Dialect and Language in Neurolinguistic Perspective

Q

Could someone tell if brain-wise/mind-wise/neurologically a language differs from a dialect?
https://www.quora.com/Could-someone-tell-if-brain-wise-mind-wise-neurologically-a-language-differs-from-a-dialect/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

ARq

Answer requested by Chrysovalantis Anastasiades

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I speak two langs, Latin and Germanic. In a few dialects.

Answered Wed

Absolutely not.

OK, one, the language involves a written version, which the dialect does not always do.

A dialect is a version of a language. Some languages have only one version, some have several, and in some cases you can wonder whether they belong to only one or to more than one.

Culturally it is settled by the fact that some dialects when written down for a long time are called languages - especially if you have several authors in them.

Now, the scenario in which a dialect is not written is of course the one in which a dialect is too far from a “written language” to be felt simply as one way to pronounce the writing. This is not so with all dialects, and with these, there is no difference between language and dialect. X’ Stockholm dialect and his Swedish are identical, Y’s Lund dialect and Y’s Swedish are identic, precisely as with Z’s Athens or Crete dialect and his written Dhimotiki.

Unwritten dialects are like Pontic Dhimotiki in relation to written Katharévousa, like Jamtska or Dalbymål in relation to Swedish : if you are native in those, you know your dialect and your written language are NOT the same.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1m ago

Neurologically a non-written dialect you are not imagining as written is without the acquired synaesthesia between sounds and letters.