Xenolect

Quick meaning: Xenolect is a noun meaning A language variety that bears a superficial resemblance to another larger language, but which differs at a fundamental structural level.

Meaning

A language variety that bears a superficial resemblance to another larger language, but which differs at a fundamental structural level.

Example Sentences

As a xenolect develops, it becomes mimolect, that is, a variety whose external appearance resembles that of another (Stewart, 1989: 263-280).

For this reason she classifies Rinkebysvenska as "a xenolect, which relies not on radical restructuring, but on a small but symbolically significant amount of influence from immigrant language(s) to render it identifiably different from standard."

The "other dialect" may not need a special term for it, since it is the structurally unmarked, frame-of-reference variety which may be taken as defining that which is "normal" in the xenolect as well. But were a term to be needed for the non-xenolectal dialect(s), an appropriate one might be matrilect, making up as it does the matrix in which a xenolect is embedded.

Word Forms

• xenolects

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include similect, interdialect, homolog, interlanguage, xenonymy, paralexicon.

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