koine
English
WOTD – 20 November 2012
Alternative forms
Etymology
Borrowed from Ancient Greek κοινή (koinḗ), feminine form of κοινός (koinós, “common, general”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈkɔɪniː/, /ˈkɔɪneɪ/
Noun
koine (plural koines)
- A lingua franca.
- Synonym: interlanguage
- 2004, Steven Roger Fischer, A History of Language, Reaktion Books, page 178:
- If a dominant language was spoken in the area of such trade routes, then this dominant language became the ‘interlanguage’, as it is called. Such an interlanguage, or koiné, is a simplified dialect with which speakers of two or more quite different dialects communicate with one another.
- 2013, J. E. Wansborough, Lingua Franca in the Mediterranean, Routledge, page 153:
- Now, another term for that product is koine, which, however, I have regularly […] employed in reference to the infrastructure (procedural, juridical, formal, cultural) that enables and informs composition of a lingua franca. […] In linguistic scholarship koine mostly (!) refers to a standard language expanded by input from several dialectal sources with concomitant levelling of morphological and syntactic differences and adoption of a general and possibly restricted lexicon.
- A regional language that becomes standard over time.
Derived terms
- koinëisation (linguistics)
Translations
Further reading
koiné language on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
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