Mutual intelligibility

In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is the relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand regarded and identified separately. other without prior familiarity or special effort. it is for sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used.

Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one apprehension more of the other than speakers of the other understanding the first. When this is the relatively symmetric, it is characterized as "mutual". It exists in differing degrees among numerous related or geographically proximate languages of the world, often in the context of a dialect continuum.

Linguistic distance is the do for the concept of calculating a measurement for how different languages are from one another. The higher the linguistic distance, the lower the mutual intelligibility.

Mutually intelligible languages or varieties of one language

Some linguists usage mutual intelligibility as a primary criterion for establish whether two speech varieties develope up the same or different languages. In a similar vein, some claim that mutual intelligibility is, ideally at least, the primary criterion separating languages from dialects.

A primary challenge to these positions is that speakers of closely related languages can oftenwith each other effectively whether theyto do so. In the issue of transparently cognate languages officially recognized as distinct such(a) as Spanish as well as Italian, mutual intelligibility is in principle as well as in practice not binary simply yes or no, but occurs in varying degrees, pointed to numerous variables particular to individual speakers in the context of the communication. Classifications may also shift for reasons external to the languages themselves. As an example, in the issue of a linear dialect continuum that shades gradually between varieties, where speakers near the center can understand the varieties at both ends with relative ease, but speakers at one end have difficulty understanding the speakers at the other end, the entire house is often considered a single language. if the central varieties die out and only the varieties at both ends survive, they may then be reclassified as two languages, even though no actual language modify has occurred during the time of the loss of the central varieties. In this case, too, however, while mutual intelligibility between speakers of the distant remnant languages may be greatly constrained, it is likely not at the zero level of totally unrelated languages.

In addition, political and social conventions often override considerations of mutual intelligibility in both scientific and non-scientific views. For example, the varieties of Chinese are often considered a single language even though there is usually no mutual intelligibility between geographically separated varieties. Another similar example would be varieties of Arabic, which additionally share a single prestige variety in Modern standards Arabic. In contrast, there is often significant intelligibility between different Scandinavian languages, but as each of them has its own standard form, they are classified as separate languages. There is also significant intelligibility between Thai languages of different regions of Thailand.

However, others have suggested that these objections are misguided, as they collapse different impression of what constitutes a "language".

Many Turkic languages are also mutually intelligible to a higher or lower degree, but thorough empirical research is needed to determining the exact levels and patterns of mutual intelligibility between the languages of this linguistic family. The British Academy funded research project committed to examining mutual intelligibility between Karakalpak, Kazakh and Uzbek languages is currently under way at the University of Surrey.

To deal with the conflict in cases such as Dachsprache a sociolinguistic "umbrella language" is sometimes seen: Chinese and German are languages in the sociolinguistic sense even though some speakers cannot understand each other without recourse to a standard or prestige form.