low back merger

low back merger (plural low back mergers)

The low back merger is one possible outcome of a series of triggering events outlined in Chapter 5, but it is itself the triggering event for a variety of further consequences for the English vowel system.

1994, William Labov, Principles of Linguistic Change, volume 3:


Aleut

From Russian алеу́т (aleút), probably from a native word, perhaps Aleut allíthuh (“community”) or Chukchi aliat (“island”).

The language of the Aleutian Islands, related to Eskimo (Inupiaq and Yupik).


Old High German

Old Alemannic is a dialect of Old High German, which is traditionally divided into two main dialect groups: Old Upper German (Altoberdeutsch) and Old Franconian (Altfränkisch). Old Upper German comprises Old Alemannic (Altalemannisch) and Old Bavarian (Altbairisch) while Old Franconian consists of Old Mid Franconian (Altmittelfränkisch), Old Rhine Franconian (Altrheinfränkisch), Old South-Rhine Franconian (Altsüdrheinfränkisch), and Old East Franconian (Altostfränkisch).

2019, Javier Caro Reina, Central Catalan and Swabian: A study in the framework of the typology of syllable and word languages (series: Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, vol. 422, edited by Claudia Polzin-Haumann and Wolfgang Schweickard), p. 318

The early recorded form of the High German language, spoken from the 8th century to the 11th century.


Old High German

… one particular Old High German text. This text is the Ludwigslied, which is 59 lines long and was written in a special Old Franconian dialect in 881 or 882 after the battle of Saucourt; …

Herbert Penzl, Methods of textual linguistics and the old high German Ludwigslied, in: 1978, Mohammad Ali Jazayery, Edgar C. Polomé, Werner Winter (eds.), Linguistic and literary studies: In honor of Archibald A. Hill: III: Historical and comparative linguistics, p. 163ff., here p. 163

Concerning the Old High German language.


Kare

Kare Narain Pathak (born 1941), Indian theoretical condensed-matter physicist


Kare

A language in the Mabuso subfamily of Central Madang languages, spoken in the Hansemann Range of Papua New Guinea.

Kare

Mabuso (Central Madang) language spoken in the Hansemann Mountains, PNG


Mordvin

A branch of the Finno-Ugric language group.


Komi

An endonym, used by the Finno-Permic Komi people to refer to themselves, probably through Russian коми (komi). See Komi-Zyrian коми (komi) for further etymology.

A Finno-Ugric language currently spoken by 200,000 to 400,000 people, depending on source and definition of "speaker", in northeastern European part of Russia.

A republic of Russia. Official name: Komi Republic.


Komi

In 1376 he set out to establish his mission among the Komi people of the Perm’ region, and achieved enough success for the Metropolitan to make him bishop […].

2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, page 519:

A member of an ethnic group chiefly consisting of Komi speakers and descendants of Komi speakers who don't speak the language.


Mansi

Borrowed from Northern Mansi Ма̄ньси (Mānʹsi).

bor+

The languages of the other three branches – Mansi, Khanty and Samoyed – are or were spoken in Siberia, but the area of Tundra Nenets in the Samoyed branch extends to the west of the Ural mountains, and the area of Southern Mansi also originally covered parts of Europe.

2010, Christopher Moseley, editor, Atlas of the world's languages in danger:

The Uralic language spoken by these people, now more often considered a group of closely related languages.


Khanty

From Northern Khanty хӑнты (hănty, “Khanty person; Khanty (adj.)”), Southern Khanty хӑнтӛ (hăntjə, “Khanty person; man”), Eastern Khanty кӑнтӛг яг (kăntjəg jag, “Khanty people”), presumably from Proto-Uralic *kunta (“clan, kin, community”).

der

related to Khanty people or their language


Khanty

Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug
Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug

A member of an indigenous ethnic group living in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Russia.

խանտի

member of an ethnic group — see also Ostyak


Khanty

The Ob-Ugric language spoken by these people, now more often considered a group of closely related languages.


Nenets

The Samoyedic languages spoken by these people.


Nganasan

The Samoyedic language spoken by these people.


Selkup

the Samoyedic language spoken by these people.


Seneca

Seneca
Seneca language
Seneca people
Seneca the Younger

From Dutch Sennecaas, from Algonquian (probably Mahican [Term?]).

The Iroquoian language of the Seneca people.

A number of places in the United States, including:

Green Lake County
Green Lake County#English


Japanglish

English words that have been co-opted into Japanese vernacular, often incorrectly.

English terms or names that have been localized for Japanese use.


Capeverdean Crioulo

A creole language spoken in Cape Verde and divided into Santo Antão, São Vicente, São Nicolau, Sal, Boa Vista, Maio, Santiago, Fogo and Brava creoles.


Lycian

An extinct Indo-European language in the Anatolian group.


Dakota

en-proper noun

Dakota (countable and uncountable, plural Dakotas)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Dakota.wav

'Montana?' I said. 'You can't call a kid Montana'―these friends of mine were going to call their new baby girl Montana and I tried to talk them out of it, because I'm sick of Australians naming their kids after American placenames, I'm sick of all these Montanas and Delawares and Indianas and Dallases. You'd never hear it the other way around; you're not going to hear about an American kid called Warrnambool or Kooweerup― [- - -] and they said,'Okay okay, we won't call her Montana.' So they called her Dakota.

2002, Danny Katz, Dork Geek Jew, Allen & Unwin, published 2002, →ISBN, page 12:

A unisex given name transferred from the place name.


Saraiki

From Saraiki سرائیکی (sarā'īkī), further etymology is disputed. There are multiple interpretations of this name's origin:
* From Sindhi سِرو (siro, “up-river, north”).
* From Sanskrit सौवीर (sauvīra, “Sauvira”).

unc

further etymology is disputed.

The Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Saraiki people.


Late Latin

As with English, Latin also has historical periods. These are broken into Early Latin (240–70BC); the Golden Age (70BC–AD14); the Silver Age (AD14–130); Late Latin (2nd–6th century); and then Medieval Latin or Low Latin (6th–15th centuries). ]

[ 2007, elizabeth solopova, stuart d. lee, Key Concepts in Medieval Literature, section 2 Old English, sub-section (b) Anglo-Latin Writing

The form of the Latin language used between the 2nd/3rd and 6th centuries.


Biblical Latin

Late Latin, as used in translations and commentaries on the Bible, influenced by biblical Greek and Hebrew.


Mummerset

Blend of mummer (“actor in a pantomime”) + Somerset (“county in the west of England”).

Mummersetin murre

An imaginary rural county in the West Country of England.

Mummerset

(often theater) An invented English-language dialect used by actors that mimics a stereotypical West Country rural accent.


Dhivehi

An Indo-Aryan language, the official language of the Republic of Maldives.


Silesian

(uncountable) Lower Silesian, a Germanic language or dialect spoken in southwestern parts of what is now Poland (Lower Silesia).

Slezská němčina

Germanic language or dialect — see also Lower Silesian

(uncountable) Upper Silesian, a West Slavic language spoken in southwestern parts of Poland and the Czech Republic.


Hellenistic Greek

See Hellenistic, from Ancient Greek Ἑλληνιστής (Hellēnistḗs, “a user of the Greek language”).

calque

Synonym of Koine (the Greek language from the time of Alexander the Great)


Katharevousa

/ˌkaθəˈɹɛvuːsə/

/ˌkɑθəˈɹɛvusɑ/

/ˌkɑθəˈɹɛvəsɑ/

From Greek καθαρεύουσα (katharévousa), feminine of καθαρεύων (katharévon), present participle of Ancient Greek καθαρεύω (kathareúō, “to be clean, pure”).

der

‘You read the poetry of Cavafy, I have taught you to speak Katharevousa and Italian.’

1994, Louis de Bernières, Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Minerva, published 1995, page 87:

A year later, after much deliberation and public discussion, an act of parliament established that demotic Greek was to replace the hybrid katharevousa as the official language of education – and therefore, in practice, in most walks of life (exceptions are the Church and law).

2019, Roderick Beaton, Greece: Biography of a Modern Nation, Penguin, published 2020, page 345:

A learned, archaising form of Modern Greek, based on Classical Greek and used for formal and official purposes; it was legally displaced as the official language of Greece in 1976 by Demotic Greek.


Phrygian

/ˈfɹɪ.d͡ʒɪ.ən/

From Latin Phrygiānus + English -an (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’ forming adjectives). Phrygianus is derived from Phrygia + -ānus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’); and Phrygia is from Ancient Greek Φρῠγῐ́ᾱ (Phrŭgĭ́ā, “region in Anatolia”), from Φρῠ́ξ (Phrŭ́x, “person from Phrygia”) (further etymology unknown, possibly from Phrygian or related to Proto-Indo-European *bʰerǵʰ- (“to ascend, rise up; to be elevated, up high”)) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns).


Middle High German

Concerning the Middle High German language.


Provençal

/ˌpɹɒvɑːnˈsɑːl/

/ˌpɹɒvənˈsɑːl/

/ˌpɹɒvɒnˈsɑːl/

From Middle French provenceal, provençal, from Latin prōvinciālis.

(loosely, dated in linguistics) The language spoken in Provence; Occitan.


Savoyard

The dialect spoken in Savoy (Savoie and Haute-Savoie in France, canton of Valais in Switzerland, and in the Italian region of Aosta).


Old Norse

The language of Scandinavia until the 14th century, the common ancestor of modern Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic.


Classical Latin

The Latin language as spoken and written in formal speeches, literature, the arts, etc., by the ancient Romans.

لَاتِينِيَّة كْلَاسِيكِيَّة

Latin language as spoken and written formally


Aromanian

/æɹəʊˈmeɪnɪən/

From Romanian aromân; itself from armân. Ultimately from Aromanian armãn.

Of, from, or pertaining to the Aromanian people or the Aromanian language.

arumun

relating to Aromanians or the Aromanian language


Aromanian

/æɹəʊˈmeɪnɪən/

A member of the people living throughout the southern Balkans, especially in northern Greece, southern and central Albania, parts of North Macedonia, southwestern Bulgaria and Serbia; they are a subgroup of Vlachs.


Aromanian

/æɹəʊˈmeɪnɪən/

An endangered Eastern Romance language spoken mainly in Greece, but also in Albania, North Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia and relatively intelligible with Romanian and Megleno-Romanian.


Miskito

From Spanish Mosquito, and its source, Miskito Miskito, of unknown origin.


Tetum

From Portuguese tétum, from Tetum Tetun.

The Malayo-Polynesian national language of East Timor.


Gascon Occitan

A dialect of the Occitan language spoken in parts of southern France and northern Spain.


Jèrriais

A Romance language spoken in Jersey, one of the Channel Islands.


Sercquiais

From French sercquiais, from Sercq (“Sark”).

A language spoken on Sark, one of the Channel Islands.


Auregnais

An extinct Norman dialect once spoken on Alderney, one of the Channel Islands.


Guernésiais

A Romance language spoken in Guernsey; Guernsey Norman.


Muskogee

A city, the county seat of Muskogee County, Oklahoma, United States.


Choctaw

An unincorporated community in Bolivar County, Mississippi.

An unincorporated community in Neshoba County, Mississippi.

A city in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma; suburb of Oklahoma City.


Shelta

Uncertain. Some theories include words derived from the Irish word Irish siúl (walk), or a corruption of the word Celt.

(Ireland) A language spoken by some Irish Travellers, particularly in Ireland, but also in Britain, which has been heavily influenced by English and Irish and is now effectively a cant or creole, though some scholars think it may have originated as and may retain elements of a non-Irish, non-English language.


