East Central German

One of two major subgroups of the Central German dialects; spoken primarily in the German states of Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, and Berlin, and until 1945 in large parts of what is now western and southern Poland; distinguished from West Central German by the shift of pre-Old High German initial *p- to pf- (now usually f-).


East Central German

of or pertaining to the East Central German dialects


Upper German

Calque of German Oberdeutsch / oberdeutsch.

One of two major dialect groups of the High German language; spoken primarily in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Alsace, and South Tyrol; distinguished from Central German / Middle German (= Mitteldeutsch) by the shifts of Proto-Germanic *-pp-, *-mp- to -pf-, -mpf-.


Central German

Calque of German Mitteldeutsch/mitteldeutsch.

One of two major dialect groups of the High German language which is spoken primarily in central Germany, Luxembourg, easternmost Belgium, and southeastern Limburg (in the Netherlands); distinguished from Upper German by the preservation of Proto-Germanic *-pp- and *-mp-.


Gāndhārī

The Gāndhārī Dharmapada. We have the remains of two manuscripts of a Dharmapada in Gāndhārī, a Prakrit from Gandhāra (an area of what is now northwest India, Pakistan and a large part of Afghanistan).

2010, The Dhammapada, Penguin Classics, →ISBN:

The largest and most interesting of these fragments (no. 1), with four partial lines of text on each side, is written not in Gāndhārī or even in Sanskritized Gāndhārī like that of the Schøyen fragments, but in more or less standard Sanskrit.

2011, Kurt Behrendt, Pia Brancaccio, Gandharan Buddhism: Archaeology, Art, and Texts, →ISBN, page 143:

An Indo-Aryan language formerly spoken in what is now northern India and eastern Pakistan; a northwestern Prakrit in which Gandharan Buddhist texts were compiled.


Maithili

An Indo-Aryan language spoken in Nepal and northern India.

મૈથિલી

an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Nepal and northern India


Mazahua

The Oto-Manguean language spoken by the Mazahuan people.


Urubú-Kaapor

A Tupian language spoken in French Guyana and in Maranhão.


Nambikwara

The language spoken by the Nambikwara people.


Kinikinao

Mato Grosso do Sul
Mato Grosso do Sul#English

An Arawakan language spoken in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.


Guajajara

A Tupian language spoken by the Guajajara people.


Mandan

An ethnic Native American tribe in North Dakota.


Mandan

A city, the county seat of Morton County, North Dakota.


Esan

A people of South South Nigeria, whose homeland in Edo state is known as Esanland.


Tutchone

A threatened Athabaskan language spoken in the Yukon Territory in Canada.


Mexican Spanish

A set of variations of the Spanish language as spoken in Mexico and in some parts of the United States and Canada, where there are communities of Hispanic origin influenced by North American Spanish-speaking media.


Raetic

An extinct language once spoken in Rhaetia


Early Tripuri

An ancient form of the language Kokborok.


Garawa

A Garawan Australian Aboriginal language spoken in Borroloola in the Northern Territory.


French-Provençal

/fɹɛnt͡ʃ pɹɒvɑːnˈsɑːl/

From the district so influenced by the Provençal, we pass by some intermediate grades, to that which is plainly French-Provençal, above all in the valleys of the southern Stura, of Oreo (Val SoanaL of the Dora Baltea (Val d'Aosta).

1912, Frederick Converse Beach, George Edwin Rines, The Americana: a universal reference library, volume 11:

The Saône and the Rhône are considered the eastern limits of French, since beyond these rivers from Bescançon on the north to Grenoble on the south a mixed dialect called French-Provençal was used.

1917, Frank Moore Colby, Talcott Williams, The New International Encyclopædia, volume 9, page 245:

His best work in French-Provençal was written in the decade 1855-66: Marenda a Tsesalet, La bataille di vatse a Vertozan, Megnadzo de Monseur Abonde.

1987, Giuseppe Zoppelli, La poesia in Valle d'Aosta, Forli: ed. Forum/Quinta Generazione, page 07:

[A law] was enacted, controlling the guardianship of the language and the culture of the ‘Albanians, Catalans, Germanics, Greeks, Slovenians and Croatians and of those speaking French, French-Provencal, Friulan, Ladin, Occitan and Sardinian’[.]

2006, J. M. Smits, Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, →ISBN, page 352:

(nonstandard, rare) Franco-Provençal, Arpitan.


Anglistics

Modification of German Anglistik, from Anglist (“Anglist”) + -ik (“-ics”).

The history of our English department thus begins with one of the greatest names that Anglistics in America has to offer.

1927, Lawrence Counselman Wroth, editor, The Johns Hopkins Alumni Magazine: Published in the Interest of the University and the Alumni, volume 15, Johns Hopkins Alumni Association, page 116:

Regularly on the Continent, and widely in America as well, that part of Anglistics devoted to the editing of texts is called English philology.

1930, Kemp Malone, “The Terminology of Anglistics.”, in The English Journal, volume 19, number 8, →JSTOR, page 643:

(humanities, rare) Synonym of English studies


Degema

A Nigerian Delta Edoid language spoken on Degema Island, Nigeria.


New Persian

It is particularly in its vocabulary that New Persian departs from Middle Persian, in two different ways. First, New Persian contains many words which are originally foreign to Persian proper and are betrayed by their form as belonging to other, northern or eastern Iranian dialects: New Persian owes much to Parthian and to related dialects and it has also borrowed from Soghdian. Secondly, it has admitted a considerable proportion of Arabic words, a proportion which has increased with time [...]

1975, Gilbert Lazard, “The Rise of the New Persian Language,”, in Cambridge History of Iran, volume IV, page 597:

the earliest samples of New Persian consist of a handful of verses dating from the end of the 3rd/9th century, by which time the influx [from Arabic] had been going on for two centuries.

1986, Lawrence Paul Elwell-Sutton, “Arabic Language III”, in Encyclopedia Iranica, volume 2, page 234:

The form of the Persian language that is used today, first attested from the late ninth century. It is the direct precursor of Middle Persian.


Kachin

Any of a number of non-Burman ethnolinguistic groups in Kachin State, Burma, including the Jingpho people.

كاشين

any of a number of non-Burman ethnolinguistic groups in Kachin State, Burma, including the Jingpho people


Shuar

A Jivaroan language spoken by the Shuar.


Hasaean

From al-Hasâ, the name of the northeastern part of the Saudi Arabian Eastern Province.

The South Semitic (or South West Semitic) group brings together the ancient dialects of South Arabia: Sabaean, Minaean, and Qatabanian; the PreIslamic Northern Arabian languages of Thamudic, Lihyanite, Safaitic, and Hasaean, which is associated with central easter parts of the Arabian penninsula; and the Ethiopian languages of Ge' ez, Amharic, Tigrina, and Tigre.

2013, Andrew Rippin, The Islamic World, →ISBN:

A Semitic language used in inscriptions found mainly in the great oasis of al-Hasâ, written in a variety of the South Arabian scripts.


Francian

Francian-dialect; of or pertaining to the dialect of the langue d'oïl which developed in Île-de-France and Orléanais.

francien

Francian-dialect; of or pertaining to the Francian dialect


Hill Mari

A Uralic language spoken in the Gornomariysky, Yurinsky and Kilemarsky districts of Mari El, Russia.

მთის მარიული

a Uralic language spoken in the Gornomariysky, Yurinsky and Kilemarsky districts of Mari El, Russia


Meadow Mari

A standardized dialect of the Mari language used mainly in the European part of the Russian Federation.

niittymari

a standardized dialect of the Mari language used mainly in the European part of the Russian Federation


Sulu

From Spanish Sulu/Sulú, from Tausug Sulug (“Sulu”), an older form of Sūg (“Sulu”), possibly from Tausug sulug, an older form of sūg (“current”). Compare Maranao Solog, Malay Suluk, Hokkien 蘇祿 /苏禄 (So͘-lo̍k).


minority language

en-noun

minority language (plural minority languages)

(sociolinguistics) A language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory.


Onge

An Ongan language spoken by the Onge people.


Jarawa

Borrowed from Aka-Bea [Term?] (“foreigner”).

bor+

An Ongan language spoken by the Jarawa people of Andaman Islands.


Tonkawa

From Wichita tonkaweya (“those who stay together”), compare Tonkawa Tickanwa•tic (“(a) genuine people”).

cog

The extinct language once spoken by these people.

A city in Kay County, Oklahoma, United States.


Kamtok

Cameroonian Pidgin English
Cameroonian Pidgin English


Jingulu

An Australian language spoken by the Jingili people in the Northern Territory.


Neo-Hellenic

From neo- + Hellenic.
For the proper noun, translation of the endonym νεοελληνική f (neoellinikí, “neo-Hellenic”, adjective), by ellipsis of the noun γλώσσα f (glóssa, “language”) for Modern Greek, ellipsis of Modern Greek language.

see also: koine Neo-Hellenic (Standard Modern Greek)


Tindi

A North Caucasian language spoken in the Tsumada region of Daghestan.


Karata

A North Caucasian language spoken in south-west Daghestan.


Godoberi

A North Caucasian language spoken in southwestern Daghestan.


Nyimang

The Nilo-Saharan language of these people.


Pamphylian

A little-attested and isolated dialect of Ancient Greek once spoken in Pamphylia.


Judeo-Tat

An Iranian language, very closely related to Persian, spoken by the Mountain Jews


Old Polish

A historical form of the Polish language, spoken between the 9th and 16th centuries.


Rade

Borrowed from Bahnar Rađe or Eastern Mnong Rađê.

The Austronesian language of the Chamic branch spoken by the Rade people.


Bunuban

Australian Aboriginal
Australian Aboriginal

A small family of endangered Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Australia.


Aasax

Another article on Afroasiatic deals with Southern Cushitic Aasax. It is by Jürgen Christoph Winter who is practically the only man who has been able to collect some significant data on this language which is most probably extinct now.

1981, Monographic Journals of the Near East: Afroasiatic linguistics:

For example, Aasax, a Southern Cushitic language, which used to be spoken by a hunter gatherer group who once lived in northern Tanzania (the last Aasax speaker died in 1967, according to Winter 1979) is now extinct […]

1996, Margaret Akinyi Obondo, From Trilinguals to Bilinguals?, page 27:

The language (often considered to be Southern Cushitic) formerly spoken by the Asa people of Tanzania.


eszett

From German Eszett, from the names of the letters S and Z which make up its blackletter form.

In fits of concealed despair that went unnoticed even by those close enough to touch, Julien cursed the language of umlauts, eszetts, and gerunds.

1997, Matthew Piepenburg, Time and the Maiden, →ISBN, page 62:

In German, the ß character is called eszett. It’s used in “Straße,” the word for street, and in the expletive “Scheiße.” It’s often transliterated as “ss,” and strangely enough, it’s never had an official uppercase counterpart.

2017 July 20, Thu-Huong Ha, “Germany has ended a century-long debate over a missing letter in its alphabet”, in Quartz:

The name of the Latin-script letter ẞ/ß.


Hainanese

From Hainan + -ese. Doublet of Hainamese and Hailamese.

Mr. MELROSE, though engaged in the study of the Hainanese language, has found time to open and give daily supervision to a Boy's School.

1892, Report of the American Presbyterian Mission in Canton, China for the Year 1891, Canton, page 48:

It is not easy to decide from which dialect of Chinese some of the loanwords derive, and this may explain why Philip Leo does not list any as coming from Hainanese nor Tiociu.

1984, NUSA: Linguistic Studies in Indonesian and Languages in Indonesia, volume 19, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 21, column 1:

A group of Min Chinese dialects spoken on the island of Hainan and its diaspora.


sharp s

A minor but convenient feature is the ability to include words with accent marks (Umlauts, sharp s’s) (ß) into the text. The accent entry utility provides a quick and useful way of adding diacritical marks or sharp s’s in German) (ß) into the text.

