I do(n’t) care who you are
Where are you from… :
Everyone knows what is supposed to happen when two men who have never
met before come face to face in a bus halt – they start talking about
the weather. In some cases this may simply be because they happen to
find the subject interesting. Most people, though, are not particularly
interested in analyses of climate conditions, so there must be other
reasons for conversations of this kind.
 One explanation is that it can often be quite embarrassing to be
alone in the company of someone you are not acquainted with and not
speak to them. If no conversation takes place, the atmosphere can be
rather strained. However, by talking to the other person about some
neutral topic like the weather, it is possible to strike up a
relationship with him without actually having to say very much. Language
is not simply a means of communicating information - about the weather
or any other subject. It is also a very important means of establishing
and maintaining relationships with other people. Probably the most
important thing about the conversation between our two men is not the
words they are using, but the fact that they are talking at all.
There is also a second explanation. It is quite possible that the
first man, probably subconsciously, would like to get to know certain
things about the second - for instance what sort of job he does and what
social status he has. He can make some intelligent guesses about his
companion from the sort of clothing he is wearing, and other visual
clues, but he can hardly ask him direct questions about his social
background, at least not at this stage of the relationship.
What he can do is to engage him in conversation.
He will learn some things not so much from what the other man says as
from how he says it, for whenever we speak we cannot avoid giving our
listeners clues about our origins and the sort of person we are. In
seeking clues about his companion, this man is making use of the way in
which people from different social and geographical backgrounds use
different kinds of languages. If the second man from a different
geographical region, he will probably speak the kind of language spoken
by people from that part of the country. If he also a middle-class
graduate, he will use the kind of language associated with men of this
type, which is also called social dialect.
Because language as a social phenomenon is closely tied up with the
social structure and value systems of the society, different dialects
and accents are evaluated in different ways. Standard English, (Queens
English, BBC English or whatever it is called), for example has much
more status and prestige than any other English dialect. This is same
with Indian languages like Hindi as well as our own Sinhala and Sri
Lankan Tamil. The standard dialect of a language is highly valued by
many people, and certain economic, social and political benefits tend to
accrue to those who speak and write it.
Some of the Sinhala jokes remind us how some regional dialects are
different compared to the standard Sinhalese. The most famous one is
about the Sinhala movie ‘Me Dasa Kumatada’, and how the question form
‘Kumatada’ was replaced by a regional variety.
The standard version is always considered as the correct, beautiful,
nice and pure form of that language. Other non standard or non prestige
varieties are often held to be wrong, ugly, corrupt or lazy. But, a
linguist always treats each and every dialect of a language equal.
The divergence creates more opportunities for a linguist to discover
most fascinating facts of a living language.
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