Cimmerian

/sɪˈmɪəɹ.ɪ.ən/

From the Latin Cimmerius, from Ancient Greek Κιμμέριος (Kimmérios, “pertaining to the Cimmerii”) + -an.

the language of the Cimmerians, possibly belonging to the Iranian branch


Dacian

From Dacia + -an, from Latin Dacia (“Dacia”).

An extinct Indo-European language spoken by the people of Dacia.


Ndonga

A Bantu language spoken by the residents of Ovamboland in Namibia and in some parts of Angola.


Sorani

The Kurdish language spoken by the majority of Kurds in Iran and Iraq.


Burushaski

Borrowed from Burushaski بروشسکی (burū́šaskī).

bor+

A language of northwestern Kashmir, not known to be related to any other language.


Cassubian

en-adj

Cassubian (comparative more Cassubian, superlative most Cassubian)

more Cassubian (comparative)
most Cassubian (superlative)


Hottentot

Borrowed from Dutch Hottentot, its first known use in Dutch being in the 1650s. The third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary concluded in 2008 that hottentot came into English in the seventeenth century. But it finds that no definitive etymology of Dutch hottentot can so far be given:
A very large number of different etymologies for the name have been suggested ... The most frequently repeated suggestion ... is that the word was a spec. use of a formally identical Dutch word meaning ‘stammerer, stutterer’, which came to be applied to the Khoekhoe and San people on account of the clicks characteristic of their languages. However, evidence for the earlier general use appears to be lacking. Another frequent suggestion is that the people were so named after one or more words which early European visitors to southern Africa heard in chants accompanying dances of the Khoekhoe or San ... but the alleged chant is rendered in different ways in different 17th-cent. sources, and some of the accounts may be based on hearsay rather than first-hand knowledge.
It does seem clear, however, that hottentot was an exonym, that is, not the Khoikhoi's own name for themselves but rather a foreign term applied to them.

Ive tried her with every […] possible sort of sound that a human being can make— […] Continental dialects, African dialects, Hottentot […] clicks, things it took me years to get hold of; and […] she picks them up like a shot, right away, as if she had […] been at it all her life.

1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act III, pages 157–158:

The language of the Khoekhoe, remarkable for its clicks.

khoi

language of the Khoekhoe — see also Khoekhoe


Papiamentu

A Creole language spoken on the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire.


Idiom Neutral

An artificial language, created by Waldemar Rosenberger in 1902, partially derived from Volapük, with a vocabulary consistently selected on the basis of the maximum internationality of the roots.


Tsakonian

A Hellenic language spoken in Tsakonia, a part of the Peloponnese region of Greece.


Setswana

A language spoken widely in Southern Africa, mainly in Botswana and South Africa in the Northern Cape, the central and western Free State and in the North West province, and also, to a lesser extent, in Namibia, also known as Tswana.


Tsimshian

A member of a Native American people who inhabited the coastal waters of western British Columbia and southeast Alaska.


Tsonga

The Bantu language spoken by these people.


Hittite

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-Hittite.wav

From Biblical Hebrew חִתִּי (ḥittî), from Hittite 𒄩𒋾 (ḫati), perhaps ultimately an exonym related to Hatti. In reference to the Indo-European-speaking people of Asia Minor (as opposed to the Biblical Hittites), this term was first used in the early 20th century in confusion with the neighboring Hattites (Hattic) whose language was recorded in discovered texts as [script needed] (ḫattili). It is now known that the Hittites called themselves 𒉈𒋗𒈨𒉌𒌍 (ne-šu-me-né-eš /nešumeneš/, “people from the city of Nesha”), hence the much less used alternative name Nesite or Neshite.

The study of the main body of Hittite texts was intrusted^([sic]) to the Austrian scholar Hrozny, who in 1915 published a preliminary account of his results[…]

1920, Carl D. Buck, “Hittite an Indo-European Language?”, in Classical Philology, volume 15, number 2, →DOI, page 185:

An ancient Indo-European language of the Anatolian branch, attested from the 16th century BC until the 13th century BC.


Slovenian

en-noun

Slovenian (countable and uncountable, plural Slovenians)

Slovene (from German, from Slovene) + -ian.

(uncountable) The official language of Slovenia.


Punic

From Latin Pūnicus, variant of Poenicus, from Poenus + -icus, from Ancient Greek Φοῖνιξ (Phoînix), from Mycenaean Greek 𐀡𐀛𐀑𐀍 (po-ni-ki-jo) under influence from φοινός (phoinós, “crimson red”) owing to its relation to Tyrian purple, apparently from or cognate with Egyptian fnḫw (“Asiatics, Semites”), f:n:x-w-V12:Z2. Equivalent to a modified Phoenician + -ic.


Sabellian

From Latin Sabellus + -ian, pertaining to the Sabellī, an Italic tribe, from Proto-Italic *saβn- (whence also Samnium, Samnones, Sabus, Sabīnus), perhaps from an uncertain Proto-Indo-European root, sometimes identified with the reflexive pronoun *swé (“self”) for the assumed meaning “one's own” (compare Proto-Germanic *swēbaz for a similar etymology), but this is highly suspect on phonetic grounds.

A certain language once spoken in Umbria, Italy.


Erzya

en-proper noun

Erzya (countable and uncountable, plural Erzyas)

A Finno-Ugric language spoken primarily in the Volga region of Russia, but is also spoken in Azerbaijan, Estonia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.


Dalmatian

An extinct Romance language that was once spoken in Dalmatia.


Korean English

A dialect of the English language that is chiefly spoken in the Republic of Korea. Compare British English, American English.


Konglish

He stands back and witnesses with awe the language’s myriad offshoots, like Manglish (Malay and English) and Konglish (English in South Korea).

2010 May 25, Dwight Garner, “English as a Juggernaut Conquers the World With Glee and an OMG”, in New York Times:

(derogatory) Any of various varieties of Korean English having distinctive lexis, syntax and phonology.


Scottish English

A variety of the English language that is spoken mostly in Scotland.


Votic

From Vote + -ic, named after the Votes who speak it.

A nearly extinct Finno-Ugric language spoken in Ingria.


Ossetian

The Eastern Iranian language spoken by these people.


Western Apache

The Southern Athabascan language spoken by the Western Apache people.


Jicarilla

Borrowed from Spanish jicarilla, diminutive of jícara, from Nahuatl xicalli.

An Athabascan language spoken by the Jicarilla people.


Chiricahua

Via Spanish Chiricahua, most likely from Opata chiguicagui (“mountain of the wild turkey”).


Yugambeh

An Australian aboriginal language, spoken by peoples living on what is roughly now the Gold Coast in South East Queensland.


Proto-Greek

The earliest form of the Greek language, the common ancestor of the Greek dialects, including Mycenaean and the classical Greek dialects.


Betawi

Borrowed from Indonesian Betawi. Doublet of Batavia and Passau.

The Betawi language, a native language spoken by the Betawi people.

basè Betawi

Language spoken by the Betawi ethnic group


Kölsch

The Germanic/German dialect spoken in and around Cologne, Germany, part of the Ripuarian language area


Tamazight

Borrowed from Central Atlas Tamazight ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ (tamaziɣt), the feminine form of ⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖ (amaziɣ).
The construction ⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖ (maziɣ) suggests that is an ancient verbal adjective of the Proto-Berber verb *MZƔ "to be noble", attested in Tamazight mmuzeɣ (“to be prestigious”) and Tamajeq mujeɣ (“to be noble, brave”).
This has caused some authors to translate Tamazight as "the noble language". In any case, ⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖ (maziɣ) is an ethnonym for the Amazigh people today, and it has been historically the case for a number of Amazigh groups in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya and under variant forms amongst the Tuareg. Tamazight is, naturally, the name of the language of the Imazighen.

bor

The continuum of closely-related Amazigh languages spoken in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, and other parts of northern Africa.

A specific continuum of mutually intelligible dialects spoken mainly by the Imazighen of the Middle Atlas and High Atlas regions in Morocco.


Tausug

Borrowed from Tausug Tausūg, from tau + sūg, literally "people of the current".

A Visayan language (Malayo-Polynesian) spoken mainly in Sulu province in the Philippines, eastern Sabah in Malaysia and North Kalimantan in Indonesia.


Norman French

Some of us can preach, in English-Saxon, in Norman French, and even in Monk-Latin; others cannot in any language or jargon, being stupid.

1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, chapter VI, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk), page 67:

A dialect of Old French spoken in medieval Normandy, and in England following the Norman Conquest.


Salish

Synonym of Salishan; Of or relating to the Salish people or their languages.


Qatabanian

the extinct Old South Arabian language of the Qatabanians

قَتَبَانِيّة

the extinct OSA languages of the Qatabanians


Qashqai

From Persian قشقایی, from the name in Qashqai, قشقایی.


Q-Celtic

Due to these languages retaining the phoneme /*kʷ/, as opposed to P-Celtic in which it changed to /*p/.

More generally, any Celtic language (such as Celtiberian) where Proto-Celtic *kʷ became [k] or remained as [kʷ]


Quapaw

The Dhegihan language spoken by these people.


Abkhaz

A Northwest Caucasian language spoken in Abkhazia.

аԥсуа

a Northwest Caucasian language spoken in Abkhazia


Acholi

A Nilo-Saharan language spoken primarily by this people, in the districts of Gulu, Kitgum and Pader, a region known as Acholiland in northern Uganda.


Adangme

A Niger-Congo language spoken in southeastern Ghana.

Dangme

a Niger-Congo language spoken in southeastern Ghana


Afrihili

Blend of Africa + Swahili, coined in 1970.

constructed language
constructed language

A constructed language designed to be used as a lingua franca in all of Africa.


Miwok

Miwok means "the people" in the native Utian language.

The Utian (Penutian) languages spoken by these groups.


Kansa

From a Siouan ethnonym; related to Kansas and Arkansas, see the latter for more information.


Guugu Yimidhirr

/ˌɡuɡu ˈjɪmədʒɪə/

The Pama-Maric Australian Aboriginal suffixing language spoken by those people.


Sundanese

Sunda may originate from Sanskrit, in which case it may mean either “light” or “water”.

The abugida used to write the Sundanese language.


Minoan

Sir Arthur Evans, not knowing the Minoan term for “Minoan” at the time, coined this name in the early 20th century, from Ancient Greek Μίνως (Mínōs), the mythical king of Crete. The actual name is probably reflected in Egyptian kftjw (perhaps reconstructible as *Káftayu) and Biblical Hebrew כַּפְתּוֹר (Kaftor, “Caphthor”).


Hiberno-English

/hɪˈbɜːnəʊ ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/

/haɪˈbɜːnəʊ ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/

/haɪˈbɝnoʊ ˈɪŋɡlɪʃ/

The set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland, including both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.


Forro

São Tomé and Príncipe
São Tomé and Príncipe

A creole language spoken in São Tomé and Príncipe.


Northern Sami

The most widely spoken Sami language; it is spoken in northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland. It includes three dialects: Torne, Finnmark and Sea Sami.


Twi

She kept her eyes low, and though her Twi was passable, she rarely spoke it.

2016, Yaa Gyasi, Homegoing, Penguin Books (2017), page 35:

A dialect of the Akan language, spoken in Ghana in West Africa.


Tz'utujil

en-noun

Tz'utujil (plural Tz'utujils or Tz'utujil)

From Spanish, from Tz'utujil, from tz'utuj (“cornfield flower”) + -il (a suffix that indicates abstraction). Literally it means “beautiful cornfield flower”.

A member of a Native American people, one of the 21 Maya ethnic groups that dwell in Guatemala, primarily around Lake Atitlan.


Nide

a Polynesian language spoken in Vanuatu.


Lusatian

The Slavic language spoken by the Lusatian people, closely related to Czech.


