dialect
nounCA, US, UK /ˈdaɪ.əˌlɛkt/ · AU /ˈdɑe.əˌlekt/
Etymology From Middle French dialecte, from Latin dialectos, dialectus, from Ancient Greek διάλεκτος (diálektos, “conversation, the language of a country or a place or a nation, the local idiom which derives from a dominant language”), from διαλέγομαι (dialégomai, “to participate in a dialogue”), from διά (diá, “inter, through”) + λέγω (légō, “to speak”); by surface analysis, dia- + -lect.
Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences Strict sense A lect (often a regional or minority language) as part of a group or family of languages, especially if they are viewed as a single language, or if contrasted with a standardized idiom that is considered the 'true' form of the language (for example, Bavarian as contrasted with Standard German).
- The question could be put: 'Is there anything inherent in a dialect which gives it a negative stigma or is it that the status of the majority of the speakers is transferred to the dialect?' — something that occurs in many regions in different countries.1995, Michael [G.] Clyne, The German language in a changing Europe, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 117:
- Comparative wordlists of two dialects of Yoruba with Igala.2007 February 5, Roger Blench, “The Ayere and Ahan languages of Central Nigeria and their affinities”, in rogerblench.info, page 25:
2 more examples
- Bloomfield, for example, noted that “local dialects are spoken by the peasants and the poorest people of the towns” (1933: 50) though he also thought that the lower middle class spoke 'sub-standard' speech.2010, Mirjam Fried, Jan-Ola Östman, Jef Verschueren, editors, Variation and Change: Pragmatic perspectives (Handbook of Pragmatics Highlights; 6), John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, Dialect, by Ronald Macaulay, page 61:
- Among common errors still persisting in the minds of educated people, one error which dies very hard is the theory that a dialect is an arbitrary distortion of the mother tongue, a wilful mispronunciation of the sounds, and disregard of the syntax of a standard language.2014, Elizabeth Mary Wright (died 1958), Rustic Speech and Folk-Lore:
Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences Broadly A variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular area, community, or social group, differing from other varieties of the same language in relatively minor ways as regards grammar, phonology, and lexicon.
- And in addition, many dialects of English make no morphological distinction between Adjectives and Adverbs, and thus use Adjectives in contexts where the standard language requires -ly Adverbs1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational Grammar: A First Course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 139:
Derogatory Language that is perceived as substandard or wrong.
- Well, those children don't speak dialect, not in this school. Maybe in the public schools, but not here.1975, H. Carl, Linguistic Perspectives on Black English, page 219:
- […] on the second day, Miss Anderson gave the school a lecture on why it was wrong to speak dialect. She had ended by saying "Respectable people don't speak dialect."1994, H. Nigel Thomas, Spirits in the Dark, Heinemann, page 11:
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- Many even deny it and say something like this: "No, we don't speak a dialect around here.1967, Roger W. Shuy, Discovering American Dialects, National Council of Teachers of English, page 1:
Colloquial, Offensive A language existing only in an oral or non-standardized form, especially a language spoken in a developing country or an isolated region.
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Programming, Sciences A variant of a non-standardized programming language.
- Home computers in the 1980s had many incompatible dialects of BASIC.
Biology, Natural sciences, Ornithology A variant form of the vocalizations of a bird species restricted to a certain area or population.
- A curious question, which has as yet attracted but little attention, is whether the notes of the same species of Bird are in all countries alike. From my own observation I am inclined to think that they are not, and that there exist "dialects," so to speak, of the song.1896, Alfred Newton, A Dictionary of Birds, page 893:
- Derived terms
- dialectal, dialectic, dialectical, dialecticism, dialecting, dialect island, dialectism, dialectless, dialect levelling, dialectologist, dialectology, dialectometrics, dialectometry, grapholect, interdialect, intradialect, -lect, microdialect, regionalect
- Related terms
- dialectally, dialectical, dialectician, dialectics, chronolect, cryptolect, ecolect, ethnolect, familect, geolect, idiolect, regiolect, sociolect, topolect, dialogue
- Hyponyms
- dialect chain, dialect continuum, eye dialect, Kansai dialect, nondialect, nonstandard dialect, regional dialect, social dialect, standard dialect, subdialect, superdialect, supradialect, transdialect, Urtsun dialect, vernacular dialect