dialectic [Grk ‘discussion by question and answer’]

Linguistic subdiscipline concerned with dialects. The origin of dialectology-apart from a few early glossaries and dialect dictionaries-can be traced back to the beginnings of nineteenth-century historical and comparative linguistics. During the Romantic era the ‘dialects of the common people,’ which were up to then held in low esteem, were elevated to the position of ‘more original’ linguistic forms; the comparative method was also used to reconstruct the earlier stages of a language from its dialects. In the investigation of general historical linguistic principles by the Neogrammarians, the dialects were even seen as being superior to the written language, since it was here that ‘consistencies in sound formation’ were genuinely apparent. There have been numerous historical phonetic studies conducted on dialects and many synchronic descriptions of local dialects in which the relationship of the present state of the language to the historical stages of linguistic development is demonstrated. The geographic diffusion of differing forms and varieties and the search for specific dialectal regions represent areas of interest pursued by dialect geography (often understood and used as a synonym for ‘dialectology’ ( dialect mapping and linguistic atlas on methods used in compiling dialect data). Contrary to original assumptions, collected dialect data have shown a definite lack of ‘homogeneity’ inasmuch as the uniform distribution of isoglosses is concerned. Instead one finds a multitude of intersecting and opposite linguistic boundaries. ‘Extralinguistic’ analyses of such isoglosses have discovered the relevance of topographical, political, and sociocultural pre-conditions, i.e. many of the isogloss boundaries correspond to historical trade routes, state and church borders, etc. Sociolinguistic influences ( sociolinguistics) have led to an increased consideration of sociological methods and the development of a sociodialectological approach with various focuses: (a) class-specific distribution of dialect and standard language, e.g.