Am I misreading this or is that "How close is Spanish from Different Countries" graphic kind of jank? There's intersecting lines that are missing, like Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic.
Why is Chile so long?
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Re: Why is Chile so long?
#52This article is awesome. I've always wondered why Chile is that shape and I didn't know about the Chilean dialect of Spanish being so far off from the others. Super cool.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#53It completely ignores the influence of the indigenous languages in the "dialect" or variation of Spanish, which is actually a much better explainer than "distance from spain".
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#54[flagged]
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#55How is the table of dialects constructed? It's obvious if two dialects are at 1, but what does it mean if they're at 0? They can't be mutually unintelligible, since that would make them different languages. I ask because the dialects spoken in Argentina and in Uruguay are practically identical, save for a few regional words. If the scale being used puts them at 0.35, then it makes me wonder about the usefulness of th…
I have no idea. Also there is no standard spanish even in Spain. Like Andalucian spanish and Domenican spanish have a lot in common but vary greatly with other forms of spanish.
There literally is a standard Spanish, no? I understand it to be based on Castilian. However I understand your point that even within the country of Spain there are many dialects which diverge from "standard".
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#56Is there a single chilean dialect? Surely in such a long country there must be a huge difference between northern, center and southern chilean.
Dialect and language are sort of a "coastline problem". You can find variation between two neighboring villages if you like, but at some point you have to draw a boundary around a group of speakers and call it a dialect. I'd assume the common dialect of Santiago, where most people live in Chile, is considered "the Chilean dialect," but it almost certainly sounds different in rural areas.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#57How is the table of dialects constructed? It's obvious if two dialects are at 1, but what does it mean if they're at 0? They can't be mutually unintelligible, since that would make them different languages. I ask because the dialects spoken in Argentina and in Uruguay are practically identical, save for a few regional words. If the scale being used puts them at 0.35, then it makes me wonder about the usefulness of th…
Dialects can mean very different things hence the old joke "a language is a dialect with its own army and navy", recognizing that the issue is really political rather than linguistic. Many Chinese dialects (like Mandarin and Cantonese) are considered dialects of the same "Chinese language" for political reasons but are mutually unintelligible, whereas Danish and Norwegian (the majority bokmal dialect anyway) are cons…
Okay, so the article is wrong for using that bit of data for the argument. It doesn't tell you much about how well two people from two different places will understand each other. If two people are in the same place and one says to the other "¿me das la veleta?", but the other would have called the object "molinete", chances are they could probably understand what the other person is saying. What makes different dialects of Spanish difficult to understand each other is slang and accent, not different words for common objects. Like, if a Spaniard tells me "Mariana está en el ordenador", I'm not going to get confused about what he means even if I would have called it "computadora".
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#58All of this is just because Chile is the best country of Chile... if you know what I mean ;-)
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#59Is there a single chilean dialect? Surely in such a long country there must be a huge difference between northern, center and southern chilean.
There are regional variations, but the difference is less than what you would probably expect, applying mostly to intonation/cadence (more marked and melodic in the south, less so in the north) and some vocabulary. Most of the variation in Chilean Spanish is based on socioeconomic status, since Chile's income inequality is rather high.
Re: Why is Chile so long?
#60Cool article. TIL I learned that Atacama has flower blooms.
I miss the Inca though. Talking about Chile without mentioning the Inca Empire is like talking about Italy without mentioning the Roman Empire.