| acrolect |
| Definition - a spoken language's most formal register — for example, the one that is used during important ritual occasions. |
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Example - The writing style found in the King James Bible: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. |
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Etymology - The term was coined by linguist Derek Bickerton in the early 1970s. He probably coined it by combining the Greek akros, highest or upper, with the word dialect. |
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Oxford English Dictionary - The first full citation of the term is from 1977: "Speakers in a post-creole community are triply pressured: to avoid the basilect, to acquire the acrolect, and to vary the mesolect." (Language LIII. 330 ) |