Veps

The Veps language, spoken by the Vepses, belonging to the Finnic group of the Finno-Ugric languages.


Ursprache

/ˈʊəspɹɑːkə/

/ˈuːɹʃpɹaːxə/

Unadapted borrowing from German Ursprache.

ubor

I had lost him. He might have been speaking Ursprache, for all that I understood.


Mycenaean

Of or relating to the Ancient Greek dialect written in the Linear B syllabary.


Zaum

From Russian за́умь (záumʹ, literally “nonsense”).

bor

(literature) Linguistic experiments in sound symbolism and language creation, associated with futurist poets of the Russian Empire.


Pangasinan

From Spanish Pangasinán, from Pangasinan Pangasinan.

A province of the Ilocos Region, Luzon, Philippines. Capital: Lingayen. Largest city: San Carlos.


Wyandot

Synonym of Wyandots; a Native American people.

The now-extinct Iroquoian language of this people.

An unincorporated community in Wyandot County, Ohio, United States

A placename:
Ellipsis of Wyandot County.


Zhuang

The language of these people, belonging to the Tai language group.


Romani

From Romani romani, feminine form of romano (“of or pertaining to the Roma”), from rom (“man”). See also Roma.
Not related to Romanian.

The Romani have long been discriminated against.

A member of the Roma, a nomadic people with origins in India.


Koch

A language of Meghalaya (India), Assam, Tripura, Manipur, West Bengal, Bihar, and Bangladesh.


Saanich

A member of a Native American people from British Columbia.


Saanich

Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island#English

British Columbia
British Columbia#English

A district municipality on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, named for the Saanich people.


Gamilaraay

/ɡəˈmɪlərɔɪ/

From Gamilaraay Gamilaraay (“having not”), from gamil (“not”) and -(b)araay (“having”). Other dialects and languages were similarly named after their respective words for no, e.g. the Wailwan say wayil.

The extinct Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal suffixing language, within the Wiradjuric group, formerly spoken by these people.


Garifuna

From Garifuna garifuna, from Kalinago karifuna, from Proto-Cariban *karipona (“person”).


Bhalavali Bhasha

An Indian language spoken in the two districts of the state of Karnataka, namely Dakshina Kannada district (with Mangalore as its head-quarters) and Kodagu. It is a form of Marathi that has been heavily influenced by Kannada, Tulu, and other Dravidian languages.


Pilipino

From Tagalog Pilipino, from Spanish filipino.

(dated) The former name of the national language of the Philippines, now officially Filipino.


Chinook

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Chinook.wav

Chinook Jargon
Chinook, Montana
Chinookan languages
Columbia river

From Lower Chehalis c̓inúk (the name of a Chinook village on the Columbia river).

The Missionary's address rolled on in choppy Chinook, undertoned by a gentle voice from the back of the room which told Tanook in pure Indian words what he was to do.

1941, Emily Carr, chapter 1, in Klee Wyck:

Chinook Jargon, a pidgin trade language of the Pacific Northwest composed primarily of words from Chinook proper, English, and French, with some borrowings from other languages.


Old Prussian

An extinct Baltic language, once spoken by the Old Prussians, the indigenous peoples of the historical region of Prussia (now north-eastern Poland, the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia and Lithuania).

պրուսերեն

the Old Prussian language — see also Prussian


New Prussian

(rare) The modern reconstruction of the Old Prussian language, spoken by pilot communities in Lithuania, Poland, and elsewhere.


Vascon

Derived from Latin Vascones; the name may have originally been borrowed through Spanish vascón, vasco. Doublet of Gascon.


Ainu

From Japanese アイヌ (Ainu), from Ainu アイヌ (aynu, “person”).

The endangered language spoken by the Ainu ethnic group, generally considered a language isolate with no known relation to other languages.


Kinyarwanda

The dialect Rwanda of the Rwanda-Rundi language.


Mapudungun

From Mapudungun mapu(n) (“earth, land”) + dungun (“speak, speech”).

A language isolate spoken in Chile and Argentina by the Mapuche people.


Warlpiri

A widespread Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal language, mainly spoken in the central region of the Northern Territory.


Tshiluba

Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo

A Bantu language spoken by about 6.3 million people in the Kasaï Occidental and Kasaï Oriental provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


Maléku Jaíka

An indigenous language of the Chibchan family, with about 750 speakers in the north of Costa Rica.


Kamilaroi

/kəˈmɪlərɔɪ/


Gusii

The Bantu language spoken in this tribe.


Gweno

The Bantu language spoken by this tribe.


Bondei

a language spoken in the Usambara Mountains of Tanzania


Brahui

Borrowed from Persian براهویی / браҳуӣ, from Baluchi براهوئی, ultimately from Saraiki براہوئی (brāho'ī).

der

Baluchi براهوئی


Bena

Various place names, etymology shown individually if known.

An unincorporated community in Kern County, California, United States.


Assyrian

From Assur, the original capital city of Assyria.

Assyrian Neo-Aramaic
Assyrian Neo-Aramaic

Any Syriac language spoken by Assyrian peoples, particularly Assyrian Neo-Aramaic.

آشُورِيّ

any Syriac language spoken by Assyrian peoples


Badiu

Borrowed from Kabuverdianu badiu, from Portuguese vadio (“vagrant”).

The Cape Verdean Crioulo language spoken on Santiago Island of Cape Verde. It belongs to the Sotavento branch of Crioulo.


Bádiu

The Capeverdean Crioulo language spoken on Santiago Island of Cape Verde. It belongs to the Sotavento branch of Crioulo.


Alemannic

/ˌælɪˈmænɪk/

/ˌæləˈmænɪk/

From Latin Alemannicus, from Latin Alemannī (“the confederation of German tribes related to Suebi who lived near the upper reaches of the Danube”), from Proto-Germanic *Alamanniz, corresponding to *allaz + *mann-.

A language or dialect group, belonging to the High German dialects, spoken in certain parts of South Germany, in Alsace (France), Vorarlberg (Austria), Switzerland and Liechtenstein.


Darkinjung

No. 4 represents the country occupied by the tribes speaking the Darkinung, Wannerawa, Warrimee, Wannungine, Dharrook and some other dialects.

1898, R. H. Mathews, “Initiation in Australian Tribes”, in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society Held at Philadelphia for Promoting Useful Knowledge, volume 37:

The Darkiñung speaking people adjoined the Kamilaroi on the south-east and occupied a considerable range of country in the counties of Hunter, Northumberland and Cook, extending from Wilberforce and Wiseman’s Ferry on the Hawkesbury river, to Jerry’s Plains and Singleton on the Hunter, and including the basins of the Colo and Macdonald rivers, Wollombi Brook and other streams.

1903, R. H. Mathews, “Languages of the Kamilaroi and other Aboriginal tribes of New South Wales”, in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, volume 33:

Aboriginal languages spoken in the settled areas of the Cumberland Plain, which lies to the east of the Blue Mountains in the immediate vicinity of Syndey, included speakers of Dharuk, Iyora, Guringgai, Dharawal, Gundungura, Darkinyung and Awabakal.

1996, Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas:

Four languages are recognised as being spoken across the study area at contact: Darginyung, Guringai, Dharuk and Dharawal.

Old materials on O1, Dharuk, give 1du as ŋala or ŋalu and there is no explanation for the final vowel (note, though, that ŋali is found in the closely related language O2, Darkinjung).

2002, R. M. W. Dixon, Australian Languages: Their Nature and Development:

(linguistics) The extinct language of the people of that region.


Fon

A language of Benin and Togo, specifically, in the southern regions corresponding to the former kingdom of Dahomey. Also known as Fongbe or Fɔngbe, it is part of the Gbe family of West African languages.


Ntuzu

A Bantu language, a dialect of Nyamwezi.


Palauan

A language spoken in the Pacific, in the Republic of Palau. It is a member of the Austronesian family of languages, and is considered to be one of two languages in Micronesia belonging to the Western Austronesian group, all others considered to be members of the Oceanic subgroup.


Arrernte

A Pama-Nyungan language or group of related languages and dialects spoken by these people.


Catawba

From catawba, as the tree was the people's totem.

There was a Catawba brave who took some pottery [to another tribe] to trade for bows and arrows. This chief [of the other tribe] had a beautiful daughter, and the Catawba brave fell in love with her, and she likewise fell in love with him. When the Catawba brave left, she asked her father for a bow and arrow. She shot it in the air in the direction the brave went, and then she went to get it. She kept shooting it in the air until she caught up with him.

1970, a Catawba origin story, told and retold by various individuals, and printed by Charles M. Hudson in his book The Catawba Nation

A member of a Native American people who inhabit the Carolinas: the Iswa.

The basic material for sherry is a mixture or a blend of dry wines from Niagaras, Delawares, and Catawbas or other white juices, which are sweetened and fortified and then blended with California sherry.

1950, Peter John Valaer, Wines of the world:

(plural "Catawbas") A reddish American dessert grape.


Catawba

The now-extinct language of this people.

Cornwallis finally moved after Morgan's men. Left behind to cover the fords and delay the British, North Carolina general William Lee Davidson and a few men were killed as the British poured across Cowan's Ford. Once the British crossed the Catawba, the Americans had to get past another river, the Yadkin beyond Salisbury.

1998, Lawrence E. Babits, A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens:

A river in the Carolinas which rises in the Blue Ridge Mountains and flows approximately 220 miles (350 km) before joining the Wateree River and ultimately flowing into the Atlantic.


Wiradjuri

Mr. Günther’s and Mr. Watson’s treat of the same language, the Wīrādhurri, or, as some aborigines pronounce it, Wīrāgĕrĕ, a language spoken over a wide extent of country, from the Upper Namoi, the Castlereagh and Liverpool Plains in the north and east, to the Bawun or Darling west, and the Lachlan in the south. [...] I suppose this “Northerumberland dialect” was not spoken over more than one-fiftieth of the extent of country over which Wiradhuri or Kamilaroi is known.

1873, William Ridley, “Australian Languages and Traditions”, in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, volume 2:

The Wirradhuri dialect, or as I call it, the Wirádhari, covers the whole heart of N. S. Wales; [...]

1892, John Fraser, An Australian Language:

The native tribes speaking the Wiradyuri language occupy an immense region in the central and southern portions of New South Wales.

1904, R. H. Mathews, “The Wiradyuri and other languages of New South Wales”, in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, volume 34:

We can recognise Wiradhurri and Ngiyambaa as constituting a branch within the subgroup, [...]

The Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal suffixing language spoken by the Wiradjuri.


Kiseri

A Bantu language of Tanzania, one of the Chaga dialects.


Kisi

An African language of the Bantu family spoken in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.


Datiwuy

An aboriginal people from Arnhem Land, Australia.


Duwal

A group of languages spoken by these people.


Diyari

/ˈdiːjɑːɹiː/


Turan

From Classical Persian توران (tūrān), originally meaning "the Land of Tur".

Light was happiness; and the people of Iran, the land of light, were the favourites of heaven; while those of Turan, the gloomy region beyond the mountains to the north, were its enemies.

1828, Thomas Keightley, The Fairy Mythology, volume I, London: William Harrison Ainsworth, page 25:

(historical) A region of Central Asia, originally populated by Iranian Central Asian nomads; later, Iranians came to identify Turkic neighbours as Turanians.


Singlish

(Singapore, linguistics) A highly colloquial or basilectal variety of Singapore English incorporating much Hokkien and Malay lexis.


Abanyom

A Bantoid language of the Ekoid subfamily of Niger-Congo, spoken primarily in Nigeria.


Abaza

From Abaza абаза (abaza). See Russian абазин (abazin) for more.

