the native form used by an elite comprising perhaps a tenth of the population, is itself a (social) dialect. Its ‘standard’ nature is hard to define and is not regulated by an official body. In reality, a language is a parcel of dialects. When I talk about the ‘regional’, it is with a heavy awareness that this is a fiction. All usage is regional; it is just that some regions are less readily identified, and others are more assertively stigmatized.
