Language and dialect between mother and newborn
In our daily lives, we always need to communicate and express, to speak and establish relationships with others through dialogue, as it has become an unavoidable need to be satisfied, even for children and the mute, and this satisfaction cannot be achieved except through language, which since ancient times has been treated with great attention due to its great status. And its necessary role, and many Muslim scholars have tried to define it, each giving a specific definition derived from the perspective of his specialization. Ibn Khaldun defined it as a linguistic act arising from the intention to benefit speech. As for Ibn Janna, he said of it that it is “sounds expressed by Every people has its own purposes.” However, the interest in language did not stop with Muslims only, but it was also the source of the West’s research as well, as Dewey saw it as “a tool of communication and expression, containing a number of words with a syntactic relationship between them, that helps to transmit culture and civilization across generations,” and from it we can Defining language as a set of expressive sounds that may be either a compound of words or a set of symbols behind which an idea is sought to be expressed.
What we all know today is that most, if not all languages, we find that several different dialects have branched out from them, but what only some of us know is that every language is originally a dialect. We take, for example, the Arabic language, the language of literature and writing today. It was in a time when From ancient times, a dialect descended from Middle Semitic, alongside Northern Semitic and ancient South Arabic languages, which in turn - Central Semitic - descended from Western Semitic, whose origin goes back to Proto-Semitic, which is considered one of the primitive Afro-Asian languages, along with a group of other languages, including Amazigh. Primitive, primitive Egyptian, and also primitive Chadian, so languages develop over time to keep pace with the development of man himself, and one of the stages of this development is that the language makes a qualitative leap to move from being merely a dialect for communication between a group of people who share a group of things, until it becomes a language that is written, spoken, and has A higher status, and here, when we mentioned the term “dialect,” “dialect” in its definition is derived from the verb to dialect, to dialect, to dialect, meaning to become accustomed to something and become fond of it. Dr. Abdel Ghaffar Hamid Hilal defines it and says that it is “a specific way of using language, found in an environment.” Especially from single-language environments, “and the dialect has been around since ancient times and is not a recent phenomenon on the tongues of peoples. Even among the Arabs, before the Arabic of the pre-Islamic era prevailed and unified them, several different dialects were circulating among them, such as Himyarite and Sabaean, and as previously mentioned, the emergence of many dialects from The birth of a single language is due to a number of factors, perhaps the most important of which is the geographical factor. Once a language exists over a wide range of different terrains, it is impossible to keep it as it is for a long time, and it will certainly produce dialects that may later become languages. The geography of the environment in this case plays a role. Importantly, the dialect that arises in desert areas must have harsh sounds, because the sounds in that environment spread widely without being prevented by anything, unlike urban areas, which tend to whisper, because the sounds spread over a narrower range. In addition to this, we find The social factor has something to do with this matter, for “the origin of the bifurcation of languages is the bifurcation of groups, because language is the daughter of society,” so that in one society we find different dialects, and class disparities are considered the first reason. We find that the doctor has his dialect, which is made up of a set of words that cannot be The craftsman can understand it because he also has his own dialect, and the same goes for the wealthy. They have their own dialect that distinguishes them from others, as it includes a bit of dignity, prestige, and self-respect, unlike the middle class and the poor. This is because the wealthy seek to maintain their prestigious position in society, but this does not mean that the wealthy speak in the same language. One, through this door enters the individual factor to give each individual his own dialect that matches his pronunciation and expressive characteristics, from a vocal imprint and linguistic habits that appear in the process of pronunciation, as well as the feeling of professional and professional affiliation among individuals and the effect of this linguistic dictionary on each speaker, in addition to the linguistic and pronunciation errors that occur. Children do it, as they pronounce the word backwards, and there are parents who encourage this to make pronunciation easier for children. All of these differences between individuals lead to the creation of new dialects over time, but all of the above factors can be considered indirect causes of the creation of dialects, which is where linguistic conflict occurs. (Language contact) outside its circle as a direct cause, and this contact between languages occurs either through invasion, which is divided into two cases:
- The first case: in which the invaders are few in number, they began to practice their political life with the people of the conquered land after the war subsided, and due to their smallness and weak influence, the settlers among them began to abandon their original language for the new language, (the language of the indigenous people of that country).
The second case: in which the invaders are large in number, followed by migrations of the invading people, they participate in professional and craft life, and occupy the upper and middle classes, while the conquered people occupy the bottom of the social pyramid. The language of the latter and the invading language are in conflict only for a short time, and it begins With extinction, the language of the outsider becomes the language of the public and the private.
This conflict is also achieved through the migration of a people to an inhabited land, without an organized invasion carried out by armies, but rather a competition in the quest for livelihood.
Just as every action has a reaction, and every cause has a result, this conflict also has results that cannot all be achieved, but only one result can be achieved. Either the original language will withstand its enemy (and it will not find a way to do that unless it has a strong civilization and culture and also has a large number of speakers. Either these two languages will live together in one environment, which will create for us a new dialect or dialects as a result of the constant conflict between the two languages, or the new language will triumph, and in this case it does not mean that the new language will not be affected by the original language, rather it will be affected, except that its influence The new language will be stronger over the original language, because the strength of influence and influence has reasons, including:
- Victory in conflict and victory in wars, and the defeated in this case is fond of imitating the victor, especially if the latter has a strong civilization and culture and the vanquished does not have any of that:
National immigration and heavy colonialism (cultural colonialism). Perhaps this is what happened with Morocco after French colonialism, as France practiced cultural colonialism on it. We see that the “Moroccan dialect” before colonialism is not the same as the “Moroccan dialect” today, which is rich in French words, and the same thing. With Algeria as well.
Friction through neighbourhood, trade, wars and cultural and civilizational relations between peoples.
However, this does not make the invading language dominant. In order for it to have dominance, it must first have a deep-rooted civilization and culture, and its people must be civilized and sophisticated, and its dominance must remain while its power continues for a long time to extend its influence, and finally there must be a large and influential community permanently residing in the country. Without the peoples who were defeated.
So, now we can understand that there is a harmonious relationship between language and dialect, as dialect is the origin of language and at the same time it is its offspring.
Written by: Mina Hak