That there are sudden and unexplained changes of typeface (on p. 121) or that Greek betas appear in lieu of German sharp s’s could be construed as small oversights.

The beginning of each chapter has been silently regularized (e.g., “REligion” becomes “Religion”), as have words with tildes (e.g., “burthe^~” becomes “burthen” and “woma^~” becomes “woman”) and sharp s’s (e.g., “amißa” becomes “amissa”).

2004, ““Women, their mindes are crystall”: Christopher Newstead’s Arguments for the Superiority of Women”, in Susan Gushee O’Malley, editor, “Custome Is an Idiot”: Jacobean Pamphlet Literature on Women, Urbana, Ill., Chicago, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, →ISBN, pages 116–117:


Sand Papago

(historical) A group of Native Americans who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of southeastern Arizona and northwestern Mexico, who are today known as the Hia C-ed O'odham; closely related to the Tohono O'odham.


Sinte Romani

The German-influenced Romani language spoken by about 300,000 Sinti and Roma in Germany, Austria, France and neighboring areas.


Nandi

The Nilotic language spoken by this group.


Iaai

A Malayo-Polynesian language of Ouvéa Island in New Caledonia.


Nǀuu

Hanna Koper and her two sisters are thought to be the last remaining speakers of the San language N|uu, rated as critically endangered by Unesco.

A dialect of the Nǁng language spoken in South Africa, sometimes also used for the language as a whole.


Danu

The language spoken by the Danu people, considered by the Burmese government to be a dialect of the Intha-Danu language.


Kosraean

A language spoken in the Pacific, in the island of Kosrae and the Caroline Islands. It is a member of the Austronesian family of languages, and belongs to the Micronesian group.


Manglish

A mixture of the Maltese and English languages.


Cochimi

The extinct language spoken by these people.


Tetelcingo Nahuatl

A Nahuatl language spoken in Tetelcingo, Mexico.


Gallurese

A Romance language or dialect, transitional between Corsican and Sardinian, spoken in the historical region of Gallura, northeastern Sardinia.


Logudorese

The dialect of Sardinian spoken in the Logudoro area of Sardinia.


Pericú

(historical) A people who lived in the Cape Region in the southernmost portion of Baja California Sur until the 18th century.


Parachi

An Iranian language spoken by a very small number of people in Afghanistan.


Proto-Czech

Proto-Czech can be differentiated from Proto-Polish and Proto-Slovak from the end of the 10th century.

2014, Sebastian Kempgen, “Abstract”, in Die slavischen Sprachen / The Slavic Languages, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, →ISBN, page 1384:

ancestor language of the Czech language, descendant of Proto-Slavic, spoken between the 10th and 13th century


Nadsat

Borrowed from Russian -надцать (-nadcatʹ, “-teen”). The word was coined by English author Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) in his 1962 dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange.

[…] Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, narrated by its teenage punk of a protagonist in an argot called nadsat, which is composed (a psychologist in the book explains) of "odd bits of rhyming slang. A bit of gypsy talk, too. But most of its roots are Slav." […] Despite the dazzling tour de force Burgess brings off, l have not included A Clockwork Orange in my discussion for several reasons. First, nadsat is primarily a parody of the exclusiveness and ephemerality of teenage slang: […]

1974, Style, volume 8, Fayetteville, Ark.: University of Arkansas, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 475:

2003 April 24, Alex Thrawn, “The Iraqi Misinformation Minisiter speaks about ACO in Nadsat!”, in alt.movies.kubrick (Usenet):

In order to get a full sense of the effect of Burgess's and [Floriana] Bossi's respective Nadsats, it is necessary to examine a complex narrative unit of source and target texts. This will also enable the reader to appreciate the musicality of the original Nadsat.

2011, Brigid Maher, “Apples and (Clockwork) Oranges: Intention, Invention and Intervention”, in Recreation and Style: Translating Humorous Literature in Italian and English (Benjamins Translation Library; 90), Amsterdam, Philadelphia, Pa.: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 121:

Nadsat has been called many things, such as a constructed language, slang, register, and sociolect. Its definition is not single layered since one could argue in favour of all the cases. In the introduction to the 1996 edition [of A Clockwork Orange], Blake Morrison refers to it as a language: […] However, it can be said that Nadsat is also a register since Alex is capable of speaking standard English when he wants to (with his parents at times, for example) […] Furthermore, Nadsat can also be defined as a 'sociolect' as this term stands for any language spoken by a particular social (sub)group and is based on social, cultural, economic and institutional criteria[…]. Nadsat is spoken (not written) by Alex, his group of friends and by other teenage subgroups; other characters in the novel (the doctors, government officials) use standard English words without Russian transliterations. Moreover, Nadsat can be viewed as slang since its vocabulary and expressions seem to be of inferior value in comparison with standard English.

2017, Anna Bogic, “Anthony Burgess in French Translation: Still ‘as Queer as a Clockwork Orange’”, in Marc Jeannin, editor, Anthony Burgess and France, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, pages 219–220:

The Russian-influenced argot used by the teenage protagonists in Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange (1962).

Andrew Biswell
Anthony Burgess
Brad Mays
W. W. Norton & Company

Надсат

Russian-influenced argot used in A Clockwork Orange (1962)


extended shinjitai

en-noun

extended shinjitai (plural extended shinjitai)

Calque of Japanese 拡張新字体 (kakuchō shinjitai).

clq

An unofficial shinjitai (new character form) created by analogy.


Paranan

A Northern Luzon language of the Philippines.


MLG

Middle Low German
Middle Low German#English

Mennonite Low German
Mennonite Low German#English


Northern Min

Partial calque of Chinese 閩北語 /闽北语 (mǐnběiyǔ).

pclq

A variety of Min Chinese, spoken in northern Fujian, represented by the Jian'ou dialect.


Southern Min

Partial calque of Chinese 閩南 /闽南 (Mǐnnán).

A group of local languages of Min Chinese, which can trace their origins to southern Fujian province, China.

To truly complete the journey and discover the roots of Taiwan’s southern Min majority one would have to travel to the P’eng-hu islands (Pescadores) and then still farther west to the shores of southern Fukien and the cities and towns along the province’s east-facing coast, which is where new history of Taiwan begins.

1999, Murray A. Rubinstein, editor, Taiwan: A New History, M.E. Sharpe, →ISBN, →OCLC, →OL, page xi:

(loosely) Hokkien, including Amoy, Taiwanese Hokkien and other varieties in Southeast Asia.


Eastern Min

Partial calque of Chinese 閩東語 /闽东语 (mǐndōngyǔ).

A Chinese language, spoken in the eastern part of Fujian, including its capital city Fuzhou.

восточноми́ньский

диале́кт, язы́к


Bouyei

A language spoken by the Bouyei and Giáy people.


Old Leonese

An extinct Romance language spoken in the Iberian peninsula, the ancestor to modern Leonese.


Rohirric

From Sindarin roch (“horse”) + hîr (“lord”) + -ic.

The fictional language of the Rohirrim in Tolkien's legendarium.


Appalachian English

A dialect of the English language native to the Appalachian region of the United States, often derided for its grammatical inconsistencies and perceived lack of education of its speakers.


Proto-Mayan

The hypothetical prehistoric ancestor language of all Mayan languages.

proto-maia

The category of Proto-Mayan on Wiktionary


Narom

A Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in Sarawak, Malaysia


Proto-Human

The speculative most recent common ancestor of all the world's languages, according to a monogenetic theory.


Uru

An extinct language formerly spoken by these people.


Marau

An Eastern Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in West Papua.


Darija

Maghrebi Arabic, an Arabic dialect continuum spoken in the Maghreb region, in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Western Sahara, and Mauritania. (Western Arabic)


Lingwa de Planeta

Literally translates to "language of the planet".

international auxiliary language
international auxiliary language

An international auxiliary language and worldlang created in 2010 that incorporates words from several languages.


Querandí

From Guaraní [Term?], literally "men with fat", because they had a lot of fat in their diet.

A language that was once spoken by these people.


Singapore English

A retired British civil servant and an Oxford graduate at that, vigorously advocates that Singaporeans should speak Singapore English.

1972, Evelyn Ng, The Straits Times, page 5:

This question has aroused considerable interest since the publication of Stephen Snow Menneer’s article on Singapore English in the January issue of the NYLTI (National Youth Leadership Training Institute) Journal.

1972, Pang Cheng Lian, New Nation, page 8:

I have always been of the opinion that anybody, particularly expatriates, who subscribe to the “Singapore English” idea is a saboteur, and should not be entrusted with the teaching of the language to our students.

Dr Chua says that by the 21st Century, Singapore English will be qualitatively different but will retain its basic character.

1995, Catherine Lim, The Straits Times, page 21:

More recently, in the past five years, there has been the effort to collect, computerise, and analyse a million-word corpus of both written and spoken Singapore English.

1999, National University of Singapore, Singapore Studies: Critical Surveys of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol II, page 78

In the following paragraphs the term Singapore Colloquial English refers to the very informal variety used in some situations by native or proficient speakers of Singapore English, who choose this variety as an alternative to Standard English and often mix it with Standard English (or with other languages).

2000, Anthea Fraser Gupta, Postimperial & Postcolonial Literature in English, page (online)

If I could nominate a “dialect of the 21st Century,” I would probably go with Singapore English, a native English dialect spectrum spoken in a region with few competitors (for nearly 1/3 of Singaporeans, English is the primary language spoken at home).

2013, Ben Trawick-Smith, Dialect Blog, page (online)

As the number of native speakers of Singapore English and Mandarin increases, the colonial-era ideology of English vis-à-vis the languages of the immigrants needs to be re-examined.

2015, Zhiming Bao, The Making of Vernacular Singapore English: System, Transfer, and Filter, page 35:

A localised variety of English found in Singapore, made up of two varieties: high (Singapore Standard English) and low (Singapore Colloquial English, Singlish).


Maidu

Borrowing from Northeast Maidu maidüm (“man”).


Lidepla

Lingwa de Planeta
Lingwa de Planeta#English


Great Vowel Shift

Coined by Danish linguist Otto Jespersen.

coinage

Because English spelling was becoming standardized in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Great Vowel Shift is responsible for many of the peculiarities of English spelling.

(phonology) A major change in the pronunciation of the English language, affecting the sounds of long vowels, that took place in England between 1350 and 1700.


Ndyuka

A creole language spoken by the Ndyuka people.


Bahasa

Borrowed from Indonesian and Malay bahasa (“language”), itself from Sanskrit भाषा (bhāṣā, “language”), as a shortening of Bahasa Indonesia/Bahasa Malaysia. Compare the use of Irish Béarla (“English”), originally simply meant "language".

(colloquial) the Malay-Indonesian language


Bahasa Malaysia

Unadapted borrowing from Malay bahasa Malaysia.

unadapted borrowing

(official name in Malaysia) The official language of Malaysia, otherwise known as Malay.


Middle Cornish

The Celtic language spoken in Cornwall between the 13th and 17th centuries.


Chinese pidgin English

The term missy appears to be a Chinese Pidgin English term from English miss + the Cantonese phonotactic suffix -ee/-y, though perhaps owes something to the pre-existing British English diminutive of miss.

2015, James Lambert, “Lexicography as a teaching tool: A Hong Kong case study”, in Lan Li, Jamie McKeown, Liming Liu, editors, Dictionaries and corpora: Innovations in reference science. Proceedings of ASIALEX 2015 Hong Kong, Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, page 146:

An English-lexifier pidgin used along the Chinese coast from the 17th to the 19th centuries.

洋涇浜英語 /洋泾浜英语

an English-lexifier pidgin formerly used along the Chinese coast


Canton Jargon

Chinese pidgin English
Chinese pidgin English


Emae

a Polynesian outlier language of Vanuatu


Proto-Indo-Aryan

The reconstructed proto-language —having descended from Proto-Indo-Iranian— that is the immediate predecessor of Old Indo-Aryan.