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles

Oxford University Press
w:Oxford University Press

A Northwest Caucasian language spoken in the Russian autonomous republic of Karachay-Cherkessia, in the Caucasus Mountains, as well as in Turkey.


Abujmaria

A Dravidian dialect of the Maria language spoken in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh provinces in India.


Acehnese

A Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia.


Ashkun

An Indo-Iranian language spoken primarily in the Pech Valley of Afghanistan.


Badaga

A Dravidian language spoken primarily in the Nilgri Hills of southern India.


Badeshi

An Indo-Iranian language, spoken primarily in the Northern provinces of Pakistan.


Basaa

A Bantu language, spoken primarily in the Centre and Littoral provinces of Cameroon.


Bezhta

A North Caucasian language, spoken primarily in southern Dagestan, Russia.


Bhili

A Central Indo-Aryan language spoken in west-central India.


Bhojpuri

Transliteration of Bhojpuri भोजपुरी (bhōjᵊpurī).

translit

An Indo-Aryan language, spoken primarily in India, Mauritius, Nepal, Fiji, Surinam, Trinidad and Tobago, and Guyana.


Angika

An Indo-Aryan language, spoken primarily in India, Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Malaysia.


Konkani

der

Hindi कोंकणी (kõkṇī)

An Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Konkan region of India.


Magadhi

From Hindi मगधीय (magdhīya, “relating to South Bihar”), from Sanskrit मगध (magadha, “Magadha”), a kingdom in southern Bihar.

An Indo-Aryan language, spoken primarily in the Bihar and Jharkhand states of India.


Caluyanon

A Visayan language spoken in the Caluya Islands, Antique in the Philippines.


Chenoua

A Berber language spoken around Mt. Chenoua in Tipasa, Algeria.


Chhattisgarhi

Borrowed from Chhattisgarhi छत्तीसगढ़ी (chattīsagṛhī).

bor+

An Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh.


Chittagonian

Cox's Bazar District
Cox's Bazar District

A language spoken in the Chittagong District and Cox's Bazar District of south-eastern Bangladesh as well as neighbouring areas in India and Myanmar, often treated as a dialect of Bengali.


Dahlik

A Semitic language spoken in the Dahlak Archipelago of Eritrea.


Dameli

A Dardic language spoken by the people of the valley of Damil-Nasar of Pakistan.


Dogri

An Indo-Aryan language, spoken primarily in Jammu region, parts of Himachal Pradesh & parts of Northern Punjab in India and Pakistan.


Dolgan

A Turkic people, who inhabit the Taymyria region in the Krasnoyarsk Krai (Красноя́рский край) in Russia.


Dolgan

Cognate of Dolhan, Douhan, Dovgan, Dovhan, and Dowhan. Compare Kovtun / Koltun. See l-vocalization.


Domaaki

An Indo-European language spoken in northern Pakistan.


Ekoti

A Bantu language spoken in the Nampula province of Mozambique.


Classical Sanskrit

A codified form of Sanskrit spoken in ancient India.


Vedic Sanskrit

The earliest and most archaic form of Sanskrit, as used in the Vedas.


Gooniyandi

An alternate name for Gunian (a Bunaban Australian Aboriginal prefixing language spoken at Fitzroy Crossing in the north of Western Australia).


Dhatki

An Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of India and Pakistan.


Bhutani

The language of the aforementioned people.


Bihari

(uncountable) A group of Indo-Aryan languages spoken in Bihar and the surrounding states in India.


Hangaza

A dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language of Tanzania.


Hiligaynon

From Hiligaynon Hiligaynon, from Spanish hiligaino + Hiligaynon -non, where Spanish hiligaino is from Hiligaynon Iligan + Spanish -ino, with the root from ilig + -an.

language of the native people of Iloilo and nearby areas of Panay, Guimaras, and Negros island


Sesotho

/sɛ̀.sʉ́.tʰʉ̀/

A Bantu language spoken mainly in Lesotho and in the Free State and Gauteng provinces of South Africa.


Ngoni

A member of a particular ethnic group of East Africa, mainly living in Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia.


Ngoni

en-adj

Ngoni (comparative more Ngoni, superlative most Ngoni)

more Ngoni (comparative)
most Ngoni (superlative)

Pertaining to the Ngoni or their language.


Avar

A North Caucasian language spoken mainly in Avaria (Republic of Daghestan) as its official language, and in parts of Azerbaijan.


Avar

Of or pertaining to the Avar language or people.

авар

of or pertaining to the Avar language or people


Avar

The extinct language of the Eurasian Avars, probably belonging to the Oghur branch of the Turkic language family.


Avar

Of or pertaining to the Eurasian Avar language or people.

ավարական

of or pertaining to the Eurasian Avar language or people


Hurrian

From Hurrian 𒄷𒌨𒊑 (Ḫu-ur-ri). Falkenstein and Kramer had once connected it to Sumerian 𒄯𒊒𒌝 (ḫur-ru-um /ḫurrum/, “a mountain cave, cavern”) when it was misidentified as a proper name of a mountain rather than a generic term; see the epic Lugalbanda in the Mountain Cave.

der

The language of Hurrians, neither Indo-European nor Semitic, whose only known relative is the Urartian.


Potawatomi

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Potawatomi.wav

Borrowed from Potawatomi Bodéwadmi (“those who tend the fire”), from bodewadm (“hearth”).

bor

The Algonquian language spoken by the Potawatomi people.


Oscan

From Latin Osci, Opsci ("worshippers of Ops"), an Italic harvest goddess, related to Latin ops, opis (“riches, wealth, plenty”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃ep-os- (“work”), from the verbal root *h₃ep- (“to work”).

The extinct language of the Oscan people.


Bungu

(linguistics) An African language of the Niger-Congo language family.


Ijekavian

A dialect, group of dialects or dialect continuum of Serbo-Croatian spoken through most of Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro and parts of Serbia and distinguished by reflecting the Common Slavic jat (Old Cyrillic: ѣ, Glagolitic: ⱑ, Latin transcription /ě/) sound as disyllabic (triphonemic) /ije/ or diphthongal /je/ sequence.


Kaurna

The once extinct language spoken by the Kaurna people.


Mwera

A Bantu language spoken in the Ruvuma region of Tanzania.

A Bantu language spoken in the Lindi region of Tanzania.


Muk-thang

mutually intelligible
mutually intelligible

The now-extinct language encompassing the dialect of the Kurnai, as well as nearby dialects with which it was mutually intelligible.


pitmatic

The language spoken by inhabitants of the mining villages in Northumberland or Durham.


Yindjibarndi

A Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal language spoken in and around Roebourne and Onslow in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.


Haitian Creole

A language spoken in Haiti; developed first as a creole based on French and several West African languages.


Zaparoan

An endangered language family of Peru and Ecuador.


Andoa

A probably extinct Zaparoan language, spoken in Peru.


Záparo

A Zaparoan language, spoken in Peru and Ecuador.


Mandinka

From Mandinka Mandinka (“someone from Mande”), from Mandiŋ (“Mande”) + -ka (“inhabitant suffix”).

uder

The language spoken by these people, of the Mandé group of the Niger-Congo language family.


Skolt Sami

A Finno-Ugric language spoken by 300 people in the area north of the lake Inari in Finland and nearby parts of Russia.


Románico

From the Latin Latin romanice (“in the manner of the Romans”).

der

An artificial language composed of regularized source words common to the major Romance languages, created in 1991. It is closely related to Esperanto and Ido.


New High German

The modern form of the German language, successor to Middle High German.


New High German

The history of the New High German word Körper (corpus) starts with its Middle High German borrowing from the Latin word corpus, body flesh, corpse, shadow (of a dead person), trunk, belly, person, nature, and others, and leads over the years to the latest form.

1995, Ilse Middendorf, The Perceptible Breath: A Breathing Science (Preface); in: Don Hanlon Johnson (ed.), Bone, Breath & Gesture: Practices of Embodiment, page 75:

nyhøjtysk

of or relating to the modern German language


Early New High German

…
Middle High German c1050–1350 nëment …
Transition period c1350–1500 nemen / nement …
Early New High German c1500–1650 nemen …
…

2008, Kjartan Ottosson, The diffusion of systemic changes through the inflectional system: Evidence from person-number inflection in the Nordic languages and German, in: Thórhallur Eythórsson (ed.), Grammatical Change and Linguistic Theory: The Rosendal papers (John Benjamins Publishing Company: Amsterdam/Philadelphia), p. 329ff., here p. 352 *

The form of the German language spoken from 1350 or 1500 to 1650 CE, successor to Middle High German.

Frühneuhochdeutsch (as adjective: frühneuhochdeutsch)


Shangaan

From the name of Soshangani, the leader of the Revolt against Chaka Zulu, who fled to Zimbabwe. Alternatively from Zulu: shangane: a wanderer.


Seri

The language of this group, variously considered an isolate or a member of the Hokan family.


Kamba

Under the plan released last week, the highway known as G695 will run through southern Tibet’s Cona (Tibetan: Tsona) county – which lies immediately north of the disputed India-Tibet border demarcated by the Line of Actual Control (LAC) – Kamba county, host of a noted military camp, and Gyirong county near the border with Nepal.

2022 July 21, “China to build second highway through Aksai Chin, claimed by India as part of Ladakh”, in Tibetan Review, archived from the original on 2022-07-21:

A county of Shigatse, Tibet Autonomous Region, China


Karuk

Borrowed from Karok káruk (“upstream, upriver (people)”), because they live upstream on the Klamath River while the Yurok live downstream.

bor+

The language spoken by this tribe, which is either a language isolate or perhaps Hokan.


Kerebe

a language spoken on Ukerewe Island, Tanzania


Khakas

Borrowed from Russian хака́с (xakás, “a Khakas”).

A Yenisei Turkic language spoken by the Khakas people.


Kichagga

a Bantu language spoken in parts of Tanzania


Lambya

A Bantu language of Malawi and Tanzania.


Lumasaaba

‘Add to that, I am Ganda: don’t even speak Lumasaaba.’

2019, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, “Love Made in Manchester”, in Manchester Happened, Oneworld Publications (2020), page 287:

a Bantu language spoken in eastern Uganda.


Lusoga

a Bantu language spoken in the Busoga region of Uganda.


Munukutuba

Republic of the Congo
Republic of the Congo

One of the official languages of the Republic of the Congo.


Makonde

From Chimakonde or Makonde, the Makonde name of the language.

The Bantu language spoken by the Makonde.


Manda

A diminutive of the female given name Amanda


Maragoli

A dialect of the Luhya language of western Kenya.


Maragoli

A subdivision of the Luhya tribe. The Maragoli speak Luragooli, a language belonging to the Luhya group and very similar to Luganda, Kikuyu, Gishu and several languages in Eastern, Central and Southern Africa.


Shan

From Burmese ရှမ်း (hram:), from Thai สยาม (sà-yǎam). Doublet of Siam.

The Thai proper are related to the Shans of Burma, the Siamese of Thailand and the Lao of Indochina. The Chinese segment of the Thai ethnic group is settled in Yünnan Province, where it numbers 580,000. It constitutes the Hsi-shuang-pan-na Autonomous Chou in the southern part of the province and shares the Tehung Autonomous Chou in the west with the Chingpo (Kachin). The Thai of the Hsi-shuang-pan-na Chou speak the Lü dialect, those of the Tehung Chou are more closely related to the Shans of northern Burma.

