What is the acrolect and basilect in your country?

Fredrik from Norway   Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:01 am GMT
Just thought this topic belonged here, not in the English section:
Sven   Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:02 am GMT
Various linguistics textbooks define 'acrolect' as the variety of a language with the most prestige and 'basilect' as the variety of a language which is the most stigmatised.

In Norway, where I live, the Oslo accent is the acrolect - probably because it is the language of our capital - and the language of Toten is the most stigmatised - probably because it is associated with a heavily industrialised area.

I find this subject fascinating and would be very interested to learn what the acrolect and basilect is in your country.
Fredrik from Norway   Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:04 am GMT
Sven wrote:
"In Norway, where I live, the Oslo accent is the acrolect - probably because it is the language of our capital - and the language of Toten is the most stigmatised - probably because it is associated with a heavily industrialised area. "

Well, Sven: That's probably how it looks from a narrow Oslo perspective, but I can tell you that the rest of Norway (and that is the most of the nation) certainly doesn't think so.
Norway is famous for its dialectical variation and the lack of an accepted acrolect. Of course we use one of our two literary norms (Bokmål and Nynorsk) when writing, but everybody speaks their own dialect. Of course some people from very remote areas sometimes feel a need to moderate themselves in order to be well understood outside of their region, but I as a native of the southwestern province of Rogaland would never speak Bokmål or Nynorsk to another native Norwegian!

Though when communicating with Danes, Swedes or foreigners who have learned Norwegian from a book I often use Bokmål, because that is what they understand best. But I would never consider my southwestern pronounciation of Bokmål to be Oslo dialect. It's too different regarding phonology and intonation. With my uvular r and my southwestern tendency towards lenization (soft consonants) it's just as much Danish.

Oslo people often think that because a lot of people present in the media are from Oslo and therefore speak Oslo dialect (yes, even the King speaks Oslo dialect, because he lives in Oslo!!!) Oslo dialect is the national acrolect, while we other Norwegians, when meeting with a person from Oslo think: How strange. You speak like people in TV. Have you got like no personality of your own?

Because in Norway dialects are very much connected with personality and therefore kept through life. It's totally normal for university professors to give lectures in their own dialect, for members of parliament to speak dialect in parliament, for program hosts to speak dialect on TV.

Though Eastern Norway can be an ecxeption. Because the region is totally dominated by Oslo and the local dialects rather close to the Oslo one, Eastern Norwegians sometimes are made to feel ashamed of their "hillbilly dialects" (like the Toten dialect mentioned as a basilect by Sven) when in Oslo and therefore seriously moderate themselves so that they in effect speak Oslo dialect in Oslo, on TV etc.

South-, West- and North Norwegians regard this practice with contempt and have little understanding for Oslo's people opinion that the dialects around Oslo are hillbilly-ish and base. We think they are cute and that those who speak them sound much more pleasant than Oslo people.

BTW Toten is not an industrialzed area. It's agricultural, thus a hillbilly image in Oslo. The only working class dialect in Norway is actually the sociolect of Eastern Oslo, which of course is regarded by posh people from Western Oslo (i.e. Sven...?) as base, but seen as colourful and hearty by other Norwegians.

And it is probably a contradiction in terms, a divine irony, when a acrolect/basilect topic is started by a Norwegian! Probably no other European country (except Switzerland) has such a thriving dialect diversity as Norway!
Fredrik from Norway   Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:09 am GMT
As an answer to the questions about German dialects in the English section:
Although people from Southern Germany and Austria usually reserve their Allamanic, Swabian, Bavarian, and Austrian dialects for communication within the neighbourhood, family, circle of friends etc., it's totally accepted to speak a more or less regionally coloured Hochdeutsch (i.e. literay German) in public. Indeed a Viennese coloured Hochdeutsch is considered rather posh in the German-speaking world (probably because of the Habsburg court).

Low German is becoming very rare and is almost never spoken in public.
People from Eastern Germany (i.e. ex-DDR) often speak more dialectically coloured than West Germans, as dialects were more accepted in
"the farmer- and worker state" DDR. Especially people from Saxony (i.e. the current federal state) often have a strong Saxon accent, something which other Germans often find amusing (and poke fun at). Bavarians are also often poked fun at because of their strong Bavarian accents, but this might also be due to other Germans being envious about these two groups (Saxons and Bavarians) having a proud tradition of using their own dialects.

