lisoniyyondosh

Lisoniyyondosh is a term used in sociolinguistics to describe the close linguistic proximity that emerges between neighboring languages or varieties as a result of long-term contact. The term derives from lisoniy, meaning linguistic, and yondosh, meaning neighboring in Uzbek, and is employed to spotlight influence that stems from geographic proximity rather than genealogical relatedness.

It covers a range of contact-induced features, including lexical borrowing and the diffusion of new coinages; phonological convergence such as shared sound changes or overlapping inventories; morphosyntactic alignment and calques; as well as discourse-level convergence manifested in idioms, expressions, and pragmatic norms that spread across communities.

Used in studies of multilingual border regions, lisoniyyondosh is related to, but not identical with, broader concepts of language contact and sprachbund. It emphasizes the local neighborly dynamic and can be applied as a descriptive heuristic to trace which features are likely to have been exchanged among adjacent speech communities.

Some scholars caution that the term can be too broad or overlapping with established terminology, and it is not universally adopted. When used, it is typically accompanied by explicit geographic and social parameters to clarify the scope of interaction being described.

See also language contact, sprachbund, lexical borrowing.