Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a variety of speech differing from the standard literary language or speech pattern of the culture in which it exists: Cockney is a dialect of English.
- n. A variety of language that with other varieties constitutes a single language of which no single variety is standard: the dialects of Ancient Greek.
- n. The language peculiar to the members of a group, especially in an occupation; jargon: the dialect of science.
- n. The manner or style of expressing oneself in language or the arts.
- n. A language considered as part of a larger family of languages or a linguistic branch. Not in scientific use: Spanish and French are Romance dialects.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Language; speech; mode of speech; manner of speaking.
- n. One of a number of related modes of speech, regarded as descended from a common original; a language viewed in its relation to other languages of the same kindred; the idiom of a district or class, differing from that of other districts or classes. Thus, the Scotch is a dialect of English; English is a dialect of the Germanic or Teutonic group; Germanic speech is an Aryan or Indo-European dialect. Of the various dialects of Greek —Attic, Ionic, Doric, Æolic, and so on —the Attic finally became the common dialect of all cultivated Greeks. Every literary language is originally one of a body of related dialects, to which favoring circumstances have given vogue and general acceptance.
- n. The idiom of a locality or class, as distinguished from the generally accepted literary language, or speech of educated people.
- n. 4 Dialectic; logic.
- To make dialectal.
Wiktionary
- n. A variety of a language (specifically, often a spoken variety) that is characteristic of a particular area, community or group, often with relatively minor differences in vocabulary, style, spelling and pronunciation.
- n. A dialect of a language perceived as substandard and wrong.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Means or mode of expressing thoughts; language; tongue; form of speech.
- n. The form of speech of a limited region or people, as distinguished from ether forms nearly related to it; a variety or subdivision of a language; speech characterized by local peculiarities or specific circumstances
WordNet 3.0
- n. the usage or vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people
Etymologies
- French dialecte, from Old French, from Latin dialectus, form of speech, from Greek dialektos, speech, from dialegesthai, to discourse, use a dialect : dia-, between, over; see dia- + legesthai, middle voice of legein, to speak; see leg- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“The second part of my reason for not writing these poems in dialect is the weightier.”
“OF what shall be said herein of dialect, let it be understood the term dialect referred to is of that general breadth of meaning given it to-day, namely, any speech or vernacular outside of the prescribed form of good English in its present state.”
“Assyrian tongue differed only in dialect from the Hebrew, but in the”
“Note that the a dialect is a distinctive usage of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.”
“Whether you call it a different language or a dialect is academic, all that is at issue here is whether a story told from a British point of view should be read/can be understood by Americans if presented as originally written.”
“First, although the dialect is the exact instrument for voicing certain traditional phases of Negro life, it is, and perhaps by that very exactness, a quite limited instrument.”
“A dialect is a variant within a language, and there's no hard and fast rule on when a dialect becomes a separate language (is Espanglish a dialect of English, of Spanish, or a separate language, por exemplo), but the point here is that a Tzotzil speaker is not using a "dialect" of Spanish, but a different language, from a different language family.”
Dialect and Language discussion - pulled from another thread . . .
“But most people reserve the word dialect for varieties of language that are seen as expressive and colorful, but illogical and illiterate.”
“It had better be one from the Jungle Book, or Just So Stories, not something written in Cockney dialect!”
The Wizard Of London
“Mandarin, the main Chinese dialect, is spoken by 726 million people in north-central China and Taiwan.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dialect’.
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Interpreters' Speak
team sheet, pivot language, team leader, mini-plenary, plenary week, mission order, AIC colleague, SCIC, mission, mike, adding a new lang..., language booth and 497 more...
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Language
word, sentence, novel, book, novella, vignette, memoir, anthology, paragraph, stanza, poem, haiku and 123 more...
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Basic Linguistics Terms
Words taught in an undergraduate linguistics class
jargon, slang, idiom, dialect, idiolect, in-group slang, linguistics, paradigmatic, syntagmatic, sign, Ferdinand de Saus..., markedness
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Word Words
Words that describe other words
adverb, verb, noun, adjective, pronoun, Synonym, antonym, phrase, dictionary, grammar, word, passage and 19 more...
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