advergence

Meanings

1. The evolution of a mimic to resemble its model more closely.
2. The evolution of a dialect to resemble the standard language more closely.

Etymology

Coined by evolutionary biologists L. P. Brower and J. van Z. Brower in 1972 for the paper "Parallelism, convergence, divergence, and the new concept of advergence in the evolution of mimicry" on the pattern of convergence, substituting ad- for con- to emphasize the one-sidedness of the approach. Borrowed into linguistics by Peter Auer in 1998. By surface analysis, ad- + verge + -ence, from Latin vergere (“to turn, incline”), from Proto-Italic *wergō, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wérg-e-ti, from *h₂werg- (“to turn”).