Old Danish

In preparation for creating a dictionary of Old Danish (Gammeldansk Ordbog), [The Danish Society for Language and Literature] has begun to compile a comprehensive database (Gammeldansk Seddelsamling).

2016, Ditlev Tamm, Helle Vogt, The Danish Medieval Laws: the laws of Scania, Zealand and Jutland, Routledge, →ISBN:

There are several texts in East Norse – Old Swedish (fornsvenska, c. 1225–1526) and Old Danish (gammeldansk, c. 1100–1515) – that mention or describe Muslims and their religion.

2015, Cordelia Heß, Jonathan Adams, Fear and Loathing in the North: Jews and Muslims in Medieval Scandinavia and the Baltic Region, Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG, →ISBN:


Mary-marry-merry merger

(phonology) A phonemic merger where the vowels in "mare", "pat" and "pet" are pronounced the same before /r/, making "Mary", "marry" and "merry" homophones.


hurry-furry merger

(phonology) A phonemic merger where the vowels in "hut" and "fur" are pronounced the same before /ɹ/, making the words "hurry" and "furry" rhyme.


Austral

A Polynesian language spoken on the Austral Islands of French Polynesia.


Dusner

From the name of Dusner Village in the province of Papua, Indonesia.

A Malayo-Polynesian language used in West Papua, Indonesia.


Fingallian

An extinct variety of English formerly spoken in Fingal, Ireland, thought to have been an offshoot of Middle English.


Bolak

An international auxiliary language designed by Léon Bollack.


Harappan

Their ancient language, spoken in the timeframe of 2600-1900 BCE.


RSL

Russian Sign Language
Russian Sign Language#English


Rajbanshi

an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Nepal, closely related to Kamta/Rangpuri (Rajbongshi), and written in the Devanagari script


Babm

An international auxiliary language designed by Rikichi Okamoto.


Folkspraak

From Folkspraak folkspraak, from folk (“people”) + spraak (“language”).

constructed language
constructed language

A zonal constructed language based on Germanic languages.


Interslavic

An international auxiliary language based on Slavic languages.


Langue nouvelle

From French langue (“language”) + nouvelle (“new”).

An international auxiliary language created by Joachim Faiguet.


Solresol

From the name of the language in Solresol, based on the solfège notes so, re, and so.

Solresol reached a high-water mark in 1902, when Society head Boleslas Gajewski published a brief Grammaire du Solresol, which represented a refinement and expansion of the grammar rules set down in Sudre's 1866 guide.

Now his elderly widow, stringing telegraph wires around their Paris apartment and experimenting for five days solid, quickly developed a telegraphic version of Solresol in time to present it to the Minister of the Interior.

2015, Paul Collins, Banvard's Folly: Thirteen Tales of Renowned Obscurity, page 106:

A minor constructed language whose phonemes are based upon the solfège.


Hismaic

A form of the Ancient North Arabian language, from the Hisma sand-desert of southern Jordan and northwest Saudi Arabia.


Lwalu

Democratic Republic of the Congo
Democratic Republic of the Congo

A Bantu language spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


Attic Greek

The dialect of Ancient Greek used in Attica, the region surrounding Athens, from 500 to 300 B.C.E., closely related to Ionic Greek and a main contributor to Koine. The language of Thucydides, Plato, Aeschylus, Xenophon, etc.

ատտիկյան

pre-eminent Ancient Greek dialect used in Attica 500–300 BC

阿提卡希臘語 /阿提卡希腊语

Ātíkǎ Xīlà yǔ


Ionic Greek

The dialect of Ancient Greek used on Euboea and other islands in the Aegean Sea and in parts of Asia Minor, from around 1000 to 300 B.C.E., closely related to Attic Greek and contributing a great deal to Epic Greek. The language of Herodotus, Hippocrates, and Archilochus.

ionien

dialect of Ancient Greek used on Euboea and elsewhere ~1000–300 BC


Central Kurdish

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


Slobbovian

An imaginary language spoken in the imaginary country Slobbovia


Baniwa

A member of a group of South American Indians inhabiting the Amazon Region, in the border area of Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela and along the Rio Negro and its tributaries.


Baniwa

An Arawakan language spoken in Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil.

Curripaco

sometimes considered a separate language from the Baniwa language(s)


Khaling

a Sino-Tibetan language spoken in Nepal and India


Ngaanyatjarra

Western Desert language
Western Desert language

A Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal language spoken in the Warburton Ranges of central Australia; a major dialect of the Western Desert language group.


Ngaanyatjarra

Pertaining to the Ngaatjatjarra language or the people who speak it.


Oti

An extinct language isolate once spoken in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, between the Peixe and Pardo rivers.


Ngawun

An extinct Australian Aboriginal language formerly spoken in Queensland.


Jarai

A Malayo-Polynesian language spoken by the Jarai people.


Kotiria

Borrowed from Guanano [Term?] (literally “water people”). See ko (“water”).


Proto-Central Algonquian

(linguistics, historical) The formerly-hypothesized proto-language of the Central Algonquian languages, now recognized to be in effect Proto-Algonquian because Central Algonquian is not a genetic group.


Maltraljan

A variety of the Maltese language spoken in Australia.


Cape Dutch

The people of the Western Cape of South Africa, descended from Dutch and other European immigrants and their Asian and African slaves, who remained more or less loyal subjects of European powers into the 19th century.

(South Africa, derogatory, offensive, ethnic slur, dated) Afrikaner people


Cape Dutch

A Dutch dialect of South Africa, which developed into Afrikaans.


Chiwere

A Siouan language originally spoken by the Missouria, Otoe, and Iowa peoples.


Zarphatic

From Hebrew צָרְפַת (tsar'fát, “France”) + -ic.

An extinct Romance language, formerly spoken among the French Jews of northern France and in parts of west-central Germany.


Tagoi

A Rashad language, closely related to Tegali, spoken near the town of Rashad in southern Kordofan in Sudan.


Istro-Venetian

The dialect of Venetan spoken in Istria.


Haketia

An endangered Jewish Romance language spoken in North-Africa.


N'ko

A literary language itself written in the script.


Malaccan Creole Portuguese

Malacca Creole Portuguese
Malacca Creole Portuguese#English


Kristang

From Malay Kristang, from Portuguese cristão. Cognate with Japanese キリシタン (kirishitan, “early Japanese Christianity”).


Annobonese

A Portuguese creole spoken in Annobón Province, Equatorial Guinea.


Cazcan

Borrowed from Cazcan cazcan (“there is not any”) (via Spanish caxcanes), the tribe's response when the Spaniards who encountered them asked for food.

Cazcan. — In Zacatecas and Jalisco. (Extinct.)

1903, Guy Carleton Lee, The history of North America, page 440:


Ch'olti'

The Mayan language spoken by the Manche Ch'ol people of eastern Guatemala and southern Belize, an ancient variety of which is known as Classic Ch'olti'an, Classic Maya(n) or Epigraphic Maya(n).


Ciguayo

The language of these people, which was not Arawakan or Cariban, and of which a single word is attested (tuob).


Old Arabic

Classical Arabic
Classical Arabic#English

The earliest attested stage of the Arabic language, beginning with the first attestation of personal names in the 9th century BC, and culminating in the codification of Classical Arabic beginning in the 7th century AD.


Taymanitic

The dialect and script of the oasis of Tayma in northwestern Arabia, attested starting in the 6th century BCE, though references to the existence of an indigenous script in Tayma are attested in outside sources from the 8th century BCE.


Dano-Norwegian

A koiné language that evolved among the urban elite in Norwegian cities during the later years of Denmark-Norway (1536–1814).


Atong

Borrowed from Atong (India) atong ([atɔŋ]).

Atong language (Cameroon)
Atong language (Sino-Tibetan)

In fact, other Garo groups hardly understand the Atong language.

1981, Milton S. Sangma, History and Culture of the Garos, page 136:

2014, Seino van Breugel, A Grammar of Atong, →ISBN:

A Sino-Tibetan language, related to Garo, spoken in northeastern India and adjacent areas of Bangladesh.


Atong

Borrowed from Atong (Cameroon) Atong (Atoŋ).

A Grassfields-Bantu language of Cameroon.


Hunzib

A Northeast Caucasian language, spoken in southern Dagestan


Megam

A Sino-Tibetan language spoken in the Kalmakanda subdistrict, Netrokona district, Dhaka division, Bangladesh.


Khitai

Variant of earlier Kitai, influenced by Arabic sources and transcription.


Khowar

In those languages are, (1) Boorishki or Khajuna, the language of the Boorish or Yeshkuns, which is spoken in Hunza, Nager, and Yassin, (2) Shina, the language of the Shins which is spoken in the Gilgit Valley, (3) Khowar, the language of Chitral.

1885, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, volume 17, page 89:

Few people in Rowshan regularly read Khowar works, however, and their attitudes towards the value of written Khowar are ambivalent.

2005, Magnus Marsden, Living Islam: Muslim Religious Experience in Pakistan's North-West Frontier:

Morgenstierne 1936 is a foundational article for Khowar etymological studies. It discusses four layers of historical accretion of Iranian lexical elements in Khowar: words from (a) unidentified Ir sources, (b) Pamir languages, mainly Wakhi, (c) Middle Ir. languages, and (4) numerous words from New Persia.

2016, Hans Henrich Hock, The Languages and Linguistics of South Asia: A Comprehensive Guide:

An Indo-Aryan language of the Dardic branch, spoken by the Kho people.


Kalasha

The language spoken by the Kalash people, an Indo-European language in the Indo-Aryan branch, further classified as a Dardic language in the Chitral group. The Kalasha language is phonologically atypical because it contrasts plain, long, nasal, and retroflex vowels as well as combinations of these. The language, also known as Kalashmondr, is spoken by around 5000 people.


Tregami

A Nuristani language spoken in the villages of Gambir, Kaṭâr, and Devoz in the Tregâm Valley off the lower Pech River in the Watapur District of Kunar Province in Afghanistan. It is spoken by approximately 3,500 people (2011) and is closely related to Waigali.


Sappadino

The Austrian scholar, M. Hurnung, has published a dictionary of Sappadino; the socio-linguistic situation in Sauria/Zahre has been analysed by N. Denison[.]

1986, Linguistic minorities in countries belonging to the European community, page 85:

Similar problems arise also with other languages, such as Old Italian, Old High German, Old English, Old French, which have traditionally been characterized as V2 languages, [and] Rhaetoromance, Mocheno, Sappadino, Cimbrian.

2010, Thomas Hanneforth, Gisbert Fanselow, Language and Logos: Studies in theoretical and computational linguistics:

The same is true of other German dialects spoken in the Italian Alps like Sappadino (Plodarisch) and Mocheno, which also display regular subject inversion, but allow for V3 orders: (the Sappadino data in (5) are reported from Poletto[)...]

2011, Michael T. Putnam, Studies on German-language Islands, page 305:

The Germanic lect, a form of Tyrolean Bavarian, which is spoken in Sappada in Italy.


Plodarisch

Borrowed from German Plodarisch or from Plodarisch plodarisch, from the name of the town in the (Plodarisch) language of its inhabitants, Plodn.

The same is true of other German dialects spoken in the Italian Alps like Sappadino (Plodarisch) and Mocheno, which also display regular subject inversion, but allow for V3 orders[.]

Lastly there's an intriguing linguistic pocket in the easternmost Dolomites town of Sappada where Plodarisch, an old Bavarian-Tyrolean dialect, is spoken.

2016, Gillian Price, Trekking in the Dolomites, page 13:


Earthese

A hypothetical language spoken throughout all of Earth.


