The story
- Ancient Greekτόπος (tópos)
- Englishtopo-
- Proto-Indo-European*dwóh₁
- Proto-Indo-European*trísinflu.
- Proto-Indo-European*dwís
- Ancient Greekδιά (diá)
- Ancient Greekδῐᾰ- (dĭă-)
- Proto-Indo-European*leǵ-
- Proto-Indo-European*léǵ-e-ti
- Proto-Hellenic*légō
- Ancient Greekλέγω (légō)
- Ancient Greekδιαλέγομαι (dialégomai)
- Ancient Greekδῐᾰ́λεκτος (dĭắlektos)
- Latindialecto
- Middle Frenchdialecte
- Englishdialectbf.
- English todaytopolect
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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.