Dialect Variation and Second-Language Intelligibility

Sanskritization in Pāli

Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics ◽

10.1515/jsall-2021-2030 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Bryan G. Levman

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Evolutionary Process ◽

Early Language ◽

Phonological Constraints ◽

Dialect Variation ◽

Major Factors ◽

The Buddha ◽

Over Time

Abstract This article continues the discussion on the nature of the early language of Buddhism and the language that the Buddha spoke, arguing that the received Pāli transmission evolved out of an earlier Middle Indic idiom, which is identified as a koine. Evidence for this koine can be found by examining correspondence sets within Pāli and its various varieties and by examining parallel, cognate correspondence sets between Pāli and other Prakrits which have survived. This article compares 30 correspondence sets transmitted in the Dhammapada recensions: the Gāndhārī Prakrit verses, the partially Sanskritized Pāli and Patna Dhammapada Prakrit verses, and the fully Sanskritized verses of the Udānavarga. By comparing cognate words, it demonstrates the existence of an underlying inter-language which in many cases can be shown to be the source of the phonological differences in the transmission. The paper includes a discussion on the two major factors of dialect change, evolution with variation over time, and the diffusionary, synchronic influence of dialect variation; it concludes that both are important, with dialect variation – and the phonological constraints of indigenous speakers who adopted MI as a second language – providing the pathways on which the natural evolutionary process was channeled.

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Children's perception of dialect variation

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000913000330 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 41 (5) ◽

pp. 1062-1084 ◽

Cited By ~ 27

Author(s):

LAURA WAGNER ◽

CYNTHIA G. CLOPPER ◽

JOHN K. PATE

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Rich Source ◽

Social Connections ◽

Gradient Representation ◽

Dialect Variation ◽

Regional Dialect ◽

Perceptual Skill ◽

Source Of Information

ABSTRACTA speaker's regional dialect is a rich source of information about that person. Two studies examined five- to six-year-old children's perception of regional dialect: Can they perceive differences among dialects? Have they made meaningful social connections to specific dialects? Experiment 1 asked children to categorize speakers into groups based on their accent; Experiment 2 asked them to match speakers to (un)familiar cultural items. Each child was tested with two of the following: the child's Home dialect, a Regional variant of that dialect, and a Second-Language variant. Results showed that children could successfully categorize only with a Home vs. Second-Language dialect contrast, but could reliably link cultural items with either a Home vs. Second-Language or a Regional vs. Second-Language dialect contrast. These results demonstrate five- to six-year-old children's developing perceptual skill with dialect, and suggest that they have a gradient representation of dialect variation.

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Distinctiveness and Assimilation in Vowel Perception in a Second Language

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2019_jslhr-h-19-0074 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 62 (12) ◽

pp. 4534-4543

Author(s):

Wei Hu ◽

Sha Tao ◽

Mingshuang Li ◽

Chang Liu

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Native Language ◽

Vowel Identification ◽

Vowel Perception ◽

Perceptual Distance ◽

Vowel Space ◽

English Vowels ◽

Chinese Counterpart ◽

Vowel Categories

Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how the distinctive establishment of 2nd language (L2) vowel categories (e.g., how distinctively an L2 vowel is established from nearby L2 vowels and from the native language counterpart in the 1st formant [F1] × 2nd formant [F2] vowel space) affected L2 vowel perception. Method Identification of 12 natural English monophthongs, and categorization and rating of synthetic English vowels /i/ and /ɪ/ in the F1 × F2 space were measured for Chinese-native (CN) and English-native (EN) listeners. CN listeners were also examined with categorization and rating of Chinese vowels in the F1 × F2 space. Results As expected, EN listeners significantly outperformed CN listeners in English vowel identification. Whereas EN listeners showed distinctive establishment of 2 English vowels, CN listeners had multiple patterns of L2 vowel establishment: both, 1, or neither established. Moreover, CN listeners' English vowel perception was significantly related to the perceptual distance between the English vowel and its Chinese counterpart, and the perceptual distance between the adjacent English vowels. Conclusions L2 vowel perception relied on listeners' capacity to distinctively establish L2 vowel categories that were distant from the nearby L2 vowels.

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