Dialectology in the context of "Dialect continuum"

Subdialect (from Latin sub-, "under", and Ancient Greek διάλεκτος, diálektos, "discourse") is a linguistic term designating a dialectological category between the levels of dialect and idiolect. Subdialects are basic subdivisions of a dialect. Subdialects can be divided further, ultimately down to idiolects. Subdialects of one dialect are generally quite close to each other, differing mainly in pronunciation and certain local words.

Perceptual dialectology is the scientific study of how ordinary individuals perceive variation in language—where they believe it exists, where they believe it comes from, how they believe it functions, and how they socially evaluate it.

Perceptual dialectology differs from ordinary dialectology in that it is concerned not with empirical linguistic understandings or discoveries about language itself, but rather with empirical research on how non-linguists perceive language, also known as folk linguistics, which includes how non-linguists perceive various accents, vocabulary usages, grammatical structures, etc. Such perceptions may or may not align with actual linguistic findings. Perceptual dialectology falls under the general field of sociolinguistics.

Sociolinguistics is the descriptive, scientific study of how language is shaped by, and used differently within, any given society. The field largely looks at how a language varies between distinct social groups and under the influence of assorted cultural norms, expectations, and contexts, including how that variation plays a role in language change. Sociolinguistics combines the older field of dialectology with the social sciences in order to identify regional dialects, sociolects, ethnolects, and other sub-varieties and styles within a language.

A major branch of linguistics since the second half of the 20th century, sociolinguistics is closely related to and can partly overlap with pragmatics, linguistic anthropology, and sociology of language, the latter focusing on the effect of language back on society. Sociolinguistics' historical interrelation with anthropology can be observed in studies of how language varieties differ between groups separated by social variables (e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc.) or geographical barriers (a mountain range, a desert, a river, etc.). Such studies also examine how such differences in usage and in beliefs about usage produce and reflect social or socioeconomic classes. As the usage of a language varies from place to place, language usage also varies among social classes, and some sociolinguists study these sociolects.

Supradialect (from Latin supra, "above", and Ancient Greek διάλεκτος, "discourse") is a linguistic term designating a dialectological category between the levels of language and dialect. It is used in two distinctive contexts, describing structural or functional relations within a particular language. As a structural category, supradialects designate the first level of dialectological subdivision within a language, as for example in the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language, which is divided into three basic supradialects (Shtokavian, Kajkavian and Chakavian), with each of them being further divided into several dialects. As a functional category, supradialect designates a predominant dialectal form within a particular language, referring to the most commonly used variant of that language, accepted in practice by the majority of its speakers as a basic tool of mutual interaction and communication. In that context, such supradialect also functions as an interdialect.

Bulgarian dialects are the regional varieties of the Bulgarian language, a South Slavic language. Bulgarian dialectology dates to the 1830s and the pioneering work of Neofit Rilski, Bolgarska gramatika (published 1835 in Kragujevac, Principality of Serbia). Other notable researchers in this field include Marin Drinov, Konstantin Josef Jireček, Lyubomir Miletich, Aleksandar Teodorov-Balan, Stoyko Stoykov.

The dialects of Macedonian are classified as part of Bulgarian in the older literature. Presently, Bulgarian linguistics continue to treat it as such.Since the second half of the 20th century, foreign authors have mostly adopted the convention of treating these in terms of a separate Macedonian language, following the codification of Macedonian as the literary standard language of Yugoslav Macedonia. However, some contemporary linguists still consider Macedonian as a dialect of Bulgarian. Macedonian authors in turn tend to treat all dialects spoken in the geographical region of Macedonia as Macedonian, including those spoken in Bulgarian Macedonia. Together with their closest lexical and grammatical relative they comprise the Eastern South Slavic branch. The present article treats all these dialects together, because of their close structural similarity and the fact that many important dialect boundaries intersect both territories.

In a purely dialectological sense, Slovene dialects (Slovene: slovenska narečja [sloʋènska narét͡ʃja], Serbo-Croatian: slovenska narječja [slǒʋeːnskaː nǎːrjeːt͡ʃja]) are the regionally diverse varieties that evolved from old Slovene, a South Slavic language of which the standardized modern version is Standard Slovene. This also includes several dialects in Croatia, most notably the so-called Western Goran dialect, which is actually Kostel dialect. In reality, speakers in Croatia self-identify themselves as speaking Croatian, which is a result of a ten centuries old country border passing through the dialects since the Francia. In addition, two dialects situated in Slovene (and the speakers self identify as speaking Slovene) did not evolve from Slovene (left out in the map on the right). The Čičarija dialect is a Chakavian dialect and parts of White Carniola were populated by Serbs during the Turkish invasion and therefore Shtokavian is spoken there.

Spoken Slovene is often considered to have at least 48 dialects (narečja) and 13 subdialects (podnarečja). The exact number of dialects is open to debate, ranging from as many as 50 to merely 7. According to the official chart, published by the Fran Ramovš Institute, there are 48 dialects and 13 subdialects, but that includes all dialects spoken in Slovene. Čičarija dialect is included as a separate dialect and Shtokavian in White Carniola is merged with South White Carniolan. However, the official chart was not updated to include Čabar dialect, which was only recently been discovered to have evolved differently than Kostel dialect, under which it was traditionally listed. Therefore, that division includes 48 dialects and 13 subdialects.

An isogloss, also called a heterogloss, is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Isoglosses are a subject of study in dialectology, in which they demarcate the differences between regional dialects of a language; in areal linguistics, in which they represent the extent of borrowing of features between languages in contact with one another; and in the wave model of historical linguistics, in which they indicate the similarities and differences between members of a language family.

Major dialects are typically demarcated by bundles of isoglosses, such as the Benrath line that distinguishes High German from the other West Germanic languages and the La Spezia–Rimini Line that divides the Northern Italian languages and Romance languages west of Italy from Central Italian dialects and Romance languages east of Italy. However, an individual isogloss may or may not have any coterminus with a language border. For example, the front-rounding of /y/ cuts across France and Germany, while the /y/ is absent from Italian and Spanish words that are cognates with the /y/-containing French words.