1956, Theodore Shabad, China's Changing Map: A Political and Economic Geography of The Chinese People's Republic, Frederick A. Praeger, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 42:

Although holding mainly high upland territory in Burma, the Shan themselves live only in the valleys and in stretches of plain. The surrounding hill country is occupied by relatively primitive hill peoples living in economic symbiosis with the Shan, but there is no clear genetic distinction between the Shan and their neighbours. With minor exceptions modern Shan communities are Buddhist. Most Shan are cultivators of rice; they have a characteristic species of feudal political structure. Shan culture probably diffused southward and westward from west-central China from Han times (c. 200 B.C.) onward.

1968, “SHAN”, in Encyclopedia Britannica, volume 20, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 344, column 2:

A member of a people living primarily in the Shan State of Myanmar (also known as Burma), and in adjacent areas of China, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, with about 6 million people.


Ilonggo

Batiano River
Fort San Pedro (Iloilo)
Iloilo River

From Tagalog Ilonggo, from Spanish ilongo, from ilong + -o, the root referring to Hiligaynon ilong (“nose”), from the nose-like shape of the land between the Iloilo River and Batiano River where the Spanish Fort San Pedro is located. See also Spanish pampango.

An Austronesian language of the Visayan language family, spoken in Western Visayas in the Philippines.


Lou

en-proper noun

Lou (countable and uncountable, plural Lous)

A diminutive of the male given name Louis.

A diminutive of the female given names Louisa or Louise; often also used as a middle name.


Lou

A Southeast Admiralty Islands language spoken on Lou Island of Manus Province, Papua New Guinea.

The Torricelli language of Papua New Guinea.


Sumerian

/səˈmɪəɹiən/

(linguistics) The ancient language spoken in Sumer, a language isolate.


Kildin Sami

One of the languages spoken by the Sami people, written using the Cyrillic alphabet (http://www.omniglot.com/writing/saami.htm).


Mkuu

a dialect of the Rombo language of Tanzania.


Rombo

A Bantu language of Tanzania, spoken by the Chaga people.


Ndamba

a language of Tanzania similar to Mbunga and Pogolo.


Lavukaleve

A language spoken on the Russell Islands, Solomon Islands.


Paakantyi

An aboriginal people of New South Wales.


Paakantyi

A Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal suffixing language of this people; Baagandji.


Norn

Ultimately from Old Norse norrǿnn (“northern, Norse”)

An extinct North Germanic language once spoken on the Shetland and Orkney Islands.


Languedoc

Borrowed from French Languedoc, from langue d’oc (“the language of oc”), from Dante Alighieri’s De vulgari eloquentia, where he wrote in Latin: “nam alii oc, alii si, alii vero dicunt oil” (‘some say òc, others say sì, others say oïl’). Based on the Occitan word òc (“yes”), in contrast to Old French oïl (now French oui).

Pertaining to the Occitan language: Provençal, related to Catalan.


Rotuman

A language spoken on the island of Rotuma in Fiji.


Rukiga

A Great Lakes Bantu language spoken by the Kigezi people, the Bakiga.


Shubi

A dialect of the Rwandi-Rundi language of Tanzania.


Hakka

The first county centre gone through, that of Tsengcheng, was full of new construction. After it, the language on the road right on into the Meihsien prefecture was Hakka.

1977 May, Rewi Alley, “Meihsien—the Great Hakka Centre”, in Eastern Horizon, volume XVI, number 5, Hong Kong: Eastern Horizon Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 16:

We passed through a large Hakka town (Hakka is a Chinese language, one of the three official languages in Taiwan; more on that in later posts) and then began to pitch and roll through a series of white-knuckling switchbacks up Hsinchu County Road 22.

2011 April 28, John MacMillan, “A day in Cingcyuan”, in a tiny revolution (Blog), archived from the original on 2024-02-07:

As a mainland China national, the counter for our trial was fluent in English, Putonghua, and the Sichuan dialect, and was familiar with a number of other major Chinese languages such as Cantonese and Hakka.

2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 10:

A Chinese language mainly spoken in the south-eastern part of mainland China (Fujian, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Guangxi), Taiwan, Hong Kong, and by the Chinese minorities in Southeast Asia.


Bashkir

A Turkic language with many dialects, spoken in parts of Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.


Wik-Mungkan

A Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal language spoken in Aurukun, Queensland.


Winnebago

en-noun

Winnebago (plural Winnebagos or Winnebagoes)

Winnebagos (plural)
Winnebagoes (plural)

From Ojibwe Wiinibiigoo (“Winnebago person”), from wiinibiig (“murky water”) (of Lake Winnipeg), from wiini’ (“to make someone dirty”), wiinad (“it is dirty”), plus nibi (“water”), plural nibig (“waters”).

Any of a Native American people of Wisconsin and Nebraska, now called Ho-Chunk.


Winnebago

A village in Winnebago County, Illinois, United States

Winnebago County
Winnebago County#English

A small city in Faribault County, Minnesota, United States.

Faribault County
Faribault County#English

A village in Thurston County, Nebraska, United States.

An unincorporated community in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, United States.


Zigua

a Bantu language of Tanzania and Somalia


Proto-Sino-Tibetan

The original language, or rather, cluster of dialects, from which descended the Sino-Tibetan family of languages.

漢藏語原型 /汉藏语原型

cluster of dialects from which descend the Sino-Tibetan family of languages


Fipa

A Bantu language of Tanzania and Zambia.


okurigana

(orthography) In the Japanese language, the kana which follow a stem written with kanji, which record how that stem is inflected, and guides recognition of the appropriate kun'yomi reading (word stem associated with the kanji); for example, く (ku) and かべる (kaberu) in 浮(う)く (uk-u, “to float”, intransitive) and 浮(う)かべる (uk-aberu, “to float”, transitive), or む (mu) and きる (kiru) in 生(う)む (umu, “to birth”) and 生(い)きる (ikiru, “to live”). Perhaps analogous to -st, -nd in English 1st (first), 2nd (second).


Mabia

a group of languages spoken in Niger and Congo


Ivrit

the Hebrew language, especially Modern Hebrew


Gestuno

An international Sign, also known as IS or International Sign, in a way like the Esperanto of the sign-language world.


Arapaho

/əˈɹeɪpəhoʊ/

From a Siouan language, perhaps Hidatsa arúpahu (“Arapaho person”) or Crow aaraxpéahu (“tattooed person”).


Krisa

the language of this village and the surrounding area.


Santa Cruz

From Spanish and Portuguese Santa Cruz (“Holy Cross”), various places named in honor of the True Cross upon which Jesus was crucified. Doublet of Holy Cross and Saint Croix.

San Francisco del Monte
San Francisco del Monte#English

A barangay of San Francisco del Monte district, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

census-designated place
census-designated place

A census-designated place in Pinal County, Arizona, United States.

A locality in Pima County, Arizona, United States.

A census-designated place in Starr County, Texas, United States, unrelated to the former CDP of the same name.


Moldovan

The Romanian language (a name used primarily in Moldova).


Isthmus-Mecayapan Nahuatl

A variety of the Nahuatl language spoken in parts of Mexico.


Classical Nahuatl

The variants of the Nahuatl language spoken in central Mexico at the time of the Spanish colonization.

nàhuatl

variants of the Nahuatl language spoken in Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest


Yatzachi Zapotec

A variety of Zapotec spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico


Maasai

An Eastern Nilotic language spoken in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania by the Maasai people.


Pascuense

Borrowed from Spanish pascuense, from Pascua + -ense, from Isla de Pascua (“Easter Island”).


Meriam

From Mer (“Murray Island”), off the northern coast of Australia.

The Trans-Fly Papuan language of the Meriam people; Meryam Mir.


Isthmus Zapotec

A variety of Zapotec spoken in Oaxaca, Mexico.


Dieri

A Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal suffixing language spoken by the Dieri people in the Lake Eyre region of South Australia.


Dharuk

The extinct Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal suffixing language, within the Yuin-Kuric group, formerly spoken by people who lived in the Sydney region, from the southern shore of Port Jackson south to Botany Bay and as far inland as Camden and Penrith. Closely related to Dhurga and Thurawal.


Interlingue

An artificial language, most often called Occidental


Inari Sami

A Finno-Ugric, Sami language spoken by 250 people in northern Finland in the region of Inari lake.


Southern Sami

A Finno-Ugric language spoken in parts of Norway.


Lule Sami

A Finno-Ugric language spoken in parts of Norway and Sweden.


Lezgi

The Northeast Caucasian language spoken by these people


Lezghian

A language spoken by the Lezgin people who live in southern Dagestan and northern Azerbaijan.


Kiput

A Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in northern Sarawak on the island of Borneo.


Popoloca

Borrowed from Nahuatl popoloca (“speak unintelligibly”).

bor

Any of several different indigenous languages of Mexico, including languages of the Mixe-Zoquean family and the Oto-Manguean family.


Aranese

Given that Aranese has only until very recently enjoyed any kind of institutional support, it is by far the most socially marginalized language.

2004, Ryan Furness, “Sociolinguistics and dictionary-making”, in Paz Battaner, Janet Ann DeCesaris, editors, De Lexicografia, Documenta Universitaria, →ISBN, page 408:

Gascon Occitan dialect spoken in Val d'Aran, a small area in northern Catalonia.


Frankish

From Frank + -ish. Compare Middle English Frenkisch, Frenkis (“Frankish, French”), Old English Frencisc (“Frankish, French”). More at French.
Doublet of French.

cog

The language of the Franks, an ancient West Germanic language, ancestral to Dutch.


Gaulish

Celtic languages
Coligny Calendar
Gaulish

From Old English Gallisċ, equivalent to Gaul + -ish. Doublet of Welsh.

The Celtic language that was spoken in Gaul, long extinct.


Achumawi

An anglicization of the name of the Fall River band, ajúmmááwí, from ajúmmá “river”.

The native language spoken by the Pit River people of present-day California.


Miao

With the help of KMT Miao representatives like Shi Honggui, Changsha drew up its plans for a permanent advance into the West: the Reconstruction Program of July 3, 1936, which called on the Miao people to learn Chinese, intermarry with the Han, and give up their traditional sacrifices, “undesirable marriage customs,” and “improper amusements.” The Miao were to be educated, but also pacified and culturally assimilated.

1987, Jeffrey C. Kinkley, “Fighting for Autonomy”, in The Odyssey of Shen Congwen, Stanford University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 239:

The Miao peoples (including Hmong, Hmu, A-Hmao, Qo Xiong, etc.), an ethnic group of China and Vietnam speaking the Hmong-Mien language family.


Iroquois

/ˈɪɹ.ə.kwɔɪ/

/ˈɪɹ.ə.kwɑː/

Attested in American English since the 1660s, from French Iroquois, Hiroquois (attested since the early 1600s). The ultimate origin is uncertain.
theories
Missionary Charles Arnaud derived it from Montagnais irno-kué (“terrible people”). Linguist Gordon Day notes that though no form irno "person" is attested, one is plausible (given iriniou and ilnu), but application to a non-Montagnais is unlikely, and kué is too short: the root is kwet-. Day finds support for a longer form kwedɛč ("an Iroquois", lit. "terrible, frightening person") in Pacifique's Micmac grammar, in "goetètjg", and sees "fairly good indications that the name [i.e. kwedɛč] was an ancient one for Iroquoian peoples generally", but then "irno kwedɛč" would awkwardly mean "a person, an Iroquois", which could not have been a usual term. Day theorizes the awkward phrase may nonetheless have been uttered by some interpreter and used thereafter by the unaware French, or alternatively the Montagnais may have borrowed an Iroquoian autonym whereafter Montagnais folk-etymologizers adapted it to resemble those words; for example, Mohawk i-ih rongwe (“man”) would have entered Montagnais as /iːrohkwe/. (Some earlier scholars proposed that an Iroquoian term like the Mohawk term was the direct etymon of the French.)
Linguist Peter Bakker alternatively proposes that the etymon is a Basque pidgin word (h)ilokoa "killers" (mirroring Algonquian names for the Iroquois), from hil (“to kill”) and a suffix -koa (“those of”) which may be the source of some other tribal names ending in -quois. Hilokoa, as Brad Loewen notes, is ungrammatical in standard Basque (Loewen suggests irikoa (“those of the walled town”) as an alternative etymon).

