The way I always have it is that an accent is a pronunciation thing, and a dialect is a pronunciation thing + a vocabulary and grammar thing, which sounds like a very different definition to yours. Hmmmm. Possibly a difference in American vs. British definitions? Anyway, so Shetlanders speak a dialect, but Hebrideans just have an accent, and Ulster Scots is a dialect but Dubliners have an accent.
It depends on where you draw the line, obviously: I wouldn't categorise Cockney as a dialect, even though it has some slightly different grammatical features (like the double negative and tagging questions on the end) and also some of its own vocabulary, but that's maybe just because a lot of the features that might make Cockney dialectal are features in the way I speak (I speak... kind of high-end Estuary. Like, it's close to RP, but I drop my t's and some other stuff: I say Tuesday as Chooseday, for example, which is Estuary).
Also, I would like to point out that if you stray from Dublin to Leeds, you are hitting two extremely different accents, and I would be pretty impressed. :D
(Also, for future Cockney-speaking reference (I say Cockney, but you weren't wrong about straying into Australian - it was mostly the bastard child of Australian and American, and made me laugh) (please don't take that as me being rude, man, accents are hard and it was way better than any attempt I could make at an American accent of any stripe) we pronounce tomato as tomahto, not tomayto.)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2009-01-17 03:50 pm (UTC)It depends on where you draw the line, obviously: I wouldn't categorise Cockney as a dialect, even though it has some slightly different grammatical features (like the double negative and tagging questions on the end) and also some of its own vocabulary, but that's maybe just because a lot of the features that might make Cockney dialectal are features in the way I speak (I speak... kind of high-end Estuary. Like, it's close to RP, but I drop my t's and some other stuff: I say Tuesday as Chooseday, for example, which is Estuary).
Also, I would like to point out that if you stray from Dublin to Leeds, you are hitting two extremely different accents, and I would be pretty impressed. :D
(Also, for future Cockney-speaking reference (I say Cockney, but you weren't wrong about straying into Australian - it was mostly the bastard child of Australian and American, and made me laugh) (please don't take that as me being rude, man, accents are hard and it was way better than any attempt I could make at an American accent of any stripe) we pronounce tomato as tomahto, not tomayto.)