John McWhorter

That is perfect.

Anyway, I have another G Professor Dawkins question, which is this.

I have been present when you said that there was a way of telling a difference, this is getting into my thing, between a language and a dialect.

People are always asking a linguist, what's a dialect?

What's a language?

How can you tell?

Is Scots a dialect of English or is Scots

another language.

And you said, and I thought this was very clever, that you know that someone's speaking a dialect of something else rather than a separate language if, when you speak the dialect, the native speaker either laughs at you or is insulted.

Yes.

Yeah, they don't see you as doing something important.

Whereas if you're speaking Japanese, they're not going to laugh at you, at least when you're there.

They are honored that you're trying.

And so that.

Is there an equivalent to that in telling a difference between species and subspecies?

What with donkeys and eels?

There are many people who say the same thing about human speech, that people deliberately try to distinguish themselves from speakers of other dialects for social identification.

Yes, we're not one of those.

I frankly suspect that a lot of that has to do with maybe a small collection of words.

I am skeptical that people change their accent on purpose because it's so deeply seated.