Vernacular

Part of speech: noun, adjective

Pronunciation: /vəˈnækjələ/

Definitions

1. The everyday language spoken by ordinary people in a particular region or country, as opposed to formal or literary language
2. The ordinary speech and language forms used by common people in a specific place or community, distinct from official or scholarly registers
3. A region's native dialect and common conversational patterns that differ from formal written standards and learned speech

Etymology: The most surprising thing about this word is how far its earliest sense is from its modern one. In Latin, "vernaculus" described things that were domestic or indigenous, and it was built on "verna," a home-born slave, someone born in the master's household rather than bought from abroad. The root carries a notion of belonging to the home, and the word's meaning widened from the household to the native and local. Over time, the sense moved from the people of a house to the speech of a place. A language spoken in a particular community, as opposed to a formal or learned tongue such as Latin, came to be called vernacular. The word thus traveled from describing a person born within a household to describing the everyday language people speak at home and in their neighbourhood.

Synonyms: dialect, language, tongue, idiom

Antonyms: standard, formal