dialektal

Dialektal is an adjective used in linguistics to describe features that belong to a dialect, i.e., a regional or social variety of a language that differs from the standard or prestige form. The term is used across several languages, including Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, German, and Dutch, to mark variations in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, or usage that are characteristic of a specific speech community rather than the whole language.

Dialektal features can be phonological (sound changes), lexical (dialectal words), syntactic (grammatical constructions), or semantic (meanings that differ). They often form a continuum with other varieties, creating a dialect continuum across geographic areas. The study of these features constitutes dialectology or regional linguistics. Researchers collect data through fieldwork, surveys, and dialect atlases, and compare dialects to the standard language.

Dialectal differences may be stable in some communities, or erode due to education, media, migration, and contact with other dialects, a process known as dialect leveling. The term dialectal is also used in dictionaries and grammars to label non-standard forms or to annotate examples.

Related concepts include sociolect, ethnolect, and idiolect. The distinction between dialects and languages is often sociopolitical, as dialects may be mutually intelligible yet classified differently by communities and authorities.