Dialect levelling

Means by which dialect differences decrease

Dialect levelling is an overall reduction in the variation or diversity of features, accompanied by an increase in the similarities, between two or more dialects in contact with each other. This can come about through assimilation, mixture, and merging of certain dialects, often by language codification, which can be a precursor to standardization. One possible result is a koine language, in which various specific dialects mix together and simplify, settling into a new and more widely embraced form of the language. Another is a speech community increasingly adopting or exclusively preserving features with widespread social currency at the expense of their more local or traditional dialect features.

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