communalect

English edit

WOTD – 30 September 2023

Etymology edit

Probably from communa(l) +‎ -lect (suffix denoting a language variety).

Pronunciation edit

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kəˈmjuːnəˌlɛkt/
Audio (Southern England) (file)
(General American) IPA^(key): /kəˈmjunəˌlɛkt/
Hyphenation: com‧mun‧a‧lect

Noun edit

communalect (plural communalects)

(linguistics) Especially in Pacific linguistics: the lect (linguistic variety) spoken by a particular speech community.
Coordinate terms: regiolect, sociolect, topolect
- 1957 January, Harold Hickerson, Glen D. Turner, Nancy P. Hickerson, “Testing Procedures for Estimating Transfer of Information among Iroquois Dialects and Languages”, in C[harles] F[rederick] Voegelin, editor, International Journal of American Linguistics, volume XVIII, number 1, Chicago, Ill.: […] Indiana University under the auspices of Linguistic Society of America, American Anthropological Association with the cooperation of Joint Committee on American Native Languages, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, paragraph 0.2, page 1, column 2:
  The purpose of a six-week field trip in Ontario, Canada, and New York State was to employ the "test the informant" method, utilizing magnetic recording machinery, in determining the intelligibility relationships among seven Iroquois communalects: Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, Tuscarora, and Cherokee; […]
- 1971, Andrew Pawley, Timoci Sayaba, “Fijian Dialect Divisions: Eastern and Western Fijian”, in The Journal of the Polynesian Society‎^[1], volume 80, number 4, Auckland: Polynesian Society, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2020-01-28, pages 407–408:
  No one knows exactly how many Fijian communalects there are, but it is certain that the total number runs into the hundreds. Fijians have names for many of them, particularly where the communalect coincides with the speech of a single village, island or tikina, […]
- 2018, Ethan E. Cochrane, “Ancient Fiji: Melting Pot of the Pacific”, in Ethan E. Cochrane, Terry L. Hunt, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Oceania, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 200:
  Geographically contiguous communalects are often arranged into dialect chains, so that adjacent communalects share much in common, but communalects at either end of the chain may be quite different.

Alternative forms edit

communilect, communolect (both rare)

Translations edit

lect (linguistic variety) spoken by a particular community

Finnish: yhteisön kieli
Macedonian: ја́зик на зае́дница f (jázik na zaédnica)