Lemakot

A former name for the Papuan New Guinean language Kara.


Old Albanian

(linguistics) Any variety of the Albanian language as attested in the 15th–17th centuries.


Naasioi

An East Papuan language spoken in the central mountains and southeast coast of Kieta District, Bougainville Province, Papua New Guinea.


Proto-Brythonic

Hypothetical ancestor language of all Brythonic languages, including Welsh.

The category of Proto-Brythonic on Wiktionary


penguinese

The next thing, a penguin will walk in here, tip his top hat, and abase himself while he mutters obsequiously in penguinese.

(informal) The language supposedly used by penguins.


Ruthenic

(dated) The variety of Russian spoken in Little Russia.


Nias

The Austronesian language spoken by this group.


Erromangan

The primary language spoken on the island of Erromango in the Tafea region of Vanuatu.


Sye

I was gripping on to Sye's shirt so hard that my fingers had lost blood circulation and they cramped when I let go. I sat up and held on to Sye with an exploding mixture of emotions. I cried into his chest, and he embraced me ...

2011, Andrea Bruden, The Secret of Vehnna, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 143:

Many things came to Sye's mind that wanted to be said, but his tongue refused to push them into reality. Struggling for a moment, Sye finally settled to whisper in a strained voice,

2013, Andrew Suzanne, The Towers of Adrala: Book One - Part One: Saranoda, Andrew Suzanne, →ISBN:

Rae listened to Sye as she talked; the excitement was clearly read in Sye's face and felt in her words.

2015, Linda S. Grant, Out Of The Ice: Birth of a Shaman, FriesenPress, →ISBN:


Gongduk

An endangered Sino-Tibetan language spoken by about 2,000 people in a few inaccessible villages located near the Kuri Chhu river in the Gongdue gewog of Mongar District in eastern Bhutan.


Lakha

a Southern Tibetic language spoken by about 8,000 people in Wangdue Phodrang and Trongsa Districts in central Bhutan. Lakha is spoken by descendants of pastoral yak herding communities.


Brokkat

An endangered Southern Tibetic language spoken by about 300 people in the village of Dhur in Bumthang Valley of Bumthang District in central Bhutan. Brokkat is spoken by descendants of pastoral yak herding communities.


Chocangaca

A Southern Tibetic language spoken by about 20,000 people in the Kurichu Valley of Lhuntse and Mongar Districts in eastern Bhutan.


Pingelapese

A Micronesian language spoken on the Pingelap atoll.


Xitsonga

Borrowed from Tsonga Xitsonga (“Tsonga language”).


Drehu

An Austronesian language mostly spoken on Lifou Island, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia.


Manipuri

Of or relating to Meitei people, language, history and culture.


Manipuri

A Tibeto-Burman language, also known as Meeteilon.


Panamint

the Numic language (Uto-Aztecan) spoken by the Timbisha people around Death Valley, California. Related to Shoshone and Comanche.


Yoron

A dialect cluster spoken on Yoron Island in southwestern Japan.


Siraya

Borrowed from Siraya sidaia (“person, human, man”).

The Formosan language of the Siraya people


Jahai

An aboriginal Mon-Khmer language spoken by the Jahai tribe of Perak, Malaya.


Bravanese

The dialect of Swahili (sometimes considered a separate language) spoken by these people.


checked tone

(Chinese phonetics) Synonym of entering tone


Kansai dialect

A group of Japanese dialects in the Kansai region (Kinki region) of Japan.


Kohistani Shina

The Shina language variety of Kohistan in Pakistan.


Utopian

A constructed language created by Thomas More and Peter Giles for the fictional island Utopia, from 1516 Thomas More’s book of the same name.


Northern Sotho

One of the Sotho languages, an official language in South Africa.


Konde

A Bantu people of Nyasaland and Tanganyika; the language of these people


Gutian

From Guti + -an, from Sumerian 𒄖𒋾𒌝𒆠 (gu-ti-umᴷᴵ).


Hieroglyphic Luwian

a variant of the Luwian language, recorded in official and royal seals and a small number of monumental inscriptions, written in a hieroglyphic script known as Anatolian hieroglyphs


Hieroglyphic Luwian

of or pertaining to the Hieroglyphic Luwian language


Digo

The Bantu language spoken by these people.


Dupaningan Agta

A language spoken by a Negrito people in northern Luzon, Philippines.


Puluwat

Federated States of Micronesia
Federated States of Micronesia

A language spoken on Poluwat, in the Federated States of Micronesia.


Ancient Egyptian

the Afroasiatic language spoken and written in Ancient Egypt


Rouran

Borrowed from Mandarin 柔然 (Róurán), from Rouran.

(historical) The language of the Rouran khaganate.


Gorilla Sign Language

Blend of gorilla + American Sign Language. Coined by Francine "Penny" Patterson, president and research director at the Gorilla Foundation.

blend

American Sign Language
American Sign Language#English

A personally modified form of American Sign Language intended for communication with gorillas, especially some of those that are subjects of research at the Gorilla Foundation.


Ivernic

From the assumption (by T. F. O'Rahilly) that this was the language of the Iverni. In the 9th century Sanas Cormaic it is called Iarnnbērlæ (modern Irish Iarmbélre), where the first element Iarnn- is taken to mean "iron" but may have originally been related to Iverni.

An extinct Celtic language mentioned in the Sanas Cormaic (as Iarnnbērlæ), assumed by some to have been spoken by the Iverni, and said by Cormac mac Cuilennáin to be the source of Old Irish ond (“stone”) and fern (“anything good”).


Khams Tibetan

A variety of the Tibetan language spoken by Kham Tibetans


Bargam

A Trans-New Guinea language spoken in Papua New Guinea.


Rajputic

An Indian koine language conjectured by Ian Hancock to be the origin of the Romani language.


Cupeño

The American Indian people of Southern California who formerly lived at what is now Warner Springs, California.


Luiseño

Borrowed from Spanish luiseño, from the name of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia + -eño.

Any of an American Indian people of southern California, living in what is now Orange County and in neighboring areas of San Diego County and Los Angeles County.


Coto

Alternative form of Cocto (“extinct Chibchan language”)


Krahn

(uncountable) A Kru language spoken by these people.


Chehalis

From Lower Chehalis C̓x̣íl̕əš (“Westport, Washington”).

bor

A Native American people of Western Washington State.


Chehalis

A city, the county seat of Lewis County, Washington, United States.

A river in Washington, United States, flowing into the Pacific Ocean.


Chehalis

From Halkomelem Stsʼaʼí:les (the name of a village, literally “beating heart”). Doublet of Sts'Ailes.

A Native American people of the Lower Mainland, British Columbia.


Chehalis

British Columbia
British Columbia#English

A small community in the Lower Mainland, British Columbia, Canada.

A river in British Columbia, Canada, flowing into the Harrison River.


Bushong

A Bantu language of the Kasai region of Democratic Republic of the Congo.


Saliba

An indigenous language of Eastern Colombia and Venezuela.


Caribbean Hindustani

An Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Caribbean, brought to the region from India.


Zauzou

From Zauzou zau⁵⁵zou³³, apparently cognate to Lolo (“Yi people”) (see Loloish).

A Loloish language spoken by the Nu people in Yunnan, China.


Toto

The Sino-Tibetan language of these people.


Qiang

An ethnic group in China, living mainly in a mountainous region in the northwestern part of Sichuan on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.


Ludic

An endangered Finnic language spoken in Russia on the southwestern shores of the lake Onega.


Eastphalian

The Low German or Low Saxon dialect spoken in Eastphalia (having ge-/e- in the past participle and mek/meck/mik/mick and dek/deck/dik/dick for me and thee).


Stoney

From their supposed use of stone in making fires for cooking.

The Siouan language spoken by these people.


Saramaccan

A creole spoken in Suriname mainly by the descendants of fugitive slaves who were native to West and Central Africa.


Lapine

From French lapin (“rabbit”). Coined by English novelist Richard Adams in 1972.

coin

A constructed language created by author Richard Adams for his 1972 novel Watership Down, where it is spoken by rabbit characters.


Iatmul

The Sepik language of the Iatmul people.


Maung

An Iwaidjan Australian Aboriginal language spoken on Croker and Melville Islands off the north coast of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory.


Latu

An Austronesian language spoken on Seram Island in the Moluccas in eastern Indonesia.


Kota

A Dravidian language of the Nilgiri Mountains.


Khmu

The Austroasiatic language spoken by the Khmu people.


Manta

A Grassfields language spoken in Cameroon.


Yakan

A language spoken primarily on Basilan Island in the Philippines


Garhwali

Borrowed from Garhwali गढ़वळि (gaṛhvaḷi), probably via another Indo-Aryan language.

A Central Pahari language of the Indo-Aryan language family spoken chiefly by the Garhwal people of Uttarakhand, India. Some sources consider it to be a dialect of Hindi.


Ongota

A moribund language of southwest Ethiopia.


West Greenlandic Pidgin

An extinct Greenlandic-based contact language once used between the Inuit of Greenland and European traders.


Greenlandic Norse

An extinct North Germanic language that was spoken in the Norse settlements of Greenland until their demise in the late 15th century.


rGyalrong

From the capitalised variant of the Wylie transliteration of Tibetan རྒྱལ་རོང (rgyal rong), the Tibetan name for the speakers of these languages.

Any of a group of rGyalrongic languages in the Sino-Tibetan language family, spoken in western Sichuan, China.

Wylie transliteration
rGyalrong languages


Dongxiang

Borrowed from the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 東鄉 /东乡 (Dōngxiāng).

The Mongolic language traditionally spoken by these people.


Rakhine

An ethnic group in Myanmar (Burma), forming the majority along the coastal region of present-day Rakhine State. They were formerly called the Arakanese.


Kayardild

An almost extinct Tangkic Pama-Nyungan Australian Aboriginal language spoken on the South Wellesley Islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria.


Minkin

An extinct Minkinan Australian Aboriginal suffixing language of northern Australia, once spoken in the area around Burketown, on the southern coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria.


Nal Bino

A constructed language created by Sebestian Verheggen in 1886, related to Volapük.


Uropi

A constructed language created by Joël Landais


Ithkuil

Anglicization of Iţkuîl in Ithkuil. Coined by John Quijada, the inventor of the conlang.

An experimental constructed language created by John Quijada, designed to try to minimize vagueness and semantic ambiguity, and to express complex ideas briefly but clearly.

The constructed script used to express the language.


Kēlen

A constructed language created by Sylvia Sotomayor.


Valyrian

From Valyria (“fictional location”) + -n.

A family of constructed languages created by David J. Peterson for the television adaptation of Game of Thrones.


Teonaht

A constructed language created by Sally Caves.


Verdurian

From Verduria + -an, the language of the fictional country Verduria.

Well, Mark has posted a "secret dictionary" for Verdurian, a descendant of Cadhinor, containing words for modern concepts; it has an entry for "atomic bomb" which could possibly be back-ported to Cadhinor.

2001, Philip Newton, “Re: Niuman debutio”, in alt.language.artificial (Usenet):

After resolving to recommit herself to aesthetic dermatology and cosmetic surgery , Johanna turns to her professional work, which at the moment consists of feminist linguistic research on grammatical gender in Hebrew, Verdurian, and various other languages in which verbs as well as nouns are masculine, feminine, or, in some instances, neuter.

2007, Susan Conant, Gaits of Heaven, Penguin, →ISBN:

Rosenfelder derived Verdurian originally from French and Russian, and was influenced by other constructed languages.

2011, Stephen D. Rogers, The Dictionary of Made-Up Languages: From Elvish to Klingon, The Anwa, Reella, Ealray, Yeht (Real) Origins of Invented Lexicons, Adams Media, →ISBN:

A constructed language invented by Mark Rosenfelder in 1995.


