What's the difference between a "dialect" and an "accent"?

[Mango]

ITT, people only read the first post before replying.

 

[Tomoyo]

What the hell does that mean?

Mutually unintelligible means that one person who only speaks one dialect would not be able to understand another person speaking a different dialect, and vice versa.

E.g. A Mandarin speaker cannot necessarily understand a Cantonese speaker.

Within Mandarin and Cantonese are differing accents. For example, someone from Beijing would speak Mandarin in a funny slurry fail voice (which would be a Beijing accent), while someone in say, Shenzhen, would speak normally.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

In English, pants is a long standing if unfashionable word for underpants, briefs, y fronts, boxer shorts, call them what you will.

It now is more frequently used as a colloquialism meaning bad, poor, or rubbish.

I think you misread my post.

 

[Lillefix]

In Norway a dialect is a different way of saying thing like american-english and british english(although these dialects contain lots of others dialects). Accent is a foreign way of pronouncing a language. Like an American talking norwegian with an english accent.

 

[bhsup]

I would disagree that UK English and American English are just accents. They are approaching becoming different dialects entirely.

Accent: Nasal, twang, quick, slow, etc
Dialect: Er, nevermind

Why re-invent the wheel? http://www.peak.org/~jeremy/dictionary/chapters/accents.php

 

[StarWorms]

Last example: When speaking the phrase "right here", when we say "rite heeer" when someone from down south says "rot hay-er" (or "rat hare") is an accent thing.

I'm from the south. Most people don't have strong accents and pronounce everything as it should be pronounced. I say "rite heer". I've never heard anyone say "rot hay-er" or "rat hare", even on EastEnders

 

[flamingzaroc121]

the funny thing is, people for California dont think they (me) have accents, but every where else people can tell i am from California because of my accent

 

[Zarn]

the funny thing is, people for California dont think they (me) have accents, but every where else people can tell i am from California because of my accent

Would you stop saying 'dude' and 'totally' so many times? I can't understand a word you're saying.

A far as I'm concerned, the United States has many English accents (ie. Long Island accent), but it and English speaking Canada share one dialect.

 

[LucyDuke]

I, for one, find it odd that englsih has two words for the same thing, whereas swedish has one, "dialekt". Could you please tell me what the difference is between a "dialect" and an "accent"?

They're two different words for two different things. Does Swedish have one word for two different things?

I'm from the south. Most people don't have strong accents and pronounce everything as it should be pronounced. I say "rite heer". I've never heard anyone say "rot hay-er" or "rat hare", even on EastEnders

That's how everyone feels about their accent.

An accent is a style of pronunciation and nothing more. My cah is a Canadian's car and a Canadian's hoose is my house, that is accent. My soda is a midwesterner's pop, that is not accent, it's dialect. Any differences beyond pronunciation are dialect, including differences in vocabulary, grammar, and orthography (color and colour).

 

[The Lombard]

Dialects and very closely-related languages are two points on the same continuum - and of course, there will be a grey area in the middle where it's hard to say whether it's a seperate language or a dialect.

I would disagree that UK English and American English are just accents. They are approaching becoming different dialects entirely.

They already are - or rather they are two dialect groups, because they contain many seperate dialects themselves. Unless you mean just Standard English (UK) and US Standard English, those being the standard dialects.