isogloss

Jun. 11th, 2021 07:48 am
prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (Default)
[personal profile] prettygoodword
isogloss (AI-suh-glos) - n., the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature; a line on a map representing such a boundary.


Linguistic features such as a pronunciation, a word meaning, or a usage. Dialects are essentially defined by bundles isoglosses. Borrowed from German in 1992, where it was coined from ancient Greek roots ísos, equal + glôssa, language/tongue -- so the areas where people speak the same ... more or less. Most iso- words, the line marks the points where the measure is equal, rather than divides regions of equalness, so some linguists have proposed calling this a heterogloss, but that doesn't seem to have taken off. Here's a map showing the isogloss between Low German pronunciation of ik and Central German pronunciation of ich for the first person pronoun:

It's ik to the north and ich to the south
Thanks, WikiMedia!

---L.

Date: 2021-06-12 03:04 am (UTC)
mount_oregano: portrait by Badassity (Default)
From: [personal profile] mount_oregano
Like the borderline between "soda" and "pop"!

January 2026

S M T W T F S
     1 23
4 5 6 7 8 910
11 12 13 14 15 1617
1819 20 21 22 2324
25 26 27 28293031

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jan. 28th, 2026 11:12 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios