Basilect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In linguistics, a basilect is a dialect of speech that has diverged considerably from an acrolect, or standard, "educated", variety of the language. A basilect and the acrolect in which it originated may, but need not, eventually reach mutual unintelligibility.
University of Chicago linguist Salikoko Mufwene explains the phenomenon of creole languages as "basilectalization" away from a standard, often European, language among a mixed European and non-European population.[1] In certain speech communities, a continuum exists between speakers of a creole language and a related standard language.
Basilects typically differ from the standard language in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, and can often develop into different languages, as the basilects of Vulgar Latin eventually developed into different Romance languages.
A modern example would be the variants of colloquial Arabic whose most divergent members are mutually unintelligible. Even more recently, spoken Haïtian and Cajun have separated so clearly from Standard French that speakers of these languages must learn French as a foreign language.