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dialect

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈdaɪ.əˌlɛkt/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French dialecte,[2][3][4] recorded in French from 1550 for a regional form of a language,[4] and directly borrowed from Latin dialectus (“local language, way of speaking, conversation”),[5][2][6][4] from Ancient Greek διάλεκτος (diálektos, “talk, conversation, speech; the language of a country, dialect”);[5][7][8] the OED counts the Greek word as a further direct source.[4] The Greek noun comes from διαλέγομαι (dialégomai, “to converse with each other, discuss, argue”),[5][2][8] formed from διά (diá, “across, between”) and λέγω (légō, “to speak”),[5][8][9][10] which Etymonline traces to Proto-Indo-European *leg- (“to collect, gather”), whose derivatives came to mean "to speak", to pick out words.[5][8] Klein explains the Greek verb as the middle voice of διαλέγω (dialégō, “to pick out, choose”).[7] Ayto groups the word with dialectic and dialogue, all resting on the notion of conversation.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dialectic, the art of logical disputation: the first record, about 1545 in a medical work by C. Langton, uses the word in this sense, now rare.[4][3][6] Barnhart dates an earlier sense "critical examination" to 1551,[2] and the Oxford Dictionary of English also says the word first denoted the art of investigating the truth of opinions.[11]

Semantic evolution

Ayto traces the Greek noun from "conversation, discourse" to "way of speaking" and finally "local speech".[9] In English the regional sense, a form of a language peculiar to a district, is recorded from 1566,[4][3] or from 1577 in Barnhart and the 1570s in Etymonline;[2][5] from 1579, in E.K.'s dedicatory epistle to Spenser's Shepheardes Calender, it also meant a manner of speaking peculiar to a person or group, an idiom or jargon,[4][6] used figuratively from 1614.[4] Johnson (1755) gave "the subdivision of a language", with the Attic, Doric, Ionic and Aeolic dialects of Greek as examples, and "style; manner of expression".[12] The older sense "dialectic" lasted from the mid 16th to the mid 18th century.[6] Newer technical uses are a local variant of the calls or song of a population of birds (1921) and a version of a programming language (1960).[4][6] A verb dialect, to speak a dialect, appears only in a glossary of 1881 and later dictionaries.[4] The adjective dialectal dates from the 19th century; dialectical had been used in that sense earlier, in the 18th century.[10][6]

Timeline

  • c. 1545 – dialectic, the art of disputation (now rare).[4][3]
  • 1550 – Middle French dialecte, a regional form of a language.[4]
  • 1551 – critical examination.[2]
  • 1566 – a regional variety of a language.[4][3]
  • 1577 – form of speech of a region or group, in Barnhart's dating.[2]
  • 1579 – the manner of speaking of a person or group; idiom.[4]
  • 1614 – figurative use.[4]
  • 1755 – Johnson defines it as a subdivision of a language.[12]
  • 1881 – a verb, to speak a dialect, in a glossary.[4]
  • 1921 – a local variant of the song or calls of a population of birds.[4]
  • 1960 – a version of a programming language.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A form of a language spoken in a particular region or by a particular social or occupational group, with its own vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation: Her grandparents spoke the coastal dialect at home.[13][3][4]
  2. Such a form regarded as nonstandard or inferior to the standard language.[13][4]
  3. The way of speaking typical of a person or group; idiom or jargon.[4][6]
  4. A local variant in the calls or song of a population of birds or other animals of one species.[4]
  5. (computing) A version of a programming language.[4][6]
  6. (obsolete, mid 16th–mid 18th century) dialectic.[6][3]

Word family

  • dialectal
  • dialectally
  • dialectologist
  • dialectology

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  10. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins