Dictionary

xenolect en · NOUN

Etymology

From xeno- + -lect.

Meanings

1. A language variety that bears a superficial resemblance to another larger language, but which differs at a fundamental structural level.
   • 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. 1989, Ofelia García, Ricardo Otheguy, English across Cultures. Cultures across English, →ISBN:
   • As a xenolect develops, it becomes mimolect, that is, a variety whose external appearance resembles that of another (Stewart, 1989: 263-280). 2009, Anna Maria D'Amore, Translating Contemporary Mexican Texts, →ISBN, page 110:
   • 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." 2006, H. Julia Eksner, Ghetto Ideologies, Youth Identities and Stylized Turkish German, →ISBN, page 101:

Forms

Deriveds

xenolectal · xenolectic