelligibility is the factor that people use to distinguish dialect from language.  Linguists also get around these difficulties by using the term "variety", which can work for either a dialect or a language.\n\nADDITIONAL: The definition that the previous person gave you is actually better as a discussion of standard vs. nonstandard dialect, rather than language vs. dialect.  In many countries, dialects that don't have high status are called "dialect", while dialects that have high status are called "languages".  That's another example of how sociopolitical factors can affect this discussion.
104666
I've heard it compared to the difference between American and British English.  That means that there would be differences in accent, vocabulary, and probably grammar.
26269
Different dialects of English have different standards.  Standard American English is the standard for many Americans, but British people have a different standard, and so forth.  So American English isn't really the standard for everyone (although it is for many if they have economic or cultural ties to the United States).\n\nAs for how the standard evolved, there have always been standards.  In general, the dialect of whoever's in power is considered the standard, because people want to be like that powerful group.  Americans who are trying to speak Standard American English do so because they think it will give them social power.  What's interesting, though, is that Standard American English is just agreed upon as the standard by many Americans even though it doesn't belong to a particular region.\n\nThe Founding Fathers spoke a dialect that is different from either American dialects or British dialects today.  They were British, but in the meantime English has evolved in both places.
782355
They are not dialects, they are languages as far and further removed from each other as Basque from Welsh, or Russian from Chinese, in origin, syntax and lexis.\nAfrica is a much more diverse continent than the Americas or even Europe, and I wish Europeans and Americans alike could stop seeing it as a backward place peopled by barbarians.\nColonialism and now American cultural and economical imperialism has destroyed and is further destroying their culture and livelihoods, and the offhand disregard as it expresses itself in your question is adding insult to injury.
144550
Interesting question.  As you know, language is a living thing. When people settle in regions, they interact closely, and their language subtly shifts.  (That's why Boston, New York, the South etc. have distinctive accents).  Over time, there is more differentiation-and the original accent is blended into a "new accent".  With English, you can see that happened in Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa (and elsewhere) as well.
78038
This site will give you details on where the accent is on letters and why. Lots of info. good luck.
298171
Many native dialects reformed English as Pidgin English, spoken and understood by 99% population.\nNational or official languages: Edo, Efik, Adamawa Fulfulde, Hausa, Idoma, Igbo, Central Kanuri, Yoruba, English.\n\nhttp://360.yahoo.com/jcbroogley
755762
English is a stress-timed language. Aside from how individual words are stressed, larger grammatical units (usually set off by punctuation in writing) are marked by stress, as well as pauses. \n\nNorwegian, Lithuanian and some other European languages has pitch, which accounts for the sing-songiness heard by some native English speakers.\n\nSome languages, among them Chinese and Vietnamese, are tonal languages, where the tone carries phonemic information.
252891
The major factor is that in the earlier days of spoken language it was not as easy to travel as it was now.  If you wanted to go somewhere, you walked.  And then much later on we managed to harness horses for travel, and so on.\nBut as language developed, humans couldn't readily travel, and therfore things were very isolated by location and region.  Because of this, the way people spoke became very isolated and regionalized.  There wasn't blending.  In this way, the idiosyncratic aspects of spoken language became more pronounced.  The people in the British Isles spoke one way (and that can even be broken down even further) compared to the people in France.  As those differences developed they became what we now recognize as accents from the region.  Those ways of speaking were so engrained in the regional culture, that they continued to be passed down through the generations, so they were maintained.  However, I would guess that what we know to be a typical regionial accent at this point is much different from the accents of the same region long ago.
761251
Actually, one can pronounce it either way...and a couple other ways in addition. It's nothing more than a phonological difference in dialect.
1084403
I live here in Oregon as well. No. We do not have an accent. As far as I can tell, anyway. Lived all over. Plenty of accents and dialects. None here that I can tell. None of the other answerers provided any type of example. Do we have a drawl? Do we put 'R'\ns in words like the northeasterners? What, specifically, is it that pacific nw people do to have a distingushed accent?
530609
Both are same but the voice is different. Second one is in passive voice and sounds more formal.
929529
Dialects are varieties differing in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar not to be confused with the regional accents of English speakers, which mark speakers as members of groups by their various pronunciations of the standard language.\n\nAustralian English is a non-rhotic dialect. The Australian accent is most similar to that of New Zealand and is also similar to accents from the South-East of Britain, particularly those of Cockney and Received Pronunciation. As with most dialects of English, it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.\n\nAustralian English vowels are divided into two categories: long, which includes long monophthongs and diphthongs, and short, all of which are monophthongs. The short vowels mostly correspond to the lax vowels used in analyses of Received Pronunciation with the long vowels corresponding to its tense vowels as well as its centralising diphthongs. Unlike most varieties of English, it has a phonemic length distinction: a number of vowels differ only by the length.\n\nAustralian English consonants are similar to those of other non-rhotic varieties of English. In comparison to other varieties, it has a flapped variant of /t/ and /d/ in similar environments as in American English. Many speakers have also coalesced /tj/ and /dj/ into /tʃ/ and /dʒ/, with pronunciations such as /tʃʉːn/ being standard.