About Italian:
I have heard that the best Italian is "lingua toscana in bocca romana". True?
CHINESE   Fri Feb 10, 2006 3:43 am GMT
In China, the acrolect is of course the official standard Chinese-Mandarin.

In fact, most of Chinese can speak Mandarin, and 85% people speak Madarin as a native language.

Another important dialects is Cantonese, but it is only spoken in HongKong and GuangDong Province, and spoken by some overseas Chinese people too.

If a foreigner wants to learn Chinese so that he can have a big advantage, I think it's much more useful for him to learn Mandarin, instead of Cantonese, Minnanese, or Wunese and so on.

In China, the basilect might be the various nonstandard dialects.
Carabasò   Fri Feb 10, 2006 12:10 pm GMT
acrolect: Spanish

basilect: Catalan
Dawie   Fri Feb 10, 2006 2:54 pm GMT
Carabasò, either you are trying to provoke another flame between Catalan and Spanish speakers on this forum or you are an idiot. Catalan and Spanish are not the same language and therefore cannot be acrolects or basilects of the same language.
Linguist   Fri Feb 10, 2006 6:24 pm GMT
Russian language doesn have any dialects, so everything depends on the lexicon which you use.
Milton   Fri Feb 10, 2006 8:33 pm GMT
here in Brazil

[Tell her when you see her]

acrolect: Portuguese [diga-lhe quando a vir] not used in spoken form
mesolect: Brazilian Portuguese [diga pra ela quando você ver/vir ela] used by middle class and upper class
basilect: Brazilian [diz pra ela quando tu ver ela] used by low class
Rowena   Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:50 am GMT
Philippines

acrolect: written Tagalog

mesolect: Manileño Tagalog. It is awash in Spanish and English loan words and frequent English-Spanish-Tagalog code-switching, rendering it almost creole-like, so technically, it should be classified as a basilect. However, it is the prestige language of the capital city and its use has spread throughout the other regions.

basilect(s): The purest form of Tagalog is spoken by the people of Batangas province. Batangan Tagalog resembles Old Tagalog, but its archaic vocabulary and the heavy Batangan accent and rapid way they speak is ridiculed by Manileños.

The Tagalog dialect spoken in Marinduque would probably be the basilect in the classic sense of the word. It is the most divergent Tagalog dialect, having many features of the Visayan language. Also, the Tagalog adopted by native Visayan speakers who've immigrated to Manila is heavily stigmatized, so it too would be considered a basilect.
Easterner   Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:07 am GMT
Hungarian being a rather uniform language with regard to dialects, what can be considered as "acrolect" would be the educated language used in the media, based on the dialect of Budapest as far as pronunciation goes (although the nonstandard speech, especially that of working-class groups in Budapest can sound much different due to its excessive use of slang and the high rate of people from the country, who bring their own accents with them).

This being said, some areas have rather strongly recognizable dialects, especially in the east and south. The most marked one being that of the southern city of Szeged, with its "half-closed e", pronounced as "ö": thus the name of the town itself is pronounced as "Szöged", but this is not a stigmatised dialect, partly because the inhabitants of the area are rather proud of it. Some eastern dialects are more stigmatising, but the basilect is definitely the speech of Gypsies (most of them are Romungros, that is, Gypsies who have switched to Hungarian and don't use their original language any more). The speech of Gypsies is characterised by broad vowels and an intonation that some people find annoying (however, there are also people who find it somewhat appealing). However, there is variation even in this respect, because the more educated one is, the more they tend to lose their accent, Gypsies or non-Gypsies alike.
Mario   Tue Jan 30, 2007 5:24 pm GMT
In Cyprus the acrolect is Standars Greek or a Cypriot version of it used by posh high-class people in the capital Nicosia. The basilect is genuine dialects from all over the island especiialy from the Troodos dialects and Paphos.
Yun   Tue Jan 30, 2007 5:38 pm GMT
acro- basi- the prefixes are queer...