xenolect

X8E1N1O1L1E1C3T1

noun

A language variety that bears a superficial resemblance to another larger language, but which differs at a fundamental structural level.

Scrabble 17

Meanings

nounxenolect (plural xenolects)

plural xenolects

  1. A language variety that bears a superficial resemblance to another larger language, but which differs at a fundamental structural level.

    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
    2 more examples

    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

    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

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

xenolect. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xenolect

MLA

“xenolect.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xenolect. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “xenolect,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/xenolect.

Source: xenolect on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.