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A language is a dialect with an army and navy
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<p> "A language is a dialect with an army and navy", sometimes called the Weinreich witticism, is a quip about the arbitrariness of the <a href="/facts/Dialect/gJ7uQQoj">distinction</a> between a <a href="/facts/Dialect/gJ7uQQoj">dialect</a> and a <a href="/facts/Language/IRcTok2q">language</a>. It points out the influence that social and political conditions can have over a community's perception of the status of a language or dialect. The facetious adage was popularized by the sociolinguist and <a href="/facts/Yiddish_language/VfmsR6pW">Yiddish</a> scholar <a href="/facts/Max_Weinreich/ms77axNT">Max Weinreich</a>, who heard it from a member of the audience at one of his lectures in the 1940s. </p>