Contextualizebeta

dialect

noun
/ˈdaɪ.əˌlɛkt/

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.

  1. derived from διάλεκτος
  2. derived from dialectos
  3. derived from dialecte

Definitions

  1. A lect (often a regional or minority language) as part of a group or family of languages,…

    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).

    • Comparative wordlists of two dialects of Yoruba with Igala.
    • 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.

  2. A variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular area, community, or social…

    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 Adverbs

  3. 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.
    • […] 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."
    • Many even deny it and say something like this: "No, we don't speak a dialect around here.
  4. ›+ 3 more definitions

    1. A language existing only in an oral or non-standardized form, especially a language…

      A language existing only in an oral or non-standardized form, especially a language spoken in a developing country or an isolated region.

    2. A variant of a non-standardized programming language.

      • Home computers in the 1980s had many incompatible dialects of BASIC.

    3. A variant form of the vocalizations of a bird species restricted to a certain area or…

      A variant form of the vocalizations of a bird species restricted to a certain area or population.

The neighborhood

Derived

dialectal, dialectic, dialectical, dialecticism, dialecting, dialect island, dialectism, dialectless, dialect levelling, dialectologist, dialectology, dialectometrics, dialectometry, grapholect, interdialect, intradialect, -lect, microdialect, regionalect

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at dialect. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01dialect02relatively03relative04relation05extended06pulled07pull08hand09human10nature

A definitional loop anchored at dialect. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

10 hops · closes at dialect

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA