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In linguistics, a 'basilect' is a dialect of speech that has diverged considerably from an acrolect, or standard, "educated", variety of the language. A basilect and the acrolect in which it originated may, but need not, eventually reach mutual unintelligibility.
University of Chicago linguist Salikoko Mufwene explains the phenomenon of creole languages as "basilectalization" away from a standard, often European, language among a mixed European and non-European population.^[1] In certain speech communities, a continuum exists between speakers of a creole language and a related standard language.
Basilects typically differ from the standard language in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, and can often develop into different languages, as the basilects of Vulgar Latin eventually developed into different Romance languages.
A modern example would be the variants of colloquial Arabic whose most divergent members are mutually unintelligible. Even more recently, spoken Haïtian and Cajun have separated so clearly from Standard French that speakers of these languages must learn French as a foreign language.
At present, the terms basilect/mesolect/acrolect are used in preference to earlier terminology which included the implicit or explicit assumption that members of the ruling class in a country's political and economic centers were speaking and writing the "correct" form of their language while the lower classes and inhabitants of outlying provinces were speaking "dialects" or "mistaken", "debased" or "vulgar" forms of the language. Research into attitudes towards specific basilects has suggested that such assumptions often have little or no grounding in observable linguistic fact. Steve Thorne, for example, analyses attitudes towards Brummie, the British English basilect, and finds that attitudes towards this variety of English are influenced by external factors, such as prejudices promoted by the mass media, rather than inherent linguistic inferiority.

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See also

★ Mesolect

References

1. http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mufwene/pidginCreoleLanguage.html