A member of a confederacy of (originally) five Native American (Indian) tribes: the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas. Also known as the Iroquois League.

A kind of hairdo where both sides of the head are shaved, leaving only a stripe of hair in the middle.


Iroquois

/ˈɪɹ.ə.kwɔɪ/

/ˈɪɹ.ə.kwɑː/

Any of the languages of the Iroquois, belonging to the Iroquoian family of languages.


Võro

A language belonging to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. It is sometimes considered a dialect of Estonian.


Lingala

Central African Republic
Central African Republic

A Bantu language spoken throughout the northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa) and a large part of the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), as well as to some degree in Angola and the Central African Republic.


Proto-Japonic

From proto- + Japonic; compare Proto-Indo-European, etc.

(linguistics) The hypothetical ancestral language of both modern Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages.

proto-japonique

the hypothetical ancestral language of both modern Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages


Proto-Japonic

mentu is a Proto-Japonic word that means water.

(linguistics) Of or relating to the Proto-Japonic language.


Latinization

en-noun

Latinization (countable and uncountable, plural Latinizations)

The act or process of Latinizing, of making Latin; including translating into Latin.


Bushman

A person who lives in the bush, especially a member of a community or ethnic group who lives in the bush.


Standard Mandarin

People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China

The official language of the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China, based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin and accepted as a lingua franca for Han communities worldwide.


Sudovian

The Western Baltic language of the Sudovian people, related to Old Prussian.


Kadiwéu

A Mataco-Guaicuru language spoken in Brazil.


Kwanyama

A Bantu language spoken in Angola and Namibia.


Lak

A North Caucasian language spoken by the Lak people. It is written with a Cyrillic alphabet.


Apalaí

A Carib language spoken in twenty villages of Pará, Brazil.


Nheengatu

From Portuguese nheengatu, from Nheengatu nheengatú.

A Tupian trade language spoken in Brazil.


Tucano

Named after the Tucano people, whose name itself is from Tucano.

A Tucanoan language spoken in Brazil and Colombia.


Makah

From Klallam màq̓áʔa (“generous with food”).

A language belonging to the Southern Wakashan language family.


Kodava

A Dravidian language spoken in the Kodagu district of Karnataka, India.


Teton

Borrowed from Lakota Thítȟuŋwaŋ (“Teton”). a general name for all seven Lakota tribes. from thíta (“a plain, prairie”) + tȟuŋwaŋ (“village”).


Comanche

Probably from Spanish comanche, a corruption of Old Ute kɨmantsi *[kɨˈman.tʃi] (“enemy”, “foreigner”) (compare Modern Southern Ute [kɨˈmaːtʃi̥] (“enemy”, “stranger”)). The Comanches’ autonym is Nʉmʉnʉʉ (“the people”).

A member of a Native American ethnic group residing especially in Texas and Oklahoma.


Comanche

The Uto-Aztecan language spoken by these people, sometimes classified as a variety of Shoshone.

A place in the United States:
A township in Barton County, Kansas.

Yellowstone County
Yellowstone County#English

An unincorporated community in Yellowstone County, Montana.

A small city in Stephens County, Oklahoma.

A city, the county seat of Comanche County, Texas.


Middle Korean

The Korean language of the 10th (or 13th, depending on the analysis) century to 16th century, or from the era of Goryeo to the middle of Joseon, based on the dialect of Kaesong because the new Goryeo dynasty moved its capital city to northern area of Korean peninsula.


High German

High German (countable and uncountable, plural High Germans)

(countable) A native or inhabitant of the southern highlands of Germany; a High German speaker.

Any of a group of West Germanic languages or dialects spoken in the southern highlands of Germany.

উচ্চ আলমানী

any of a group of West Germanic languages

There is a widespread reluctance to speak High German in German-speaking Switzerland, and many Swiss prefer to speak even bad French or English to people who do not speak Swiss dialect.

1989, Alfred Wyler, Dialect and High German in German-speaking Switzerland, page 15:

We, the students, also were supposed to speak High German, but, like our teachers, we did so with a fairly strong Swabian accent.

2010, Dankwart Koehler, In Different Worlds: From POW to PhD, page 49:

Many foreigners who learn to speak High German complain that Swiss people only reluctantly reply in High German. Apparently Swiss people generally don't like to speak High German. Why is that so? For the Swiss, High German is a foreign language.

2016, Nicole Egger, Hoi: Your New Swiss German Survival Guide, page 15:

The standard variety of High German as spoken and written throughout the German language area.


High German

I used to harrangue the mob, in broken English, under pretence of being an High German doctor.

1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:

From or pertaining to the southern region of Germany; speaking High German.

Yiddish is a High German language [...]

1983, Philip Baldi, An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages, page 128:

Written or spoken in High German; pertaining to High German.


Aghul

The Lezghian language spoken by these people.


Inupiak

From Inupiaq Iñupiaq, from iñuk (“person”) + piaq (“real, true, genuine”).

The Inuit languages spoken by the Inupiaq.


Shoshone

A census-designated place in Inyo County, California, United States.


Mandeali

An Indo-Aryan language of Himachal Pradesh, Mandi District, India. It is closely related to Dogri, Pahari, and Hindi.


Ute

The language of this people, of the Numic branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family.


Old Chinese

A linguistic ancestor of the Chinese languages, spoken during roughly the first millennium BCE.


Anglo-Latin

Latin language as used in Britain, especially Medieval as well as Ecclesiastical and legal Latin.


Old Saxon

A west Germanic language historically tied to Anglo-Saxon and Old Low Franconian.


Naija

An English-based creole of Nigeria, combining vocabulary and grammar from the English language as well as various indigenous Nigerian languages and remnants of Portuguese.


Globish

→ French: globish

Coordinate term: ELF

The typical conversation in Globish could be grating to a native speaker, but get the job done between, say, a Kenyan and a Korean trying to navigate a business deal or asking for help at the airport check-in.

2006 August 6, Noam Cohen, “Language not pronounced trippingly on native tongue”, in New York Times:

Nobody is likely to grow up speaking Globish as a mother tongue.

2008, Mark Abley, The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches from the Future of English, page 98:

Across a dozen different time zones, financial journalists in each of these cities filed reports for their national desks, but the language of the crisis was unvaryingly Globish.

2011, Robert McCrum, Globish: How English Became the World's Language, W. W. Norton & Company, →ISBN, page 280:

Perhaps most importantly, Globish cannot draw on the history and idioms of any one culture.

2012, Gerard Kelly, Church Actually: Rediscovering the Brilliance of God's Plan, page 144:

Meanwhile, the local Englishes of Asian and African countries will become increasingly regional in flavour. But the rise of Globish may be prevented by the Babel chip.

2018, Gaston Dorren, Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages:

A simplified version of the English language, not created but consisting of the most common English words and phrases, enabling non-English-speakers to communicate.


Franglais

/ˌfɹɑŋˈɡleɪ/

/ˌfɹɑːŋˈɡleɪ/

From French franglais, blend of français (“French”) + anglais (“English”).

blend

(often derogatory) French terms or expressions recently borrowed from the English language.

franglais

French terms or expressions borrowed from English


Newspeak

Newspeak
Newspeak (programming language)
Nineteen Eighty-Four

From new + speak, coined by George Orwell in 1949 in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The programming language was so named because of its “shrinkable” design, following Orwell's idea of a continually diminishing vocabulary in Newspeak.

(fiction) The fictional language devised to meet the needs of Ingsoc and designed to restrict the words, and thereby the thoughts, of the citizens of Oceania in the 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

Many modern languages like Haskell, Scala, and Newspeak offer parser combinators as libraries on top of the core language.

2010, Debasish Ghosh, DSLs in Action, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

functional programming
functional programming

(computer languages) A highly dynamic and reflective programming language descended from Smalltalk, supporting both object-oriented and functional programming.


Canadian English

[p 49] Not so, however, is it with the modern refinements of our Canadian English. In referring to such a feat here, it would be said, not that he dived, but that he dove.
[p 52] These and a thousand other examples which might be produced, fully justify the use of the term “Canadian English,” as expressive of a corrupt dialect growing up amongst our population, and gradually finding access to our periodical literature, until it threatens to produce a language as unlike our noble mother tongue as the negro patua, or the Chinese pidgeon English.

1857, Rev. A.C. Geikie, “Canadian English”, in Canadian Journal, v 2, n 11 (September), pp 344–55, reprinted in Elaine Gold and Janice McAlpine eds. (2010), Canadian English: A Linguistic Reader, Strathy Language Unit Occasional Paper n 6, Kingston: Queen’s University

The variety of the English language used in Canada.


Rumsen

One of eight divisions of the Ohlone Native American people of northern California native to Monterey Bay Area.


Rumsen

The now-extinct language of this people, an Ohlone dialect in the Utian family.


Ohlone

A member of an indigenous population native to the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas, California.


Costanoan

From Spanish Costeños (“coastal people”). The Spanish explorers and Missionaries to Northern California called the native people of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas the Costeños as early as 1769.

A member of the Ohlone people, native to the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Areas, California.


Arabist

(anthropology, linguistics) A scholar who studies Arab or Arabic culture, politics, or language.

arabista

a scholar who studies Arab or Arabic culture, politics, or language

(historical) One who followed the Arabic system of medicine or (more broadly) scholarship.

(politics) One that wants to spread Arabic culture; an Arab nationalist.

arabista

politics: one that wants to spread Arabic culture


Arabist

en-adj

Arabist (comparative more Arabist, superlative most Arabist)

more Arabist (comparative)
most Arabist (superlative)

Pertaining to Arabism; medieval Arabic scholarship.

Pertaining to the study of Arabic language or culture.


Torne Valley Finnish

After Torne, the name of the river that separates Finland and Sweden in the north; compare Swedish tornedalsfinska and Finnish tornionlaaksonsuomi.

Meänkieli (language spoken by some 40,000–70,000 people in Northern Sweden)


Mishnaic Hebrew

The Hebrew language as used from the second to the tenth century in the Common Era, descended from Biblical Hebrew.


Biblical Hebrew

the archaic form of the Hebrew language, spoken by the Israelites in the area known as Canaan/Israel in the first millennium BC, best-attested in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible)

հին հրեերեն

the archaic form of the Hebrew language — see also Hebrew


Tornedalen

/ˈtɔː(ɹ)nəˌdɑːlən/

From Swedish Tornedalen (“Torne Valley”), a geographic region shared by Sweden and Finland.

Tornedalen Finnish
Tornedalen Finnish#English

Tornedalen Finnish, or Meänkieli (Finnic language spoken in northern Sweden)


Skraeling

After Old Norse skrælingi (of disputed etymology), the Norse name for the native inhabitants of Greenland and continental North America (Eastern Canada).

(linguistics) A little-known language once spoken by the now extinct Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland (also called Beothuk or Red Indian).


moon language

(slang) Text written in an incomprehensible script, especially Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, or Hindi.


Chinook Jargon

A pidginized Native American language used by various tribes of the Pacific Northwest.


Louisiana Creole

A French-based creole with elements of Spanish, Native American and West African languages spoken by the Louisiana Creole people.


Sino-Japanese

The Chinese-derived elements in the Japanese language.

漢日詞 /汉日词

the Chinese-derived elements in the Japanese language


Ge'ez

He takes out a leather-bound Bible, written in Ge'ez, illuminated by drawings of angels with large, soulful eyes.

