Dictionary

koine en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈkɔɪniː/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈkɔɪˌni/ (General-American)
• /ˈkɔɪneɪ/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /kɔɪˈneɪ/ (General-American)
• /ˈkɔɪˌneɪ/ (General-American)
• (US) audio

Etymology

Borrowed from Ancient Greek κοινή (koinḗ), feminine form of κοινός (koinós, “common, general”). Doublet of koinon.

Meanings

1. A linguistic variety that has developed in supraregional contact between speakers of various interrelated dialects, typically in such a way that features shared by several dialects prevail and those of limited distribution are avoided.
   • If a dominant language was spoken in the area of such trade routes, then this dominant language became the ‘interlanguage’, as it is called. Such an interlanguage, or koiné, is a simplified dialect with which speakers of two or more quite different dialects communicate with one another. 2004, Steven Roger Fischer, A History of Language, Reaktion Books, page 178:
   • Now, another term for that product is koine, which, however, I have regularly […] employed in reference to the infrastructure (procedural, juridical, formal, cultural) that enables and informs composition of a lingua franca. […] In linguistic scholarship koine mostly (!) refers to a standard language expanded by input from several dialectal sources with concomitant levelling of morphological and syntactic differences and adoption of a general and possibly restricted lexicon. 2013, J. E. Wansborough, Lingua Franca in the Mediterranean, Routledge, page 153:
2. A lingua franca.
   • Darī (q.v.) is a term long recommended by Afghan authorities to designate Afghan Persian in contrast to Iranian Persian; a written language common to all educated Afghanis, Darī must not be confused with Kābolī, the dialect of Kabul and surrounding areas that is more or less understood by eighty percent of the non-Persian speaking population and is fast becoming the nation’s koine. 2018 June 1, Charles M. Kieffer, “AFGHANISTAN v. Languages”, in Encyclopædia Iranica, pages 501-516:

Forms

Deriveds

koinëisation · koineisation

Relateds

Koine

Synonyms

interlanguage

Translations (16)

fr koinè (regional language that becomes standard) · da koine (lingua franca) · nb koinéspråk (lingua franca) · da koinesprog (regional language that becomes standard) · ca koiné (lingua franca) · da koinesprog (lingua franca) · es koiné (lingua franca) · nn koinéspråk (regional language that becomes standard) · pt koiné (regional language that becomes standard) · es koiné (regional language that becomes standard) · cmn 共同語 /共同语 (regional language that becomes standard) · nn koinéspråk (lingua franca) · da koine (regional language that becomes standard) · pl koine (regional language that becomes standard) · de Koine (regional language that becomes standard) · nb koinéspråk (regional language that becomes standard)