Meaning of similect | Babel Free

Definitions

A variety of a language spoken by people who have a different first language, with features transferred from the first language in parallel by individual speakers rather than by a cohesive group.

Examples

“We cannot simply equate the L1-based lects with dialects, but could speak⟳ of them instead as ‘similects’, because they arise⟳ in parallel, not in mutual interaction. In short, there is no community of similect speakers. Similects do not develop⟳ new features or new discourse practices in the same way that language communities do — in interaction, from one linguistic generation to another.”

CEFR level