2019, Maaza Mengiste, The Shadow King, Canongate Books (2020), page 328:

An Ethiopian language which is extinct but still used liturgically.

The writing system originally used for the Ge’ez language.


Guanche

The language of the Guanches, believed to belong to the Berber family.


natural language

en-noun

natural language (countable and uncountable, plural natural languages)

Although some computer programs are now widely regarded as having passed the Turing test, it is clear to discerning humans that they still do not use natural language in the same way that sane humans do, as they often spew nonsense, albeit well-formed linguistically, and they cannot engage in some important kinds of original thought.

programming language
programming language

constructed language
constructed language

(retronym, linguistics) Any human language that has evolved naturally in a community, usually in contrast to computer programming languages, to controlled natural languages, and to constructed languages such as Esperanto (although constructed languages are subject to change by natural forces among fluent speakers).


Meänkieli

From the native Meänkieli term meänkieli, from meän kieli (“our language”).

The County Board of Education worked out simple textbooks in Meänkieli and started to promote the vernacular in mother tongue instruction (henceforth MTI). Meänkieli was perceived as a bridge between Swedish and St Fi.

2006, Robert B. Kaplan, Richard B. Baldauf, Language Planning and Policy in Europe, →ISBN, page 242:

The Tornedalians call their speech meän kieli ("our language"). Meänkieli was banned from schools until 1992 (see Huss 1999, 80ff. for an historical outline). Since then, the Tornedalians' mother tongue has been taught alongside Swedish. The Meänkieli, however, is not often used in writing outside the schools.

2005, Ulrich Ammon, Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, Language Arts & Disciplines, →ISBN, page 1547:

A language spoken by some 40,000–70,000 people mainly in Northern Sweden. It is a variant of Finnish with a structure and grammar similar to Finnish, but the vocabulary considerably influenced by Swedish.

托爾訥河谷芬蘭語 /托尔讷河谷芬兰语

Finnic language spoken in northern Sweden


Kven

A language spoken by a few thousand people in Northern Norway. It is a variant of Finnish with a structure and grammar similar to Finnish, but the vocabulary considerably influenced by Norwegian.


Sakha

Borrowed from Russian саха́ (saxá), from Yakut саха (saqa), from Proto-Turkic *yaka (“edge; collar”).


Sakha

Borrowed from Russian Саха́ (Saxá), from Yakut Саха (Saqa), from Proto-Turkic *jaka (“edge; collar”).

A geographical region located in North Asia which is inhabited dominantly by the Sakha people.


Yakut

From Russian яку́т (jakút), from Proto-Turkic *yaka (“collar; edge”). Related to Yakut саха (saqa) via earlier *čaqa < *ǰaqa. Compare Turkish yaka (“collar”). The ending -ут possibly contains the Mongol plural suffix; compare Buryat яхад (jaxad, “Yakuts”).


Egyptian Arabic

The dialect of Modern Arabic spoken in Egypt, considered as a dialect continuum.

埃及阿拉伯語 /埃及阿拉伯语

Āijí Ālābó yǔ


Dangme

A Niger-Congo language spoken in southeastern Ghana.


Yapese

The Austronesian language spoken in the Federated States of Micronesia, especially by the inhabitants of Yap.


Coptic

The Afroasiatic language traditionally spoken by the Copts in Egypt, now extinct and used only as a liturgical language.


Ambai

An Austronesian language spoken in Indonesian New Guinea.


Adyghe

/ˈɑː.dɪ.ɡeɪ/

A Northwest Caucasian language spoken in the Republic of Adygea, in the Russian Federation.


Circassian

Adyghe language
Kabardian language
Ubykh language

A North Caucasian language group spoken in Circassia in North West Caucasus Russia.


Adzera

An Oceanic Austronesian language spoken in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea.

SIL International split the ISO 639-3 classification into three separate languages: Adzera


Agul

A language primarily spoken by the Aghul people in Russian Dagestan and in Azerbaijan.


Wu

Romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 吳 /吴 (Wú). Doublet of O.

Linguists say the Wu dialect widely spoken in Shanghai, to take one prominent example, shares only about 31 percent lexical similarity with Mandarin, or roughly the same as English and French.
The encounter at the Datian market began when the dumpling seller approached the foreigner with a phrase that sounded like "goodbye" in the Wu dialect. Knowing it must mean something else, the foreigner guessed she was asking his name, and provided it, producing a laugh from the woman who explained, switching to Mandarin, that she had asked if he had eaten lately.

2005 July 10, Howard W. French, “Uniting China to Speak Mandarin, the One Official Language: Easier Said Than Done”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2017-05-10, World:

A historic and cultural region of China around the mouth of the Yangtze River, whence:

The family of Chinese languages spoken in that region, including Shanghainese and Suzhounese, the second-most spoken family after Mandarin.

وُو

one of the families of the Chinese language


Wu

Romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 武 (Wǔ, “war, warrior, warlike”).

(historical) An epithet of numerous kings and emperors in Chinese history who were honored with variants of the posthumous name Wuwang or Wudi.


Wu

Romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 烏 /乌 (Wū or Wù, “crow, raven, black”).


Wu

Romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of Chinese 巫 (Wū or Wú, “shaman, sorceror, witch”).


Wu

The romanization of the Mandarin pronunciation of various other Chinese surnames: 伍 (Wǔ), 仵 (Wǔ), 鄔／邬 (Wū).


Okinawan

/ˌɒkiːˈnɑːwən/

/ˌəʊkiːˈnɑːwən/


wine-whine merger

en-noun

wine-whine merger (plural wine-whine mergers)

/wəinˈʍəin ˌmɛɾdʒəɾ/

As was the case with the wine–whine merger, date from the early twentieth century show that southeastern Pennsylvania was subject to patterns of variation in pronunciation.

2016, Mark L. Louden, Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language, page 228:

Chambers (2002) graphs the trajectory of the wine-whine''' merger in four reigions preserving ʍ.

2019, Keiko Bridwell, “Previous Research on the Wine-Whine''' Merger”, in The Distribution of ʍ, page 7:

In Scottish English, the so-called wine-whine''' merger did not take place, in which historical Old and Middle English /hw/ was replaced by /w/[.]

2021, Zeyu Li, “The Distribution of /w/ and /ʍ/”, in Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory:

(phonology) A merger in which [ʍ] (the voiceless sound heard at the beginning of the word whine in a Scottish accent or several accents in the United States) becomes [w] (the sound heard at the beginning of the word wine); in accents where this merger occurs, whine and wine are homophones.


Toraja-Sa'dan

An unwritten South Sulawesi language spoken in southwestern Sulawesi Island in Indonesia.


Umbrian

Relating to Umbria or to its inhabitants or extinct language.

umbre

relating to Umbria or to its inhabitants or extinct language


Maia

A female given name from Latin of recent usage.


Mixtec

Borrowed from Spanish mixteco, alteration of mixteca, from Classical Nahuatl mixtēcah (“Mixtecs”, plural).

der

The language or language family of this people.


Atlantean

1940, WHD Rouse, trans. of Nonnus, Dionysiaca
I [Elektra] shall pass from the earth to the stars’ Atlantean vault, and dwell in heaven

(figuratively) Of the celestial spheres carried by Atlas


Atlantean

How Atlantean sounded or how the various alphabets worked is anyone's guess, of course, but since there is a certain logic to how language is constructed, we might allow that theirs may not have been so different from our own.

2008, J. Allan Danelek, Atlantis: Lessons from the Lost Continent:

The language supposedly spoken by the inhabitants of Atlantis.

Indeed, Okrand's goal in inventing Atlantean was to recreate Indo-European, and it thus borrows from several languages yet contains no recognizable words from these linguistic systems.

2006, Tim Conley, Stephen Cain, Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages:

A constructed language invented for the 2001 animated film Atlantis: The Lost Empire.


Crimean Tatar

A Turkic language of Crimea (Ukraine), Turkey, Romania, Russia, Bulgaria and Uzbekistan.

克里米亞韃靼語 /克里米亚鞑靼语

Kèlǐmǐyà Dádáyǔ


Aari

2008 SIL International split out Gayil as a separate language and gave Aari the new code aiw


Aklanon

An Austronesian (Visayan) language spoken in the Philippines.


Akawaio

A northern Carib language spoken in Guyana.


Awabakal

The extinct Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal suffixing language, within the Yuin-Kuric group, formerly spoken by these people.


Amaimon

The Papuan language spoken by these people.


Ansus

An Austronesian language spoken in Indonesian New Guinea.


Amto

A Papuan language spoken in Sandaun Province of Papua New Guinea.


Antakarinya

Western Desert language
Western Desert language

A Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal language spoken in the Oodnadatta region of South Australia; a major dialect of the Western Desert language group.


Plains Apache

The now-extinct Southern Athabascan language spoken by the Plains Apache people.


Mende

A large West African ethnic group, speakers of the Mende language, living primarily in Sierra Leone and Liberia.


Umbundu

A Bantu language spoken by the Ovimbundu people in the central highlands of Angola.


Kanuri

A Nilo-Saharan language spoken in Niger, Nigeria, and Chad.


Arawak

From Kari'na Aruwako, from the name in Lokono.

A Caribbean language belonging to this group.


Makua

A group of Bantu languages spoken in Mozambique and neighboring regions.


Makhuwa

A Bantu language spoken by about 2.5 million people in Mozambique and neighboring regions.


Makhuwa-Meetto

A Bantu language spoken by more than one million people in Mozambique and Tanzania.


Makhuwa-Shirima

A Bantu language spoken by half a million people in Mozambique.


Neo-Latin

(chiefly 19th century) Of or relating to the Romance languages.


Mutsun

The extinct language of this people, an Ohlone dialect in the Utian family.


mentalese

en-noun

mentalese (usually uncountable, plural mentaleses)

From mental + -ese (suffix forming adjectives and nouns describing, among other things, languages).

suffix

The concept of a proposition as something that can be expressed by sentences in both Mentalese and, say, English is an analogical extension of the concept of a proposition as something that can be expressed by sentences in both English and German.

1964 November 12, Wilfrid Sellars, “Notes on Intentionality”, in The Journal of Philosophy, volume LXI, number 21, New York, N.Y.: The Journal of Philosophy, →DOI, →ISSN, →JSTOR, →OCLC, page 657:

Translationists are said to treat the coding of thoughts in ‘Mentalese’, whose structure is already known, into a natural language, just like translating a natural language, say Russian, in terms of another known language, say English (G 282). Incorporationists point out the circularity of (36b) because Mentalese, supposed to be intrinsically intelligible, is just English or some other variety of a natural language, and the translation maneuver only postpones the problem, [...]

1977, P. G. Patel, “The Left Parieto-temporo-occipital Junction, Semantic Aphasia and Language Development around Age Seven”, in Linguistics: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Language Sciences, volume 15, number 196, Berlin, New York, N.Y.: Mouton de Gruyter, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 45:

But where does mentalese come from? If it is learned, then what is it related to in the preceding mentaleses? To avoid endless regress, [Jerry] Fodor postulates an internal language that is innate, a claim that he himself calls "horrendous" and "scandalous," yet inescapable.

1979, Gavriel Salomon, “Cultivation of Mental Skills through Symbolic Forms”, in Interaction of Media, Cognition, and Learning: An Exploration of how Symbolic Forms Cultivate Mental Skills and Affect Knowledge Acquisition (Jossey-Bass Social and Behavioral Science Series), San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass Publishers, →ISBN; republished Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994 (2009 printing), →ISBN, page 121:

[A]re natural languages merely vehicles for the communication of mentalese? Or does language itself play a role in the formation of our thought? The question is called critical, since a positive response to the latter (language does play a role) would call into question the assumption that all meaning is reducible to mentalese.

