A prestige dialect is the dialect spoken by the most prestigious people in a speech community large enough to sustain multiple dialects. The study of prestige in language use is an important part of sociolinguistics. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ... Prestige means good reputation or high esteem, although it originally meant a delusion or magicians trick (Latin præstigum). ... Speech community is a concept in sociolinguistics that describes a more or less discrete group of people who use language in a unique and mutually accepted way among themselves. ... Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. ...

The most prestigious people are those with the greatest influence on the community. This influence may derive from economic, political, or social power. Prestige is not always overt; covert prestige may be significant too. There may be a tendency to align one's own use of language (idiolect) to that of a favoured dialect (positive prestige), or to move away from a dialect of low esteem (negative prestige). Studies, particularly by Labov, have shown that positive prestige is more often overt, whilst negative prestige is more often covert (avoidance of the unmentionable). Sociologically, women of the lower middle-class are more likely to notice and adopt overt positive prestige. Among working-class men, there may sometimes be a covert preference for negative prestige. Economics (from the Greek οίκος [oikos], family, household, estate, and νομος [nomos], custom, law, hence household management and management of the state) is a social science that studies the production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services. ... Politics, sometimes defined as the art and science of government. ... Social status is the standing, the honour or prestige attached to ones position in society. ... An idiolect (sometimes misspelled ideolect) is a variety of a language unique to an individual. ... William Labov (born December 4, 1927) is a professor in the linguistics department of the University of Pennsylvania. ...

In nations with a colonial history the prestige dialect is often close to the prestige dialect of the colonising community although it may fossilise at the point of secession.

Where creolisation has taken place, the superstrate language operates as an extreme prestige dialect, which may effect great influence, including, in extreme case, the decreolisation of the creole language into the prestige language. Creolization is a process through which a simplified contact language becomes a fully developed native language. ... A superstratum or superstrate is the counterpart to a substratum. ... Decreolisation is a hypothetical phenomenon whereby over time a creole language reconverges with one of the standard languages from which it originally derived. ... // A creole language, or just creole, is a well-defined and stable language that originated from a non-trivial combination of two or more languages, typically with many distinctive features that are not inherited from either parent. ...

When a prestige dialect is prescribed as the norm by dominant institutions it is also a standard dialect. Broadcast media have been particularly effective at defining standard dialects. In the United Kingdom, the thorough use of a particular prestige dialect in the first decades of broadcasting led to the term BBC English being coined. A standard language (also standard dialect or standardized dialect) is a particular variety of a language that has been given either legal or quasi-legal status. ... Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language, usually defined as the educated spoken English of southeastern England. This is a prescriptivist point-of-view — it is quite possible for an intelligent, educated individual to use a non-standard dialect. ...

According to Wilson, the United States has no single prestige dialect. In practice, many regional and ethnic dialects, such as African American Vernacular English and Appalachian English, are of lower prestige than the dialect prevalent in television newscasts, federal politics and meetings within nationwide commercial enterprises (referrred to as General American). African American Vernacular English (AAVE), also called Black English, Black Vernacular, or Black English Vernacular (BEV), is a type variety (dialect, ethnolect and sociolect) of the American English language. ... Appalachian English is a common name for the Southern Midland dialect of American English. ... General American is a notional accent of American English based on speech patterns common in the Midwest of the United States and those used by many American network television broadcasters. ...

In the United Kingdom, Received Pronunciation is the main prestige dialect.^[1] In many parts of the Commonwealth of Nations, Standard English is the prestige dialect. In German-speaking countries (for example Germany, Austria and Switzerland), Standard German is the prestige dialect. Spanish-speaking countries use Castellano as a prestige dialect. In the Greater China area, Standard Mandarin Chinese, which is based on the Beijing dialect is usually regarded as the prestige dialect. Among the Hindi-speaking states of India, Khariboli is the prestige dialect (of Hindi). Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language, sometimes defined as the educated spoken English of southeastern England. ... The Commonwealth of Nations, usually known as The Commonwealth, is an association of 53 independent sovereign states, almost all of which are former territories of the British Empire. ... Standard English is a general term for a form of written and spoken English that is considered the model for educated people. ... German (called Deutsch in German; in German the term germanisch is equivalent to English Germanic), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the worlds major languages. ... Standard Spanish or Neutral Spanish, is a linguistic variety or lect that is considered the correct educated standard for the Spanish language. ... Greater China (Traditional Chinese: 大中華地區; Simplified Chinese: 大中华地区; pinyin: ) is a term refering collectively to the financial markets and economies of mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. ... Standard Mandarin is the official Chinese spoken language used by the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of China (Taiwan), Malaysia and Singapore. ... Beijing dialect (北京话, pinyin: BÄ›ijÄ«nghuà) is the dialect of Mandarin spoken in the urban area of Beijing, China. ... Hindi (हिन्दी hind), an Indo-European language spoken mainly in North, Central, and Western India, is one of the national languages of India. ... Khariboli (also Khadiboli or Khari dialect) is the variation of Urdu/Hindi language that is Indias national language, spoken in Western Uttar Pradesh. ...

References

1. ↑ Wilson, Kenneth G (1993). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, New York: Columbia University Press.

• Labov, W. (1982). "Objectivity and commitment in linguistic science; the case of the Black English trial in Ann Abor". Language in Society '11': 165–201.