Wenedyk

A constructed language created by Jan van Steenbergen


Hsiang

From Mandarin 湘 (Xiāng) Wade–Giles romanization: Hsiang¹.

The Hsiang dialect is spoken principally in Hunan and resembles to some extent the southwestern Mandarin; in this group the number of tones varíes from six to seven.

1962 February, Ch’u Chai, Winberg Chai, “The Chinese Language”, in The Changing Society of China, Mentor Books, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 170:

If we adopt the threefold division of Northern Chinese, the form commonly known as ‘Southern Mandarin’ occupies the southern part of Kiangsu, Anhwei south of the river Hwei and north by the Wu boundary, the south-east corner of Hupeh, and all Kiangsi not occupied by Wu or Hakka dialects. The western form covers the southern part of Hupeh, the whole of Hunan except the so-called Hsiang dialect area, and Szechʻwan south of Chengtu, with extensions into the provinces of Kweichow and Yünnan.

1973, R. A. D. Forrest, “The Modern Dialects”, in The Chinese Language, 3rd edition, London: Faber and Faber, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 221:

Hweichou in southern Anhwei may be a Hsiang dialect or a Wu dialect. Hsiang has no written form apart from standard Chinese.

1978, “Asia”, in Barbara F. Grimes, editor, Ethnologue, 9th edition, Huntington Beach, CA: Wycliffe Bible Translators, →OCLC, page 241:


Babole

A Bantu language of the Republic of Congo.


Bangi

A Bantu language of the Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo.


Chokwe

A Bantu language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Zambia.


Chopi

From the name in Chopi, which refers to their use of bows and arrows.


Maybrat

A Papuan language spoken by the Ayamaru and Karon Dori peoples of the Maybrat Regency on the Bird's Head Peninsula of New Guinea.


Tiv

A Southern Bantoid language spoken mostly in Nigeria, with some speakers in Cameroon.


Naʼvi

A constructed language designed by Paul Frommer to be spoken by fictional extraterrestrials in the 2009 film Avatar.


Chuj

A Mayan language spoken in western Guatemala and southern Mexico.


Saterlandic

From Saterland + -ic, from German Saterland, from Old Frisian Sageleterlōnd, Sagelterland.


Blaan

An Austronesian language of the southern Philippines, similar to Tboli.


Chulym

The language of these people, closely related to Shor and Khakas.


Nago

From Ewe Anagó (“a Yoruba”), from Yoruba Ànàgó (“Yoruba from Abeokuta Province, Nigeria”).

uder

The Niger–Congo language spoken by the Nago people.


langaj

From Haitian Creole langaj, from French langage (“language”). Doublet of language.

Though used only by initiates, some passages in langaj emphasize sounds in a fashion that appeals to the ears of the profane as well, even when no translation is accessible as in most of the following examples.

2003, Marie-Jose Alcide Saint-Lot, Vodou, A Sacred Theater, page 172:

The langaj used for activation and the specific combinations required for a ceremony are initiatory secrets.

2007, Kevin Filan, The Haitian Vodou Handbook, Destiny Books, page 41:

He and his assistant, a bigger, stronger, younger man, are both singing, bent over the bowl, in langage, which is a mix of slavery-era African dialects combined with Creole; it's used only in voodoo ritual and is one of the world's few remaining wholly sacred languages.

2013, Amy Wilentz, Farewell, Fred Voodoo, Simon & Schuster, page 196:

(voodoo) A sacred or incantatory language used in Haitian voodoo rituals.


Mangbetu

One of the most populous of the Central Sudanic languages.


Xibe

The Tungusic language spoken by the Xibe people of Northwest China.


Sicel

Italus Sicels Siculian Siculus Thucydides

From Latin Siculi, from Ancient Greek Σικελός (Sikelós). See also Sicily.
Greek historians including Thucydides suggested Siculus, a legendary king and son of Italus, as the progenitor of the Sicels.

2010, Philip Baldi, The Foundations of Latin, Walter de Gruyter (Mouton de Gruyter) page 116,
Their language, Sicel or Siculan, is considered by most scholars to be an independent IE language whose deeper connections with Italic are poorly demonstrated.

In Sicily were spoken at least two languages during the first millennium BC that are widely thought to have been Indo-European. The first, Sicel (or Siculian), was spoken by the Siculians in eastern Sicily.

2010, Benjamin W. Fortson, IV, Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, 2nd edition, John Wiley & Sons, page 469:

Although the contribution of the Sicel language to coin inscriptions is not great, there is another case where Sicel is often invoked, and which unusually is not a proper name.

2012, Oliver Simkin, “Coins and language in ancient Sicily”, in Olga Tribulato, editor, Language and Linguistic Contact in Ancient Sicily, Cambridge University Press, page 170:

(linguistics) The unclassified, sparsely attested language of the Sicels.


Ngkoth

An extinct Paman language formerly spoken on the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland, Australia.


father tongue

/ˈfɑː.ðə ˌtʌŋ/

/ˈfɑ.ðɚ ˌtʌŋ/

From father + tongue (“language”), modelled after mother tongue.

Throughout their long history as a minority, Anglo-Indians learned their "father tongue" but were indifferent to their "mother tongue," an indigenous Indian language.

1973, Noel P[itts] Gist, Roy Dean Wright, “Styles of Life”, in K. Ishwaran, editor, Marginality and Identity: Anglo-Indians as a Racially Mixed Minority in India (Monographs and Theoretical Studies in Sociology and Anthropology in Honour of Nels Anderson; 3), Leiden: E[vert] J[an] Brill, →ISBN, page 148:

English is / my father tongue. / A father tongue is / a foreign language, / therefore English is / a foreign language / not a mother tongue.

1986, M[arlene] NourbeSe Philip, “Discourse on the Logic of Language”, in Journal of West Indian Literature, volume 14, Bridgetown, Barbados: Department of English, University of the West Indies, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 187:

It is our mother's voice which introduces us to language and in this way it is the only tongue, whereas the father tongue is learnt systematically.

2004, Judit Szekacs-Weisz, Ivan Ward, editors, Lost Childhood and the Language of Exile, [London]: Imago East West, The Freud Museum, →ISBN, page 11:

I was born in Kenya, and so was my mother. This makes me a Kenya citizen. My childhood and boyhood were in idyllic countryside in Singida, Tanzania near Arusha. With beautiful lakes, bewitching butterflies, endless plains running for the horizon and people with the sweetness and suaveness of the Swahili. This makes Swahili, the main language of Tanzania, my father tongue and me a Swahili boy.

2009, Ba[hadur] Tejani, “A Letter to My Readers from the Author: My Life as a Writer”, in Laughing in the Face of Terrorism […], [Seattle, Wash.?]: BookSurge Publishing, →ISBN, page 5:

A second language that one speaks fluently.


Tshangla

A Sino-Tibetan language of the Bodish branch closely related to the Tibetic languages largely deriving from Classical Tibetan.


Classical Tibetan

The form of Tibetan spoken from the early 10th century AD until the 12th century AD (after the Old Tibetan period) and still used as a written language.


Ngam

Central African Republic
Central African Republic

One of the Sara languages, spoken in Chad and the Central African Republic.


Moken

The Austronesian language spoken by these people.


Pom

An Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia


Old Tibetan

An ancient form of the Tibetan language, reflected in documents from the adoption of writing by the Tibetan Empire in the mid-7th century to works of the early 11th century.


Bongo

A Central Sudanic language spoken by the Bongo people in sparsely populated areas of Bahr al Ghazal in South Sudan.


Huetar

An extinct language once spoken in Costa Rica


Wasembo

A Rai Coast language spoken in Madang Province, Papua New Guinea.


Hellenistic Koine

Synonym of Koine (the Greek dialect of Hellenistic times)


Early New English

The form of the English language written and spoken from the end of the 15th century to the mid-17th century.


Samsam

A mixed language of Thai and Kelantan-Pattani Malay, spoken by those of mixed ancestry.


Ashokan Prakrit

The Early Middle Indo-Aryan languages represented in the inscriptions left during the reign of Ashoka, an Indian emperor of the 3rd century BCE.


Middle Indo-Aryan

The stage of the Indo-Aryan languages following Vedic Sanskrit and preceding the modern Indo-Aryan languages.


Apabhramsha

From Sanskrit अपभ्रंश (apabhraṃśa, “fallen, corrupted”).

bor

The languages of the final stage of Middle Indo-Aryan, spoken during the 6th – 13th centuries CE.


Naxi

From the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin 納西／纳西 (nàxī).

zh-l

納西／纳西 (nàxī)

A Sino-Tibetan language spoken in the city of Lijiang, Yunnan, China.


Namibian English

The English language as written and spoken in Namibia, and among Namibian expatriates in other countries.


Middle Assamese

The precursor to the Assamese language, spoken from the beginning of the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century.


Assyrian Neo-Aramaic

The Neo-Aramaic language spoken by the modern Assyrian people of Upper Mesopotamia.


Nzadi

An exonym, probably from Kongo nzadi (“river”).

Their language, which belongs to the Bantu family.


Garo

A member of a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group in Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura, Nagaland, and neighboring areas of Bangladesh.


Garo

The language spoken by this ethnic group.

A ghost town in Park County, Colorado in what is now South Park.


Tuyuca

The Tucanoan language of this people, being a postpositional agglutinative SOV language with five mandatory evidentiality paradigms (visual, nonvisual, apparent, secondhand, and assumed), and from 50 to 140 noun classes.


Bushi

A dialect of Malagasy spoken in Mayotte.


Talian

A dialect of the Venetan language, spoken in parts of Brazil.


Brooke's Point Palawano

An Austronesian language spoken in parts of Palawan island in the Philippines


Alanic

the Iranian language of the Alans, from which modern Ossetian may be descended


world English

Finally, I contacted a number of World Englishes and lexicography colleagues who were able to contribute terms and suggest further avenues of investigation.

2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 5:

(countable) Any of various national or regional varieties of English other than British or American English.


Jedek

The Aslian language spoken by a small group of Menriq/Batek people of northern Peninsular Malaysia.


Biao

From Mandarin 標話／标话 (Biāohuà, literally “Biao speech”).

zh-m

A Tai–Kadai language (or perhaps three languages) spoken in southwestern Huaiji County and Fengkai County, Zhaoqing, Guangdong, China.


Tunica

West Feliciana Parish
West Feliciana Parish#English

An unincorporated community in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, United States.

A town, the county seat of Tunica County, Mississippi, United States.


Tunica

An extinct group of linguistically and culturally related Native American tribes in the Mississippi River Valley.


Ternate

A North Halmahera language of eastern Indonesia, spoken on the island of Ternate.

bahasa Ternate

a North Halmahera language of eastern Indonesia


Ik

(uncountable) The language spoken by the Ik ethnic group.


Chemehuevi

Possibly from a Spanish corruption of Mojave 'achiimuuev (“those who play with fish”)

der

An indigenous people of the Great Basin; the southernmost branch of Southern Paiute.


Tarahumara

The Uto-Aztecan language of these people.


Braj Bhasha

An Indo-Aryan language spoken in India and considered a variety of Western Hindi.


Sapo

A Kru language of the Niger-Congo language family, spoken in eastern Liberia.


Old Indo-Aryan

The earliest attested stage of the Indo-Aryan languages that developed from Proto-Indo-Aryan, exemplified by Sanskrit as well as Mitanni-Aryan.


New Indo-Aryan

The current stage of the Indo-Aryan languages, representing an evolution from Middle Indo-Aryan.


Classical Azerbaijani

The literary revival in the native language stemmed from the need to communicate the ideas of the enlightenment to as wide a public as possible. Akhundzadä, who throughout most of his life composed lyric poetry in Persian, when writing works that carried a message of social importance used a language comprehensible to all his countrymen, which he called Türki. The renaissance of a native literature, a by-product of the movement, was thus its first and most tangible accomplishment. The hold of Persian as the chief literary language in Azerbaijan was broken, followed by the rejection of classical Azerbaijani, an artificial, heavily Iranized idiom that had long been in use along with Persian, though in a secondary position.

