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prettygoodwordidiolect (ID-ee-uh-lekt) - n., the distinctive and unique language use of one individual at a particular period of life.
Your quirks of speech. Contrast dialect, the language use shared among some group of people. There are also ethnolects (dialect of an ethnic group), regiolect (region), and familect (family, especially when speaking amongst themselves). Idiolects are important when it comes to linguistic forensics and authorship questions. Coined in the late 1940s on the model of dialect using Ancient Greek root idios, own/personal/distinct (cognate with idiot via Ancient Greek idiṓtēs, private citizen/layman without specialized knowledge plus millennia of linguistic drift).
---L.
Your quirks of speech. Contrast dialect, the language use shared among some group of people. There are also ethnolects (dialect of an ethnic group), regiolect (region), and familect (family, especially when speaking amongst themselves). Idiolects are important when it comes to linguistic forensics and authorship questions. Coined in the late 1940s on the model of dialect using Ancient Greek root idios, own/personal/distinct (cognate with idiot via Ancient Greek idiṓtēs, private citizen/layman without specialized knowledge plus millennia of linguistic drift).
---L.