1990, Patrick de Gramont, “The Problem of Representation”, in Language and the Distortion of Meaning (Psychoanalytic Crosscurrents), New York, N.Y., London: New York University Press, →ISBN, page 53:

One suggestion is that there is a de facto correlation between words or sentences of natural language and expressions of mentalese and between the logical relations among the former and the causal relations among the latter. This is a curious idea. The alleged correlation is not empirically grounded.

1990, Peter A. French, Theodore Edward Uehling, Howard K. Wettstein, editors, The Philosophy of the Human Sciences (Midwest Studies in Philosophy; XV), Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 446:

[I]t is probably misleading to talk about the language of thought, or to talk about ‘Mentalese’, as if it were a single representational system. We should more properly, in the context of a thesis of massive mental modularity, talk about languages of thought, or Mentaleses.

2006, Peter Carruthers, “The Case for Massively Modular Models of Mind”, in The Architecture of the Mind: Massive Modularity and the Flexibility of Thought, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, section 6 (The Argument from Computational Tractability), page 51:

[Jerry] Fodor's position stems from his theory, first articulated in The Language of Thought, that there is a type of internal system of representation contained within the human mind out of which thoughts are formed, similarly to the way sentences are formed out of individual words, a "language" which he refers to as "mentalese." Our concepts are the units out of which mentalese constructs thoughts. [...] Importantly, mentalese must be sufficiently rich to enable us to utilize it to learn the natural language of our birth, and we must have this type of system of representation prior to any development of natural language.

2014, Gabriel Keehn, “Does the Theory of Recollection Preclude Learning?: A New Dimension to Platonic Nativism”, in Chris Higgins, editor, Philosophy of Education, Urbana, Ill.: Philosophy of Education Society; University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2019-03-07, page 161:

(philosophy, psychology) A hypothetical non-verbal language in which concepts are represented in the mind.


Esselen

The name Esselen "probably derived from the name of a major native village", possibly from the village known as Exse'ein, or the place called Eslenes, the site of the Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo. The Spanish extended the term to mean the entire linguistic group (Hester 1978:498-499).

An indigenous population native to the region of Big Sur on the Central Coast of California.


Salinan

The Salinan were named after the Salinas River by Robert Latham first in 1856, and by John Wesley Powell in 1891.


Bay Miwok

A division of the Miwok people, who resided east of the San Francisco Bay.


Coast Miwok

A division of the Miwok people, who resided north of the San Francisco Bay.


Lake Miwok

A division of the Miwok people, who resided in the Clear Lake basin, California.

The Utian (Penutian) language spoken by this people.


Sierra Miwok

The linguistic divisions of Miwok people who resided in the western foothills Sierra Nevada Mountains, California (often sub-divided on maps as Northern Sierra Miwok, Central Sierra Miwok, and Southern Sierra Miwok).


Plains Miwok

A division of the Miwok people, who resided in the general area of modern San Joaquin County and parts of Sacramento Valley, California.


Valley Miwok

The eastern Miwok groups of people native to the Sacramento Valley, comprising the Plains Miwok, Bay Miwok, and Sierra Miwok.


Marin Miwok

A subdivision of the Coast Miwok people, who resided in present-day Marin County, California.


Marin Miwok

The dialect of Coast Miwok language spoken by this people.


Bodega Miwok

A subdivision of the Coast Miwok people, who resided at Bodega Bay, California.


Karkin

The spoken language by this people, an Ohlone dialect in the Utian family.


Tamyen

The spoken language of this people, an Ohlone dialect in the Utian family.


Chochenyo

The language of this people, an Ohlone dialect in the Utian family.


Ramaytush

From Northern Ohlone Rammay-tuš (“people from the west”), used by the Chochenyo people of the East Bay.


Chalon

One of eight divisions of the Ohlone Native American people of northern California native to the Salinas Valley.


Soledad

A city in Monterey County, California, United States.


Santa Clara

The Spanish named a California Mission Santa Clara de Asís after Saint Clare of Assisi in the late 18th century. Eventually the name was extended by linguists to mean the native Tamyen people gathered at the mission and their primary language.

Santa Clara County
Santa Clara County#English

A city in Santa Clara County, California, United States.


San Juan Bautista

The Spanish named a California mission San Juan Bautista meaning Saint John the Baptist, when they founded it in the late 18th century. The name was expanded by linguists to mean the natives of the region gathered at the mission, and their primary language.

The native language spoken in this region.


San Carlos

Borrowed from Spanish San Carlos (“Saint Charles”).

bor+

The native language spoken in the Monterey County region.


Carmel

From Hebrew כַּרְמֶל (karmél, “vineyard of El/God”).

bor

A female given name from Hebrew from the Roman Catholic epithet of Virgin Mary at Mount Carmel.

A city, valley, and river in Monterey County, California, United States. The full name of the city is Carmel-by-the-Sea.

Penobscot County
Penobscot County#English

Other places in the United States:
A town in Penobscot County, Maine.


Cora

Apparently brought up in English literature by James Fenimore Cooper in The Last of the Mohicans (1826), but compare a female heroine of this name in Jean-François Marmontel's Les Incas (1777) and the Ancient Greek epithet Κόρη (Kórē) for Περσεφόνη (Persephónē). It could also refer directly to κόρη (kórē, “maiden”).

The youth had turned to speak to the dark-eyed Cora, when the distant sound of horses hoofs, clattering over the roots of the broken way in his rear, caused him to check his charger;

1826, James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans/Chapter 2:

"Where are you from originally, Coral?" "Indiana." "Lots of Corals out there, I bet." She hesitated, seemed about to flare, and then smiled instead, showing a little gap between two front teeth. "Well, it was Cora Lucille, I guess, " she said, still smiling, looking very much like a Cora Lucille in that moment. Hawes imagined pigtails tied with polka-dot rags.

1990, Ed McBain, Vespers, Mandarin, published 1991, →ISBN, page 78:


pondian

From The Pond, in reference to the Atlantic Ocean, which separates the United States and Canada from the United Kingdom, + -ian.

(linguistics) Pertaining to differences between English as spoken in the United Kingdom and the United States and or Canada.


Zulgo-Gemzek

A Chadic language of northern Cameroon, spoken by about 26,000 people.


Jersey Legal French

A dialect of French used historically by the parliament of Jersey.


Mandingo

From Mandinka Mandinka. Compare French mandingue, from the same source.

A macrolanguage spoken primarily in West Africa, with seven individual languages: Mandinka, Eastern Maninkakan, Forest Maninka, Kita Maninkakan, Konyanka Maninka, Sankaran Maninka, Western Maninkakan.


Mandingo

en-noun

Mandingo (plural Mandingos or Mandingoes)


Mangarevan

The Polynesian language of the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia.


Amorite

/ˈæ.məˌɹaɪt/

[ˈɛə̯mɚ.ʌɪ̯t̚]

From Biblical Hebrew אֲמֹרִי (ʾĂmōrî) + -ite, of uncertain origin; compare Akkadian 𒈥𒌅 (Amurrum).


Hassaniya

A group of Arabic dialects spoken primarily in Mauritania, a portion of southern Morocco, and Western Sahara.


Ugaritic

From Ugarit + -ic, via a Semitic medium from Sumerian 𒀀𒃼 (a-gar₃ /agar/, “arable land”).

uder

The Northwest Semitic language of the ancient city of Ugarit in Syria. Extinct since 1100 B.C.E., it was written in cuneiform.


Andalusian

The dialect (or varieties) of Spanish spoken in Andalusia; Andalusian Spanish.


Leonese

A Romance language spoken in the northwest of Spain, closely related to Asturian and Mirandese.


Murcian

A dialect of the Spanish language spoken in Murcia.


Majorcan

en-adj

Majorcan (comparative more Majorcan, superlative most Majorcan)

more Majorcan (comparative)
most Majorcan (superlative)


Lü

A Tai-Kadai language spoken in Yunnan province of China, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam.


Mazanderani

The Mazanderani language, a northwestern Iranian language closely related to Persian.


Edomite

[ˈiɾɪ̈mʌɪ̯t̚]

A Canaanite Semitic language spoken by the Edomites in southwestern Jordan in the first millennium BCE, extinct from the 6th century BCE.


Gayle

A female given name, a fanciful spelling of Gail, shortened form of Abigail.

(now rare) A male given name transferred from the surname

A South African argot (jargon) used in South African gay and same-sex communities, primarily by Indo-European based speakers.


Sino-Korean

the state of Sino-Korean relations

Of or pertaining both to China and to Korea; being both Chinese and Korean.

Until the fifteenth century, Koreans had a native word for the numeral "hundred", but it has since been replaced by a Sino-Korean word.

(specifically, linguistics, of a Korean word) Etymologically borrowed or otherwise derived from an eighth-century dialect of Middle Chinese which greatly influenced the Korean language.

漢字詞 /汉字词

Etymologically from or influenced by Chinese


Sino-Korean

漢韓詞 /汉韩词

the Chinese-derived elements in the Korean language

The elements in the Korean language derived from the said dialect of Middle Chinese:

The Korean vocabulary borrowed or otherwise derived from the said dialect.

The distinctive Korean pronunciation of Chinese characters, which is an adaptation of the pronunciation of the said dialect into Korean phonology.


Halkomelem

Sḵwx̱wú7mesh snichim
Sḵwx̱wú7mesh snichim

A Central Salishan language spoken on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, by the Musqueam Indian Band, and closely related to Squamish (Sḵwx̱wú7mesh snichim).


Unserdeutsch

From Unserdeutsch Unserdeutsch, from German unser (“our”) + Deutsch (“German”).

A German-based creole language spoken primarily in Papua New Guinea and the northeast of Australia.


Kassite

An ancient language spoken by the Kassites


Middle Norwegian

The interim language in Norway between 1350 (the Black Plague) and 1525. An amalgam of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, following Old Norwegian (Old Norse).


Coatlán Mixe

A Mixe-Zoque language of the Mixe branch, spoken in Mexico; its two dialects are Coatlán Mixe and Camotlán Mixe.


Woiwurrung

A portmanteau of the Woiwurrung words woi (meaning "no") and wurrung (meaning "lip" or "speech"), from the way that speakers of this language express the negative.

A Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal language spoken in the central part of Victoria, around Melbourne.


Lemnian

An extinct language, related to Etruscan, that was spoken in the Aegean and is attested in a stele found on Lemnos.


Cymric

From Welsh Cymru (“Wales”) + -ic (adjective-forming suffix). Doublet of Cumbric and cognate with English Cambrian and Cymry.

(rare) Synonym of Welsh, the language of the Welsh people.


Panyjima

A Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal suffixing language spoken in the Hamersley Range in the Pilbara region of Western Australia; closely related to Yindjibarndi.


Kikongo

From Kongo ki- + Kongo, the prefix indicating inanimate or abstract nouns, and used to form language names. Attested in English since the late nineteenth century; Kongo appears earlier in the century.


South African English

A dialect of English spoken in South Africa and in neighbouring countries.

südafrikanisches Englisch (Südafrikanisches Englisch n)


romaja

/ɹoʊˈmɑːd͡ʒə/

Borrowed from Korean 로마자(字) (romaja, from 로마 (roma, “Rome, Roman”) + 자(字) (ja, “letter, character”), literally “Roman letters”).

bor

A representation of Korean in Latin script.


Nyunga

Borrowed from Nyunga nungar (“a person, a man”).

The Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal language, or group of related languages or dialects, spoken by the Nyunga.


Pohnpeian

The Micronesian language of the island state of Pohnpei