When do you use the term "Dialect"? [closed]

I've heard people use the terms:

American English

British English

Australian English

I understand that all of them are English. However, sometimes when people use them, it's almost like they refer to them as different languages.

My question is:

Is it proper to call these dialects? Or do we use another term for classification like "variation"?

Are they technically classified as their own languages?

I originally thought of a dialect on a smaller scale. For example, Southerners in the U.S. use different words for some things and have different accents from people in the North (i.e. New Yorkers). So, I thought those would be dialects of American English. Then American, British, and Australian English would be dialects of English.

Solution 1:

First of all, it is to note that English is a language that has its own dialects [variants] across the world; just like other languages, such as Mandarin, Arabic, French, Spanish, etc. The dialects of English can be British or American; Australian or South African; Indian or Pakistani . . . and the list goes on here on Wikipedia.

So here, you might want to ask:

Are American, British, Australian and Indian English languages or dialects?

I would regard them as both, languages as well as dialects. It all depends on the situation wether you refer them as languages or dialects. Note that the dialects of English language have hundreds of sub-dialects of their own. English is a language, of which American and British are its dialects. But in terms of putting the British English aside from the American, then both can be regarded as languages (in such conditions). That's all because the duo languages have their own distinctive sub-dialects being spoken or written in a distinctive geographical region(s). For instance, British English is a kind of language spoken widely in the UK (also in the Republic of Ireland as per the comment of GEdgar left beneath this answer), whereas the Scottish, the Welsh and the Northern Irish are the sub-dialects of it, in terms of linguistic, ethnic, regional, and social lines.

Similarly, American English is a kind of language that has its own sub-dialects. See how people living in southern parts of the USA speak American English differently as compared to the North-USA-English-speaking people.

Besides, the Wikipedia site has something to say about the layout keyboards:

"The United Kingdom and Ireland use British layout keyboards, while Australia, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S.A use American layout keyboards. In continental Europe English as a second language is nowadays sometimes even taught in American English, except perhaps in Scandinavia and the Netherlands." Link

Solution 2:

The term "dialect" is appropriate in both cases. It simply refers to the differing semantics of a particular language used by different groups of people.

The English language itself is just a vocabulary and some general grammatical rules. Anything that conforms to that is technically English, but within those rules there is a lot of variation that can occur with pronunciation, inflection, word choice, slang, idiomatic expressions, etc.

Dialect specifically refers to differing semantics (the words that are chosen and the way they are used together). Differences in pronunciation or inflection by themselves are just accents and don't necessarily represent different dialects, although they are usually paired together.

Also remember that within British English, they have Cockney, Scottish English, and Welsh English, which are all distinct dialects within the UK, just as Texans, New Yorkers, and Cajuns are dialectically distinct in the US.

The bottom line is that if the words being used are strange and different, but are otherwise mutually intelligible, they are simply different dialects of the same language.