Dialect continuum
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A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. Dialects separated by great geographical distances may not be mutually comprehensible. According to the Ausbausprache - Abstandsprache - Dachsprache paradigm, these dialects can be considered Abstandsprachen (i.e., as stand-alone languages). However, they can be seen as dialects of a single language, provided that a common standard language, through which communication is possible, exists. Such a situation is called diglossia.
In sociolinguistics, a language continuum is said to exist when two or more different languages or dialects merge one into the other(s) without a definable boundary.
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Romance languages
The Romance languages of Portugal, Spain, France and Italy are often cited as the canonical example of this, although in recent times the intermediate dialects have been moving toward extinction mainly because of the French government's attitude towards these peasant tongues. This is also true for some non-dominant intermediate languages, like Occitan and Franco-Provençal.
Germanic languages
The many dialects making up German, Dutch, Afrikaans, Low German were another example. They formed a single dialect continuum, with three recognized literary standards. Although Dutch and German are not mutually intelligible, there were numerous transitional dialects that are, for example Limburgish, spoken in parts of the Netherlands and Belgium, and the Low Franconian dialects across the border in Germany (although Limburgish is nowadays sometimes considered a language in its own right).
Another example was the area where the river Rhine crosses the border from Germany to the Netherlands. On both sides of this border, the people living in the immediate surroundings spoke an identical language. They could understand each other without difficulty, and would even have had trouble telling just by the language whether a person from the region was from the Netherlands or from Germany. However, the Germans here called their language German, and the Dutch called their language Dutch, so in terms of sociolinguistics they were speaking different languages.
Chinese
The case of Chinese is an interesting one. The spoken variants of Chinese are highly divergent, forming a continuum comparable to that of the Romance languages. However, all the variants more or less share a common written language, though there are vernacular variations in vocabulary and grammar, and also even in the characters. Template:Fact
The written language originally shared by all dialects was Classical Chinese, which was in normal use up until the early 20th century. In pre-modern times, Northern Baihua grew up alongside Classical Chinese as a standard vernacular dialect. The modern standard dialect, Putonghua (often called Mandarin), is largely based on Baihua.
Within the dialects, gradations do exist between pure local vernacular and the more refined speech of the better educated that incorporates elements from the standard language or written language.
Of course, the development of the divergent Chinese languages was made much easier because the characters used for writing Chinese are not tied closely to pronunciation as alphabetic or syllabic scripts are. In other words, a Cantonese speaker may write his language much the same as a Mandarin speaker and yet pronounce the written text totally differently.
Arabic
Arabic is a classic case of diglossia. The standard written language, Modern Standard Arabic, is based on the Classical Arabic from the time of the prophet Muhammed, while the modern vernacular dialects (or languages) - which form a dialect continuum reaching from the Maghreb in North Western Africa through Egypt, Sudan, and the Fertile Crescent to the Arab Peninsula - have diverged widely from that. Because Arabic is written in an Abjad, the difference between written standard and vernaculars also becomes apparent in the written language and so the Arab children have to be taught in school to speak Modern Standard Arabic to be able to write it.
Northern India
The languages spoken in Northern India form a dialect continuum. What is called 'Hindi' in India is actually Standardized Hindi, the Sanskrit-ized version of the colloquial 'Hindustani' spoken in the Delhi area during the time of the Mughals. However, the term Hindi can be used to enclose all its dialects from east to west - from Bihar to Rajasthan. The Indo-Aryan prakrits also gave rise to languages like Gujarati, Bengali, Oriya, Marathi and Punjabi. Of these, Punjabi can probably be included in the northern Indian continuum. Gujarati is also in some ways close to the dialects of Hindi spoken in the southern Rajasthan region.
West and Central Asia
The languages of Persia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northern India also form a dialect continuum of Indo-Aryan languages from Persian in the west slowly emerging as Baluchi then Sindhi, Punjabi and Urdu. Most of these languages developed due to extensive intermixing of the populations of the areas as the various Persian and Indian kingdoms exerted their influences in these areas. The language Urdu developed from Persian, Hindustani, Turkish, Arabic and other local languages during the period of the Mughal rule in the subcontinent under patronage of the court. Afterwards, it spread widely throughout the area. Other languages such as Pushto and Seraiki can also be included in this continuum.
Creole
A more or less similar interaction takes place between a creole language which lacks prestige, and its more prestigious relative. The relationship between Gullah and African American Vernacular English on the one hand, and standard American English on the other, is a good example of this. Some speakers can glide throughout the continuum depending on the subject and the context.
There are many other examples throughout the world.
See also
es:Continuo dialectal fr:Continuum linguistique nl:Dialectcontinuüm nn:Dialektkontinuum