Religiolect

A religiolect is the language variety belonging to a specific religious or secularized community with its own history and development. ^{[1] [2]} Coined by Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies Benjamin Hary in his 1992 book Multiglossia in Judeo-Arabic, the term was originally applied to the Jewish linguistic spectrum, but has been expanded to other religious contexts. In contrast to an ethnolect, which marks its speakers as members of a shared ethnic group, a religiolect does not involve ethnic background but rather religious background. ^[1]

Religiolects have been studied in the context of a number of religious communities: Judaism, Islam, ^[3] Christianity (Christianese), the Christian Haugean movement, ^[4] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonese), ^{[5] [6]} Islamic and Christian communities in post-Soviet Russia, ^[7] Baháʼí, ^[8] Buddhism, and others.

See also

• Sacred language
• Shibboleth
• Sociolect
• Speech community
• Sprechbund

References

1. Hary, Benjamin (2011). "Religiolect" (PDF). Jewish Languages. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan: 45.
2. Hary, Benjamin; Wein, Martin J. (22 January 2013). "Religiolinguistics: on Jewish-, Christian- and Muslim-defined languages". International Journal of the Sociology of Language (220). doi:10.1515/ijsl-2013-0015. ISSN   1613-3668.
3. Versteegh, Kees (23 September 2020). "Can a Language be Islamic?". Eurasian Studies. 18 (1): 5–25. doi:10.1163/24685623-12340081. ISSN   1722-0750.
4. Garcia de Presno, Jostein (2022). "Vekkelsens vokabular. Smakebiter fra haugianernes religiolekt ca. 1800–1840". In Kleive, H. V.; Lillebø, J.G.; Sæther, K.-W. (eds.). Møter og mangfold: Religion og kultur i historie, samtid og skole (in Norwegian). Oslo: Cappelen Damm Akademisk.
5. Stanley, Joseph A. (1 December 2020). "6. The Absence of a Religiolect Among Latter-Day Saints in Southwest Washington". Publication of the American Dialect Society. 105 (1): 95–122. doi:10.1215/00031283-8820642. ISSN   0002-8207.
6. Forbush, Allyn (Winter 2023). "Perceptions of Mormonese: How Association with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Changes Perceptions of the Religiolect" (PDF). Schwa (28) – via Brigham Young University.
7. Sibgatullina, Gulnaz (2020). "Introduction". Languages of Islam and Christianity in Post-Soviet Russia. Studies in Slavic and general linguistics. Vol. 46. Leiden; Boston: Brill. ISBN   978-90-04-42644-3.
8. Masumian, Adib (1 June 2015). "An Introduction to the Bahá'í Religiolect". Baha'i Studies Review. 21 (1): 101–120. doi:10.1386/bsr.21.1.101_1. ISSN   1354-8697.