Regional Dialect

Regional variation in the way a language is spoken is likely to one of the most noticeable ways in which we observe variety in language. As you travel throughout a wide geographical area in which a language is spoken, and particularly if that language has been spoken i that area for many hundreds of years, you are certain to notice differences in pronunciation, in the choices and forms of words, and in syntax. There may even very distinctive local coloring in the language  which you notice as you move from one location to another . Such distinctive varieties are usually called regional dialects of language. The term dialect is sometimes used in only if there is a strong tradition of writing in the local variety. Old English and to a lesser extent Middle English had dialect in this sense. In the absence of such a tradition of writing the term patois may be used to describe the variety. However many linguists writing in English tend to use dialect to describe both situations and rarely, if at all, use patois as a scientific term. You are likely to encounter it only as a kind o anachronism, as in its use by Jamaicans, who often refer to the variety of English Spoken on the island as a patois.
The dialect -patois distinction actually seems to make more sense in some situations, e.g France than in others. In medieval France , a number of languages flourished and several were associated with strong literary traditions. However, as the language of Paris asserted itself from the fourteenth century on, the tradition withered. Parisian French spread throughout parts of France and even though that  spread is still not yet complete (as visit to such parts of France as Brittany, Provence, Corsica and Alsace will confirm), it drastically reduced the importance of the local varieties : they continue to exist largely in spoken forms only; they have  become disfavored socially and politically; they are patois to those who extol the virtues of standard French.
There are some further interesting differences in the use of the terms dialect and patois. Patois is usually used to describes only rural forms of speech; we may talk about an urban dialect, but to talk about an urban patois seems strange. Patois also seem to refer only to the speech of the lower strata in society; again we may talk about a middle class dialect but not , apparently, about a middle class patois. Finally, a dialect usually  has a wider geographical distribution than a patois, so that whereas regional dialect and village patois seem unobjectionable, the same cannot be said for regional patois and village dialect. However, as I indicated above, many Jamaicans refer to the popular spoken variety of Jamaican English as a patois rather than a dialect. So again the distinction is in no way an absolute one.
This use of the term dialect to differentiate among regional varieties of specific language is perhaps more readily applicable to twentieth century condition in Europe and some other developed countries than it would have been in medieval or renaissance Europe or today in certain other parts of the world, where it was (and still is ) possible to travel long distance and, by making only small changes in speech from location, continue to communicate with the inhabitants . It has been said that at one time a person could travel from the south of Italy to the north of France in this manner. It is quite clear that such a person began the journey speaking one language and ended it speaking something entirely different; however, there was no one point at which the changeover occurred, nor is there actually any way of determining how many intermediate dialect boundaries that person crossed.
Such situation if often referred to as dialect continuum. What you have is a continuum of dialects sequentially over space :  A,B,C,D, and so mutually unintelligible and also some of the intermediate dialects may be unintelligible with one or both ends, or even with certain other intermediate languages ad how many such languages are there? As I have suggested, such questions are possibly a little easier to answer today in certain places than they once were. The hardening of boundaries in the modern world as a result of the growth of states , particularly nation states rather than multinational or multi ethnic states, has led to the hardening of language boundaries. Although residents of territories on both sides of the Dutch-German border or the French-Italian border have many similarities in speech even today, they will almost certainly tell you that they speak dialects of Dutch or German in the on case and French or Italian in the other. Various pressure- political, social, cultural, and educational-serve to harden current state boundaries and to make the linguistic differences among the state more, not less, pronounced. Dialects continue therefore to disappear as national language arise. They are subject to two kinds of pressure: one from within, t conform to a national standard and one from without, to become different from standards else where.
When a language is recognized  as being spoken in different varieties, the issue becomes one of deciding how many varieties and how to classify each variety. Dialect geography is the term used to describe attempts made to map the distribution of various linguistic features so as to show their geographical provenance. For example. in seeking to determine features of the dialects of English and to show their distributions, dialect geographers try to find answers to questions such as the following. Is this an-r pronouncing area of English, as in words like car, or is it not? What past tense form of drink do speakers prefer? What names do people give to particular objects in the environment,e.g elevator or lift, petrol or gas, carousel or  roundabout? Do people say 'I haven't any', 'I don't have any' or ' I ain't got none?' And so on. Sometimes map s are drawn to show actual boundaries around such features, boundaries called isoglosses, so as to distinguish an area in which a certain feature is found from areas in which it is absent. When several such isoglosses coincide, the result is sometimes called dialect boundary. Then we may be tempted to say that speakers on one side of that boundary speaks one dialect and speakers on the other side speak a different dialect.
Finally the term dialect, particularly when it used in reference to regional variation, should not be confused with the term accent. Standard English, for example, is spoken in a variety of accents associated with clear regional and social associations : there are accents associated with North America, Singapore, India, Liverpool, Tyneside, Boston, New York, and so on, but many people who live in such places show a remarkable uniformity to one another in their grammar and vocabulary because they speak Standard English.