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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

topolect en · NOUN

Etymology

Combination of topo- (“place”) + -lect (“[language] variety”). Attested since the 1960s, but rare until its introduction by sinologist Victor Mair in 1991 to distinguish Chinese 方言 (fāngyán) from English dialect.

Meanings

  1. The speech form, variety (lect) of a particular place or region.
    • We can then establish and name further categories by means of the word "group" and the prefix "sub-", thus obtaining SUBDIALECT ("Untermundart") between topolect and dialect, DIALECT GROUP ("Mundartengruppe") between dialect and language, SUBFAMILY ("Unterfamilie") between language and family, 1964, University of South Florida Language Quarterly, 2, page iii:
    • The degree to which Yahudic lects differ from coterritorial non-Jewish lects varies spatially, chronologically, stylistically, and idiolectically (for this reason it is important to study each Yahudic topolect together with its coterritorial Arabic topolect if it has one). 1985, Jewish Language Review, 5:155:
  2. A regional variety of Chinese; especially a lect other than Standard Mandarin.
    • Imminent Chinese linguist Zhou Youguang has said that everyone’s mother tongue is a topolect, whereas China’s standard spoken language has long been the “teacher tongue.” 2007, Samuel Cole, “Learning Putonghua as an adult: a study of four Hong Kong teachers' experiences”, in The University of Hong Kong (Thesis), archived from the original on 02 Jun 2018:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
topolects Number=Plur lexicographic

Coordinates

see sociolect § Coordinate terms

Deriveds

topolectal · topolectology

Relateds

chronolect · dialect

Synonyms

regionalect · geolect · regiolect · regionalect · fangyan

Translations (10)

es topolecto (speech-form or lect of a particular place) · fr topolecte (speech-form or lect of a particular place) · ko 방언 (speech-form or lect of a particular place) · de Topolekt (speech-form or lect of a particular place) · ru фанъя́нь (speech-form or lect of a particular place) · ru тополе́кт (speech-form or lect of a particular place) · cmn 方言 (speech-form or lect of a particular place) · fi paikallismurre (speech-form or lect of a particular place) · ja 方言 (speech-form or lect of a particular place) · fi aluemurre (speech-form or lect of a particular place)