1985, Tadeusz Swietochowski, “A century of Russian rule”, in Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of a National Identity in a Muslim Community, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 26:

Mäkhtumquli avoids the altered syntax so typical of the Chagatay ghazal and in particular the Persian syntactic constructions. The relation of his language to classical Azerbaijani has been noted (Benzing 1964:39), and this is probably a result of the influence of poetic models in that language, seen also in the work of Andalib.

1992, Walter Feldman, “Interpreting the Poetry of Mäkhtumquli”, in Jo-Ann Gross, editor, Muslims in Central Asia: Expressions of Identity and Change, Durkham and London: Durkham University Press, →ISBN, page 175:

Then the following reports were made: “World-wide significance of Fizuli's Poetry” (prof.H. Arasly), “Questions of mastership in Fizuli's creativity” (prof. Mir Jalal), “Fizuli and the Azerbaijani music” (A. Badabayli), “Fizuli as the founder of the Classical Azerbaijani literary language” (prof. A. Demirchizadeh) [...]

2014, Jamil Hasanli, “Attempts of Party Bodies to Strengthen Control in Ideology”, in Khrushchev's Thaw and National Identity in Soviet Azerbaijan, 1954–1959, London: Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 325:

A register of the Azerbaijani language, characterized by extensive lexical and grammatical borrowing from Persian, used for literary and especially poetic purposes during the classical period of Azerbaijani literature, approximately from 16th to early 20th century.


Imonda

A Papuan language of Sandaun Province, Papua New Guinea.


Ifugao

/ʔɪ.fʊˈɡaʊ̯/

Meronyms: Aguinaldo, Alfonso Lista, Asipulo, Banaue, Hingyon, Hungduan, Kiangan, Lagawe, Lamut, Mayoyao, Tinoc — municipalities of Ifugao

A province of the Cordillera Administrative Region, Luzon, Philippines. Capital: Lagawe, created from the partinioning of the historical Mountain Province.


Tübatulabal

en-noun

Tübatulabal (plural Tübatulabals or Tübatulabal)

Tübatulabals (plural)
Tübatulabal (plural)

Borrowed from Tübatulabal tɨbatulabal (“the Tübatulabal people”), from tɨbatul (“single-leaf pinyon”) + ?.

bor

A member of a people of the Kern River Valley, California, United States.


Tübatulabal

en-adj

Tübatulabal (comparative more Tübatulabal, superlative most Tübatulabal)

more Tübatulabal (comparative)
most Tübatulabal (superlative)


Ancient North Arabian

Attested since 1904. Calque of German Alt-Nord-Arabisch (itself from 1870s), which corresponds to Altnordarabisch in modern orthography

Macdonald (2000:28ff) has grouped the ancient languages in two classes: Ancient North Arabian (ANA) and Ancient South Arabian (ASA). The ANA comprises: Taymanitic, Dadanitic, Dumaitic, Dispersed ONA, Safaitic, Hismaic, Thamudic (B,C,D, and Southern), and Hasaitic.

2001, Muhammed A. Nayeem, Origin of Ancient Writing in Arabia and New Scripts from Oman: An Introduction to South Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography, page 40:

A hypothetical Central Semitic language, language group or dialects, expressed by these scripts and closely related to Old Arabic.


chu nom

Chữ nôm was known only by the 5 percent or less of Vietnam's educated population, who used it not as a primary medium but rather as an aid to learning Chinese and for recording folk literature.

1997, Wm. C. Hannas, Asia's Orthographic Dilemma, page 83:

To write a vernacular word, Chu Nom used two Chinese ideograms—one to indicate the meaning, the other the sound.

1998, Kevin Bowen, Ba Chung Nguyen, Bruce Weigl, editors, Mountain River, page xxiv:

[P]olitical reforms along Western lines […] included […] developing modern science, agriculture, and commerce, and even creating a national writing system based on chu nom: ‘Have we not talented persons able to devise a script which will transcribe our national language?’

2016, Christopher Goscha, The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam, Penguin, published 2017, page 106:

(historical) A writing system formerly used for Vietnamese, based on Chinese characters.


Bantayanon

The Visayan language of the island of Bantayan in the Philippines.


Butuanon

From Cebuano Butuanon, from Butuan + -on.

The Austronesian language of the Butuanon people.


Guinea-Bissau Creole

A Portuguese-based creole spoken in Guinea-Bissau.


Surigaonon

From Cebuano Surigaonon, from Surigao + -non.

The Austronesian language of the Surigaonon people.


Romblomanon

The Austronesian language of the Romblomanon people.


Guyanese Creole

An English-based creole language spoken in Guyana.


Proto-Nilo-Saharan

(linguistics) The theoretical protolanguage which is the common ancestor of the Nilo-Saharan languages.


Yaeyama

A Southern Ryukyuan language spoken on the Yaeyama archipelago.


Yonaguni

From Japanese 与那国島(よなぐにじま) (yonagunijima).

A Ryukyuan language spoken on the island of Yonaguni.


arabicise

en-verb

arabicise (third-person singular simple present arabicises, present participle arabicising, simple past and past participle arabicised)

arabicises (present singular third-person)
arabicising (participle present)
arabicised (participle past)
arabicised (past)

... its name was arabicised into Bihrasīr ; while the other one in Kirmān was arabicised into Bardashīr.

1930, Journal of the K.R. Cama Oriental Institute - Issues 17-24, page 94:

... these importations, continued by the successors of this prince and by the Mertnid dynasty, soon drove the Berber element into the mountains or absorbed and arabicised it.

1936, Martijn Theodoor Houtsma, Sir Thomas Walker Arnold, René Basset, The encyclopaedia of Islām, page 590:

Despite the many problems a large part of cultural life was arabicised, including primary and secondary education and many arts faculties in universities, broacasting on radio and TV, new items in cinemas, public signs and the judicial system. But, all of these achievements notwithstanding, the centres of power and administration remained French-dominated.

2013, Yasir Suleiman, Arabic Sociolinguistics: Issues and Perspectives, →ISBN, page 38:

To make Arabic, as to customs, culture, pronunciation, spelling, or style.


Classical Malay

The older linguistic form of Malay and Indonesian originally spoken and written in Sumatra from about 1400 AD to 1800 AD. It developed from Old Malay, with heavy influence from Arabic and Persian after mass Islamisation.

bahasa Melayu Klasik

Classical Malay language; Classical Malay


Para-Romani

Any of various mixed languages of non-Indo-Aryan classification that contain considerable admixture from the Romani language.


Guianan Creole

A French-based creole language spoken in French Guiana.


AAE

African-American English
w:African-American English


Skirian

The hypothetical East Germanic language once spoken by the Scirii.


Francitan

Do not confuse Francitan with Franco-Provençal, an obsolescent name for Arpitan (see entry in chapter 2) or with Francique (Moselle Franconian) a variety of German spoken in Lorraine.

1992, Erik Gunnemark, Countries, Peoples and Their Languages: The Geolinguistic Handbook, Volume 1, Geolingua, page 141:

Rene Merle, the PCF's leading theorist on Occitan, pointed to Francitan as the real speech of the Midi.

1993, University of Southampton. Department of French, France: nations and regions, Department of French, University of Southampton, page 50

[…] he would occasionally intersperse his translation with Francitan terms […]

2005, Gaetano Cipolla, Siciliana: studies on the Sicilian ethos, Legas, page 247:


Camtho

A pidgin between tsotsitaal and a Bantu language, usually Zulu, spoken in South Africa.


Taivoan

a Formosan language spoken until the end of the 19th century by the indigenous Taivoan people of Taiwan


Southern Ohlone

A language of the Ohlone people once spoken from Santa Clara to Monterey counties in California.


Karenni

en-adj

Karenni (comparative more Karenni, superlative most Karenni)

more Karenni (comparative)
most Karenni (superlative)

Anglicized form of Burmese ကရင်နီ (ka.rangni, “red Karen”)


Palaung

A member of an ethnic group living primarily in the Shan State of Myanmar, also in China and Thailand.


Palaung

The Mon-Khmer language spoken by the Palaung people.


Panthay

An ethnic group of Chinese Muslims in Myanmar.


Yagara

The Pama-Nyungan language spoken by the Yagara and Turrbal peoples.


Mezquital Otomi

One of the two varieties of the Northwestern Otomi language, spoken in the Mezquital Valley of Hidalgo, Mexico.


Middle Frisian

Language descended from Old Frisian spoken on the North Sea coast of modern Netherlands and Germany from the 16th century until c. 1820.


Maba

The Nilo-Saharan language of these people.


Irula

Their language, written in the Tamil script.


Arikara

Possibly from Arikara aríka (“horn”), or árikaraahkucuʾ (“bull elk,” literally “ones with big horns”).

A member of a tribe of Native Americans in what is today North Dakota, who are today enrolled with the Mandan and the Hidatsa as the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation.


Tongyong Pinyin

/ˌtɒŋjɒŋ ˈpɪnjɪn/

/ˌtʊŋjʊŋ ˈpɪnjɪn/

From the Tongyong Pinyin romanization of the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation for 通用拼音 (Tongyòng Pinyin).

With regard to romanization, several different systems are concurrently being used in Taiwan, including Wade-Giles, Tongyong Pinyin 通用拼音, Hanyu Pinyin 漢語拼音, and Gwoyeu Romatzyh.

2003, Julie Ju et al., editors, A Brief Introduction to Taiwan, Government Information Office, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 16:

By now, you may be as puzzled as most American visitors to Taiwan are. And there is more confusion to come. For the purpose of this book, keep in mind that we are using Tongyong Pinyin throughout, with Hanyu Pinyin in parentheses when the spelling is different.

2006, David C. King, Taiwan (Enchantment of the World), Children's Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 89:

Rickshaw Magazine is a Tainan-based publication targeting expats, and free in many hotels and bars, while FYI South also has decent Tainan listings. The city has opted to use the Tongyong Pinyin system, with streets well marked in English and Chinese.

2007, Stephen Keeling, Brice Minnigh, The Rough Guide to Taiwan (Rough Guides), Penguin, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 316:

Taiwan’s still official but probably-not-long-for-this-world romanization system for Mandarin is Tongyong Pinyin.

2008 August 7, “Taiwan Google searches: Hanyu Pinyin vs. Tongyong Pinyin”, in Pinyin.info, archived from the original on 2008-08-12:

Although a few authors, long familiar with Wade-Giles or other older systems (or Tongyong Pinyin, a more recent system still used by some in Taiwan), have not switched to Pinyin in their writings, Chicago joins librarians in urging that Pinyin now be used in all writing about China or the Chinese language.

2017, “Languages Other than English”, in The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition, University of Chicago Press, →DOI, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 651:

This promotion of Tongyong pinyin reflects Taiwan-identifying political elites seeking to supplant Guoyu with Taiwan-accented Mandarin as the prestige language variety in Taiwan.

2017 January 22, Martin Boyle, “Pinyin and a Taiwanese identity”, in Taipei Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2017-01-21, Editorials, page 6:

The Taichung City Council on Monday (Aug. 24) gave initial approval to station names on the Taichung Mass Rapid Transit's (TMRT) green line, which is set to begin operation by the end of this year.
After a preliminary inspection of the 16.71-km line Monday, the city council gave a nod to the 18 station names on the green line. The English station names were converted using Tongyong pinyin (通用拼音) while four of the stations will also have alternate names, according to CNA.

