Word.ws English Dictionary

glottophagy

glottophagy noun: the absorption or replacement of minor languages or dialects by major ones.

Noun

glottophagy (uncountable)

  1. (rare) The absorption or replacement of minor languages or dialects by major ones.
    • One scientist's language spread is another's glottophagy. There are a number of partly overlapping perspectives, which can be regarded as concerned primarily with progression or regression.1993, Kenneth Hyltenstam, Åke Viberg, Progression and regression in language, page 28

Origin of glottophagy

Borrowed from French glottophagie, coined by Louis-Jean Calvet. By surface analysis, glotto- + -phagy.

Questions about glottophagy

What does glottophagy mean?
Glottophagy means the absorption or replacement of minor languages or dialects by major ones.
What part of speech is glottophagy?
Glottophagy is a noun.

Words near glottophagy in the dictionary

  1. glottologists
  2. glottology
  3. glottometrics
  4. glottonym
  5. glottonyms
  6. glottophagy
  7. glottophobia
  8. glottopolitics
  9. Glouc
  10. Gloucester
  11. Gloucester City

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: glottophagy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “glottophagy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/glottophagy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.