dialect
Meanings
noun
- 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).
- 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.
- Language that is perceived as substandard or wrong.
- A language existing only in an oral or non-standardized form, especially a language spoken in a developing country or an isolated region.
- A variant of a non-standardized programming language.
- A variant form of the vocalizations of a bird species restricted to a certain area or population.
Pronunciation
Word forms
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.
Synonyms
Related words
Derived words
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.