A dialect is a variation of a language, usually distributed across geographic regions, that is considered lower in social and political prestige to another "standard" variety. A dialect is a variation of a language that shares some vocabulary in common with other variants, but that does not share an alphabet. A dialect is a regional variant of a language that is not mutually understandable by speakers of a nearby variant. The term is only used to refer to a dominant or standard form of a language, while other forms of the same language are called languages. How can we best understand the use of the term "dialect?"