• SuperSleuth@lemm.ee
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      3 days ago

      Mandarin and Cantonese are essentially two different languages that happen to share the same characters. Someone from Honduras would be able to understand 99.9% of what a Spaniard says. If you only speak Mandarin you wouldn’t be able to understand Cantonese at all.

    • davidgro@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      But why?

      I’d think in all of those cases it should be the variant that has the greatest population or proximity.

      • gooble@lemm.ee
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        3 days ago

        a couple reasons I can think of:

        1. choosing which dialects are taught where would be messy and complicated
        2. it would make producing and distributing textbooks and other learning materials more complicated and expensive
        • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          I don’t know what you mean by “choosing a dialect would be messy and complicated” since Mexican Spanish is an obvious choice. The rest of Latin America understands Mexican Spanish well because they grew up watching our shows, listening to our music and watching movies with Mexican dubs. I’ve met at least one Uruguayan, Argentinian, and a Peruvian who told me so. Don’t you think its widespread would make the choice easier?

          And how do you mean it’d be more complicated and expensive? The learning materials are already made and widely used. I think it’d be a licensing issue at worst if they really wanted to switch over.

          • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            Good points.

            Still at such an early level I’m not sure the distinction will be apparent or meaningful. Might be like learning German. Why pick a Hannover style of speaking over Bavarian so early?

            That said I do think Mexican Spanish is more neutral in accent and cadence.

            Also please enjoy this.

    • Lemminary@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Fun fact: Mexican Spanish is derived from Castilian Spanish from the central and northern regions of Spain, and was later influenced by Indigenous, African and Caribbean languages.

      It doesn’t change what you said, I just think it’s a cool fact. :D

    • untorquer@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Having learned a language where dialect often means you can barely understand each other if at all, I’m more inclined to consider Mexican vs Castilian an accent much the same way as English’s American vs Australian/british/etc…

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Forgive me but I wanted to nitpick all those examples

      Cantonese is not a dialect of Madarin. It’s a distinct language, just a smaller one.

      Standard Arabic is not actually spoken anywhere, and is primarily a written form. Egyptian pronunciations ARE commonly taught, not only because Egypt is big but because, with Egypt’s large entertainment sector, they have exported their pronunciations around the world in TV and movies.

      British English is taught largely as a colonial legacy, not because England predates the US and Australia in history and is therefore considered “standard.”

      While all of these secondary examples are flawed, IMO, I believe you’re actually right about Castilian Spanish. It’s simply more of an individual case than part of a common pattern.