2020 August 25, Ching-Tse Cheng, “Station names of central Taiwan Metro pass preliminary review”, in Taiwan News, archived from the original on 2020-09-10:

Kaohsiung City Government said Wednesday that it will continue using the Tongyong Pinyin Mandarin romanization system on its street signs, passing on plans by the city's previous mayor to transition to the more widely-used Hanyu Pinyin system.
In a press release, Kaohsiung's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission said the city adopted Tongyong Pinyin in 2004 amid a push toward national spelling standardizaion by the central government, and later established an advisory committee to promote an English-friendly living environment in Kaohsiung.[…]
Taiwan's Ministry of Education adopted Tongyong Pinyin as the country's official romanization system in 2002, before switching to Hanyu Pinyin in 2008, though a number of Democratic Progressive Party controlled municipalities including Kaohsiung and Tainan have continued to use the former.

2020 October 14, Wang Shu-fen, Matthew Mazzetta, “Kaohsiung nixes proposal to adopt Hanyu Pinyin street signs”, in Focus Taiwan, archived from the original on 2020-10-16, Society:

Some use romanization to make a political statement, a legacy of the “Great Tongyong-Pinyin Wars” of the 2000s. Here's a useful trick: if you notice someone is using the Hanyu Pinyin system that is standard in China for their name, they are likely pan-blue (pro-KMT), and if they use Taiwan’s Tongyong Pinyin, they are probably pan-green (pro-DPP).

2022 February 22, Courtney Donovan (石東文) Smith, “The joyous variety in Taiwanese chosen names”, in Taiwan News, archived from the original on 2022-02-22:

For instance, while many DPP-led localities had favoured the locally designed Tongyong Pinyin system for the purpose of Mandarin transliteration (notably for toponyms), the incoming[…]

2022 August 5, Jean-François Dupré, “Language Politics and Recognition under Tsai Ing-wen”, in International Journal of Taiwan Studies, volume 5, number 2, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC:

Even within the Taigi community, there's the Pe̍h-ōe-jī, there's the Tongyong pinyin, there's the Tai lo, there's people who don't agree on kanji as orthography, there's people who don't use kanji at all, there's people who think you use kanji for everything except for these prepositions.[…]
What we did is that we held monthly, and later on bimonthly, MoeDict hackathons, where we invite the people of all these different schools to come together. Also, because it's software, so I wrote some programs that automatically turned the Taiwan romanization form to Tongyong or Peh oe ji or whatever form that people prefer.

2023 March 15, Audrey Tang, “Conversation with Cynthia Wang and Tyng-Ruey Chuang”, in Ministry of Digital Affairs, archived from the original on 2023-04-06, 新聞參考資料:

Around twenty years ago, during Taiwan’s romanization wars (when President Chen wanted to impose Tongyong Pinyin upon Taiwan and a great many foreigners and others reacted with dismay and disgust), a popular claim of the Tongyong supporters was, “If Taiwanese use Hanyu Pinyin for their names, no one will be able to tell Taiwanese from Chinese anymore.”

2023 May 9, “Why is the ROC govt trying to make Taiwanese look like Singaporeans?”, in Pinyin.info, archived from the original on 2023-05-10:

A system of romanization for Mandarin Chinese developed and implemented in the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the 1990s.

通用拼音

a romanization system of Mandarin Chinese


ghawa syndrome

Named after the resyllabification of dialectal Arabic قَهْوَة (gahwa, “coffee”) as قْهَوَة (ghawa), which is the prototypical example of the phenomenon.

(phonology) A phenomenon in some Arabic dialects in which the second consonant in a word forms a cluster with the first consonant.


Tanchangya

bor

Tanchangya 𑄖𑄧𑄐𑄴𑄌𑄧𑄁𑄉𑄴𑄡

The Indo-European language of this people


Molsom

A minor language of the Sino-Tibetan family, spoken in Tripura, India.


Highland Popoluca

Calque of Spanish popoluca de la Sierra.

A variety of Popoluca spoken in the municipalities of Soteapan, Tatahuicapan, Hueyapan de Ocampa and Benito Juarez, in the state of Veracruz, Mexico.


quoc ngu

Promoters of quoc ngu were Vietnamese intellectuals who were either collaborators or anticolonial revolutionaries.

2003, Thaveeporn Vasavakul, edited by Brown & Ganguly, Fighting Words, page 223:

Students studied French and quoc ngu. Most (not all) agreed that Chinese characters no longer sufficed.

2016, Christopher Goscha, The Penguin History of Modern Vietnam, Penguin, published 2017, page 107:

The romanized writing system used to write Vietnamese.


Jewish English

The interrelated socio-ethnolects of the English language used by the Jews of Anglophonic countries, typically peppered with religious or cultural influences from Hebrew, Yiddish, and other Jewish languages (though usually not to the same extent as Yeshivish, which is essentially English but with extensive use of Aramaic, Hebrew and Yiddish terminology related to halacha (Jewish law) and Gemara learning).


Semai

A semisedentary ethnic group living in the central Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia.


Chilcotin

Borrowed from Chilcotin Tŝinlhqut’in (literally “river man”).

A Northern Athabaskan language spoken in British Columbia by the Tsilhqot'in people.


Lusitanic

(historical) An extinct language spoken by the Jews of Portugal.


Finland Swedish

the Swedish language as spoken by the Swedish-speaking population in Finland


un-English

en-adj

un-English (comparative more un-English, superlative most un-English)

more un-English (comparative)
most un-English (superlative)

A quick scan of a couple of pages in a dictionary that records the origin of our vocabulary reveals that many entries in it are historically “un-English.” This is not surprising; languages travel […]

2009, Donka Minkova, Robert Stockwell, English Words: History and Structure, page 24:

Fowler effectively refuted critics who had argued that Milton's high style was un-English, but he overstated the case.

1999, Ton Hoenselaars, Marius Buning, English Literature and the Other Languages, page 41:


Tlamacazapa Nahuatl

Calque of Spanish náhuatl de Tlamacazapa

calque

The variety of Nahuatl spoken in Tlamacazapa, Guerrero, Mexico.


Shinnecock

The extinct Algonquian language formerly spoken by this tribe.


Classical Tagalog

Generally they are no longer productive, and cannot be used for derivation either in Classical Tagalog or Classical Arabic.

2013, Jean-Paul G. Potet, Arabic and Persian Loanwords in Tagalog, Lulu Press, pages 82–83

The older form of Tagalog spoken and written in the Philippines from about 1565 C.E. to 1897 C.E., before soon developing into Modern Tagalog (Filipino) by the time of the Philippine Revolution and subsequent American colonial period to present. It developed from Old Tagalog after Christianization in the Spanish colonial period, with heavy influence from Spanish (Early Modern Spanish and Modern Spanish, including influence from Classical Nahuatl (Aztec) and Taíno), Chinese (especially Hokkien), and Japanese. This was also when it first started being written in the Latin script and later the Baybayin script becoming sparsely rarely written.


Old Tagalog

The ancient or older medieval language of Tagalog mostly spoken and sparsely written using the Baybayin script in the Philippines from around its split off from other Central Philippine languages to around 1565 C.E., when it soon developed into Classical Tagalog after Christianization by the Spanish arrival. It developed from Central Philippine, under Greater Central Philippine, under Proto-Philippine, with influence from Old Malay, Classical Sanskrit, Classical Arabic, Middle Tamil, Classical Persian, Old Javanese, and either or both Medieval Min Chinese and/or Late Middle Chinese.

Lumang Tagalog

Baybayin: ᜎᜓᜋᜅ᜔ᜆᜄᜎᜓᜄ᜔, Pre-Kudlit:ᜎᜓᜋᜆᜄᜎᜓ


Fusha

bor

Arabic الْفُصْحَى (al-fuṣḥā)

Modern Standard Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic

Modern Standard Arabic and Classical Arabic, taken together: "standard" Arabic, used in religious texts, in writing, and in formal speech, as opposed to the regional "dialects" used for most daily communication.


Ammiyya

Borrowed from Arabic الْعَامِّيَّة (al-ʕāmmiyya).

الْعَامِّيَّة

Colloquial, non-standard Arabic (used especially of eastern Arabic dialects).


Armazic

From Armazi + -ic, in reference to Armazi, an ancient site near Mtskheta, Georgia, where several specimens of a local idiom of written Aramaic have been found.

An extinct written Aramaic language used for administration in the South Caucasus in the first centuries AD.


Gepidic

The hypothetical East Germanic language once spoken by the Gepids.


Koryo-mar

(linguistics) The Korean dialect spoken in Russia and Central Asia.


Laboya

From Laboya Laboya, from the de-prenasalization of earlier Lamboya.

Moro in Laboya language means "Owner, master". The "Master of the feast" is a translation of the Indonesian "Tuan Pesta", a term which West Sumbanese use when they speak Indonesian. When speaking Laboya, different terms are used, according to the type of feast which is given.

1987, Danielle Geirnaert, “Hunt Wild Pig and Grow Rice: On Food Exchanges and Values in Laboya, West Sumba (Eastern Indonesia)”, in Rob de Ridder, Jan A. J. Karremans, editors, The Leiden Tradition in Structural Anthropology: Essays in Honour of P.E. de Josselin de Jong, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Publishers, →ISBN, page 121:

For example, in the Laboya language, which is spoken by a community who are neighbors of the Kodi in western Sumba, nyale is the word for "seaworms" while nare refers to an inedible kind of seaworm that Laboya people say causes an itchy reaction if eaten.

2017, Cynthia T. Fowler, chapter 3, in Biosocial Synchrony on Sumba: Multispecies Relationships and Environmental Variations in Indonesia, London: Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 48:

An Austronesian language spoken in the Sumba island in eastern Indonesia.


Cumbric

From Cumbria + -ic under influence from Welsh Cymraeg (“Welsh (language)”). Doublet of Cymric.

A Brythonic-Celtic language (code xcb) closely related to Welsh that was spoken in Northern England and Southern Scotland but went extinct in perhaps the 13th century.


African American Vernacular English

Alternative form of African-American Vernacular English


Wusi

An Austronesian language spoken on Espiritu Santo Island in Vanuatu.


Old South Arabian

related to the Old South Arabian languages.

related to the Ancient South Arabian script.

sud-arabique

related to homonymous script or language


Old South Arabian

A subfamily of extinct West Semitic languages formerly spoken in southern Arabia.

Ancient South Arabian
Ancient South Arabian#English


Lindu

The Austronesian language of these people.


Rwanda-Rundi

Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, considered as dialects of the same language


Luba

en:Luba
en:Luba people
en:kingdom of Luba

A Bantu language spoken by the Luba people of central Africa; one of the two Bantu languages spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


Yayan

From the pinyin romanization of the Mandarin Chinese pronunciation for 雅言 (Yǎyán), literally, "elegant speech".

A standard form of spoken Chinese, and lingua franca, of ancient China.


official language

en-noun

official language (plural official languages)

A language afforded an elevated status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction, typically for government use.


Oroch

The moribund Tungusic language spoken by the Oroch.


Zialo

The language spoken by the Zialo people of Guinea.


Siculo-Arabic

A variety of Arabic that was spoken in the Emirate of Sicily.


Hong Kong English

While many students furnished their own lexical items, I also provided a list of localized lexis, based on my own Hong Kong English citation database, from which they could select items if they were having trouble finding one themselves.

2015, James Lambert, “Lexicography as a teaching tool: A Hong Kong case study”, in Lan Li, Jamie McKeown, Liming Liu, editors, Dictionaries and corpora: Innovations in reference science. Proceedings of ASIALEX 2015 Hong Kong, Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, page 146:

The form of the English language used in Hong Kong.


Lenca

A nearly extinct language once spoken by these people.


Tiwi

A Tiwian Australian Aboriginal language spoken on Bathurst and Melville Island, in the Northern Territory.


Early Modern Latin

From early modern (time period) and Latin.

