matrilect

Noun

matrilect (plural matrilects)

1. The language of the dominant local culture, in the situation where a pidgin or creole is formed from the language of the dominant culture and another outside introduced language.
   • However, as a satellect moves closer to its matrilect, it would seem as though the reverse process should take place: the rules should become more restrictive, less simple. The speakers would at first over-generalize; they would have rules which would permit utterances which were outside the limits...1971, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Working Papers in Linguistics III, parts 3–4, page 20
   • If one parent remains culturally dominant, however, the creole becomes a satellite ('satellect' or 'acolutholect') to that dominant language, which may be termed the 'matrilect'. In time, the creole normally begins recreolizing with the matrilect by borrowing from it. The different degrees in which...1974, David De Camp, Ian F. Hancock, Pidgins and Creoles: Current Trends and Prospects, →ISBN, page 89
2. The idiolect of the mother or the mother's clan in a household where the mother and the father speak different idiolects.
   • The Tariana preference to speak in matrilect to mother’s relatives, as reported by Aikhenvald, provides a strong comparative starting point for continued research on the norms of appropriate language use among Arawak Tariana and East Tukano speakers.2013, Janet Chernela, “Toward an East Tukano ethnolinguistics: Metadiscursive practices, identity, and sustained linguistic diversity in the Vaupe/s basin of Brazil and Colombia”, in Upper Rio Negro...
   • Sui children rapidly learn to distinguish these clan-related dialects; young children may speak a mix of matrilect and patrilect, but older children and teenagers are almost fully patrilectal (Stanford, 2008b).2013, Christine Mallinson, Becky Childs, Gerard Van Herk, Data Collection in Sociolinguistics, →ISBN

   Antonyms:

   patrilect