Concept

Stratum (linguistics)

Overview

In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for 'layer') or strate is a historical layer of language that influences or is influenced by another language through contact. The notion of "strata" was first developed by the Italian linguist Graziadio Isaia Ascoli, and became known in the English-speaking world through the work of two different authors in 1932.

Both concepts apply to a situation where an intrusive language establishes itself in the territory of another, typically as the result of migration. Whether the superstratum case (the local language persists and the intrusive language disappears) or the substratum one (the local language disappears and the intrusive language persists) applies will normally only be evident after several generations, during which the intrusive language exists within a diaspora culture.

In order for the intrusive language to persist, the substratum case, the immigrant population will either need to take the position of a political elite or immigrate in significant numbers relative to the local population, i.e., the intrusion qualifies as an invasion or colonisation. An example would be the Roman Empire giving rise to Romance languages outside Italy, displacing Gaulish and many other Indo-European languages.

The superstratum case refers to elite invading populations that eventually adopt the language of the native lower classes. Examples of this would be the Burgundians and Franks in France, who eventually abandoned their Germanic dialects in favor of other Indo-European languages of the Romance branch, profoundly influencing the local speech in the process; and the Anglo-Normans in England.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Stratum (linguistics) is discussed.

The surrounding plain, as well as the eastern flank of this hill, has been worn into steep precipices, overhanging the sea. In these precipices, the white calcareous stratum may be seen, at the height of about seventy feet above the beach, running for some miles both northward and southward of the hill, in a line appearing to be perfectly horizontal; but for a space of a quarter of a mile directly under the hill, it…
Charles Darwin, Volcanic Islands
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Given off from a molten surface, ascending, expanding, and cooling, these will presently reach a limit of elevation above which they cannot exist as vapour, but must condense and precipitate. Meanwhile the upper stratum, habitually charged with its quantum of these denser matters, as our air with its quantum of water, and ready to deposit them on any depression of temperature, must be habitually unable to take up…
Herbert Spencer, Essays
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Given off from a molten surface, ascending, expanding, and cooling, these will presently reach a limit of elevation above which they cannot exist as vapour, but must condense and precipitate. Meanwhile the upper stratum, habitually charged with its quantum of these denser matters, as our air with its quantum of water, and ready to deposit them on any depression of temperature, must be habitually unable to take up…
Herbert Spencer, Illustrations of Universal Progress
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(Nearly opposite to this escarpment, there is another corresponding one, with the strata dipping not to the exactly opposite point, or S.W., but to S.S.W.: consequently the two escarpments trend towards each other, and some miles southward they become actually united: this is a form of elevation which I have not elsewhere seen.), the clay-slate formation is seen to be covered by—(1st) a purple, claystone porphyry…
Charles Darwin, Geological Observations on South America
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He thought that all animals, including man, were originally produced in water, and proceeded gradually to become land animals. According to Diogenes Laertius, he was the inventor of the gnomon, and of geographical maps; at all events, he was the first person who introduced the use of the gnomon into Greece. He died about 547 B.C.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations, of M.T. Cicero, With a Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by
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Philosophers who discussed Stratum (linguistics)

Colin Murray Turbayne

Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Romanticism.

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