The Latin language, as developed from Renaissance Latin in the early 16th century, which served as the lingua franca of science, education, and to some degree diplomacy in Europe and was mostly displaced with national languages by the late 18th century.


Lugbara

The Central Sudanic language of these people.


Caucasian Albanian

Caucasian Albanian (countable and uncountable, plural Caucasian Albanians)

The extinct Northeast Caucasian language once spoken by these people, and from which Udi is descended.


Anishinaabemowin

From Ojibwe anishinaabemowin/ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᒧᐎᓐ. Doublet of Nishnaabemwin and Neshnabémwen

doublet

Neshnabémwen (from other varieties of Anishinaabemowin}}

the macrolanguage/language(s) spoken by the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe, Nipissing, Algonquins, Odawa, and Potawatomi)


Siberian Tatar

The Turkic language spoken in Western Siberia region of Russia.


Yamba

A Grassfields language of the northwest region of southern Cameroon, with a small number of speakers in Eastern Nigeria.


rime dictionary

en-noun

rime dictionary (plural rime dictionaries)

rhyme dictionary
rhyme dictionary#English

Alternative spelling of rhyme dictionary.


Proto-Hlai

The reconstructed ancestor of the Hlai languages.


Pre-Hlai

The reconstructed language that is the predecessor of Proto-Hlai, and is ancestral to Hlai.


Proto-Tocharian

(linguistics) The reconstructed ancestor of the Tocharian languages.


Proto-Nuristani

The reconstructed ancestor of the Nuristani languages.


Ostyak

From Russian остя́к (ostják, “Easterner”), from Eastern Khanty Ас ях (As jah, “people of the river Ob”).

der

The Ostiacks blister their skin by a fungus found on Birch-trees; and use the Agaricus officin. for Soap.

1789, Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson, page 36:

(now rare) A member of any of several indigenous peoples in Siberia, Russia, including the Khanty people and the Ket people.


Ostyak

(now rare) Any of various languages of these peoples.


Dahalo

From Aweer [Term?] (“stupid, worthless”).

Their endangered Cushitic language, notable for featuring all four airstream mechanisms found in human language.


Basic English

Coordinate term: plain English

A simplified controlled language based on English and intended for international communication and TESL.


North American English

Commonwealth English

the variety of English used outside of USA and Canada

United States of America
United States of America

The variety of the English language used in the United States of America and Canada.


Peninsular Spanish

Coordinate term: Latin-American Spanish

The standard form of Spanish spoken in the Iberian peninsula.


Uwa

A Chibchan language spoken by these people.


Late Modern English

Topics discussed in the papers that follow include many that will be familiar to scholars interested in eighteenth and nineteenth-century English, but the reader will find here increasing scope and refinement – a sign, we hope, of a maturing discipline. In this introduction we will sketch the early developments of work on Late Modern English and then preview the fifteen papers included in this volume, highlighting their main results and setting them against the earlier context. / It is probably accurate to say that work on Late Modern English (LModE) only took off in any serious way during the 1990s. There were of course prior studies of eighteenth and nineteenth-century English, but these were relatively thin on the ground compared with the great amounts of work done on the Old, Middle and Early Modern periods.

2009, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Wim van der Wurff, “Papers from 3LModE: an introduction”, in Maurizio Gotti, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Wim van der Wurff, editors, Current Issues in Late Modern English, Germany: Peter Lang, →ISBN, 1. The study of Late Modern English: an overview, pages 9, 11:

This book is meant for readers who want to discover how people in the Georgian, Regency and Victorian periods spoke and wrote. Late Modern English (LModE, 1700–1900) is currently receiving a lot of scholarly attention.

2009, Ingried Tieken-Boon van Ostade, An Introduction to Late Modern English, →ISBN, page ix:

At the end of the twentieth century, the Late Modern period still had to be described as ‘the Cinderella of English historical linguistic study’ (Jones 1989: 279). Fortunately, this scenario has changed over the last fifteen years or so. Among other things, the change of emphasis within historical linguistics to socio-historical and corpus-based approaches led to a surge of interest in Late Modern English (roughly the period between 1700 and 1900). In August 2001, the University of Edinburgh hosted the first international conference on Late Modern English (LModE).

2014, Marianne Hundt, “1. Introduction: Late Modern English syntax in its linguistic and socio-historical context”, in Marianne Hundt, editor, Late Modern English Syntax, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, 1. Late Modern English syntax: setting the scene, page 1:

It is this strong connection between Late Modern attitudes and contemporary ones which makes the former so relevant for state-of-the-art investigation. […] Indeed, the turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed a tremendous increase in the scholarly attention paid to Late Modern English (or LModE), especially as far as its codification is concerned: over the last twenty years several volumes, articles and book chapters have appeared on this topic […] Interestingly, the two decades in which studies in Late Modern English have expanded have also been the same in which the World Wide Web, invented 25 years ago, has become an ordinary tool for investigation and research.

2015, “Introduction”, in Marina Dossena, editor, Transatlantic Perspectives on Late Modern English, John Benjamins Publishing Company, →ISBN, 1. Transatlantic Perspectives on Late Modern English, pages 3–4:

The form of the English language written and spoken in the 18th and 19th centuries.


Californese

(rare) The dialect of American English spoken in California.


Uda

A Lower Cross River language of Nigeria.


Jie

Borrowed from the Hanyu Pinyin romanization of Mandarin 羯 (Jié), from Middle Chinese 羯 (kɨɐt̚), itself borrowed from Jie.

(historical) The language spoken by the Jie people, attested only in a fragment in the Book of Jin.


Damin

A ceremonial register of the Australian Aboriginal Lardil language; the only language outside of Africa to use click consonants in its phonology.


Aghwan

Caucasian Albanian
Caucasian Albanian#English


Aghwan

en-noun

Aghwan (countable and uncountable, plural Aghwans)


BANZSL

Sign languages that have foreign vocabulary based on alphabetic fingerspelled elements include American Sign Language (ASL) […] and the British Sign Language (BSL) family, BANZSL[…]

2008, Kearsy Cormier, Adam Schembri, Martha E. Tyron, “One Hand or Two? Nativisation of Fingerspelling in ASL and BANZSL”, in Sign Language & Linguistics, volume 11, number 1, John Benjamins, →DOI, →ISSN, →OCLC, pages 3–44:

But when BANZSL and ASL were compared, 44% cognate and 31% identical signs have been observed.

2016 January 5, Genie Gertz, Patrick Boudreault, The SAGE Deaf Studies Encyclopedia, SAGE Publications, →ISBN, page 234:

w:British, Australian, and New Zealand Sign Language

Acronym of British, Australian, and New Zealand Sign Language.


Sidama

A Cushitic language spoken in the region.


Northern Kurdish

The Kurdish language with the largest number of speakers, spoken in Turkey, Syria, northernmost Iraq, and parts of Iran and Central Asia.


Southern Kurdish

The Kurdish language spoken in western Iran, and to a small extent in Iraq. Kalhuri (Kermashani), Feili (Ilami) and Laki are divided into the southern dialect subgroup.


Ladakhi

A Tibetic language primarily spoken in Ladakh, India.


Landsmål

From Norwegian landsmål (Bokmål entry; Nynorsk entry); called so by Ivar Aasen.

Political parties had to tailor their programmes according to the taste of the electorate on the basis of the Riksmål/Landsmål controversy.

2000, Gyula Décsy, The Linguistic Identity of Europe: The 62 Languages of Europe Classified in Functional Zones, Eurolingua, →ISBN, page 84:

In 1885, Landsmål won official recognition from the government; in 1929 it was renamed Nynorsk ("new Norwegian").

2000, Frankie B. Shackelford, transl., Ave Eva: A Norwegian Tragedy, Xenos Books, translation of Ave Eva: Herregårdsroman by Edvard Hoem, page viii:

Diphthongs were allowed as options in many words, often rendering them identical to the Landsmål forms but deviating from upper-middle-class speech: ben > bein ‘bone, leg’ (Landsmål: bein), løv > lauv ‘leaf’ (Landsmål: lauv). In Riksmål with optional forms, many other frequently-used words were also altered from forms which reflected upper-middle-class speech to those which were identical with Landsmål:[…]

2014, Ernst Håkon Jahr, “Two Norwegian written standards: is linguistic reconciliation possible? Early twentieth century up to the 1917 language reforms”, in Language Planning as a Sociolinguistic Experiment: The Case of Modern Norwegian, Edinburgh University Press, →ISBN, section “The language reform of 1917”, subsection “Concrete changes to Riksmål”, page 93:

A written standard for Norwegian created by Ivar Aasen in the mid-1800s; predecessor to Nynorsk.


Middle Ottoman

A register of the Ottoman Turkish language typical to the time from 1501–1800 and later a chosen register, particularly seen as exclusive to an educated elite, as marked by complex syntax (lacking punctuation) and largely Persianized and Arabicized vocabulary and sentence structure.

klassinen osmaninturkki

the Turkish language in the middle period of the Ottoman Empire, of many lexical and syntactic borrowings


Protactile

From pro- + tactile, first used c. 2012.

2014 August 20, John Lee Clark, “Pro-Tactile: Bursting the Bubble.”, in Where I Stand: On the Signing Community and My DeafBlind Experience, Handtype Press, →ISBN:

Exploring the linguistic phenomenon of pro-tactile has lead Terra Edwards to make distinctions between Tactile ASL (TASL) and Visual ASL (VASL) (www.protactile.org, October 3, 2014).

2016 November 22, Massimiliano Spotti, Nelson Flores, Ofelia Garcia, editors, The Oxford Handbook of Language and Society, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 257:

ProTactile builds on this quality of expression, alive with decisions made on the fly, touches become pass-words for fields of composition as yet uncharted.

2020 October 9, Erin Manning, For a Pragmatics of the Useless, Duke University Press, →ISBN:

American Sign Language
American Sign Language

A dialect of American Sign Language that communicates with touch.


Boghom

A West Chadic language spoken in Nigeria.


Kera

An East Chadic language spoken in southwestern Chad and northern Cameroon.


Mawa

An East Chadic language spoken in central Chad.


Sarua

An East Chadic language spoken in southwestern Chad.


Yauna

An extinct Tucanoan language of Colombia.


Yahgan

This is an attempt to present the Yahgan dialect of the Fuegian Islands in lexical form[.]

1885, “The Yahgans of Tierra Del Fuego”, in The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, volume 14, page 289:


Yameo

An extinct Peba-Yaguan language of Peru.


Yauapery

(archaic) An indigenous language of that region.


Dorasque

An extinct Chibchan language of Panama, spoken by these people.


Hindki

Term is made up with هند + كی, literally means 'of Hind'.


Chayahuita

An endangered Amazonian language spoken by the native Chayahuita people in the Amazon basin of north-central Peru.


Bagheli

A Central Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Baghelkhand region of central India.


Bhumij

A Munda language spoken by the people in the Indian states of Jharkhand, Odisha, and West Bengal; often considered to be a dialect of Mundari.


Italian English

Italian English (plural Italian Englishes)

A dialect of blended Italian dialects and English, spoken primarily in the USA.

English as spoken in mainland Italy or as a second language by Italians.


Musgu

A language of the Biu–Mandara subgroup of the Chadic languages.


Orok

A language that belongs to the Tungusic language family and is spoken by the Orok people.


Udihe

A language that belongs to the Tungusic language family, which is spoken by the Udihe people.


Kalinago

The extinct Arawakan language of these people.


Huastec

Via Spanish huasteco from the Nahuatl word cuextécatl, which has two possible origins, either the word cuachalolotl (Nahuatl for small snail) or huaxitl (Nahuatl for river tamarind, also known as guaje)


Mamprusi

A Gur language spoken in northern Ghana by the Mamprusi people, related to Dagbani.


Miriwoong

A Djeragan Australian Aboriginal language spoken in Kununurra in northern Western Australia.