vernacular means of or pertaining to everyday language, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.
vernacular is pronounced /vəˈnækjələ/.
Why “vernacular” is a great word
The native, everyday spoken language of a particular community, or the informal style associated with it. From Latin vernāculus ("domestic, indigenous, pertaining to home-born slaves"), from verna ("a home-born slave"), first recorded in English use c. 1600. Unlike "dialect," which denotes a regionally distinct variety, or "lingo," which suggests insider jargon, the vernacular is the unselfconscious hum of common speech—the cadence of market haggling, the shorthand of a family joke, the warm, worn syntax of kitchen conversations. It is the grammar of the workshop, the poetry of the kitchen, and the accumulated wisdom of the street—language not as rule but as hearth, shaped by use, by love, and by the slow erosion of time.
Etymology
From Latin vernāculus (“domestic, indigenous, of or pertaining to home-born slaves”), from verna (“a native, a home-born slave (one born in his master's house)”).
adj
- Of or pertaining to everyday language, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.e.g.“Near-synonyms: common, everyday, indigenous, ordinary, vulgar, colloquial, basilectal, demotic”
- Belonging to the country of one's birth; one's own by birth or by nature.e.g.“Near-synonyms: native, indigenous; endemic”
- Of or related to local building materials and styles; not imported.
- Connected to a collective memory; not imported.
- Not attempting to use the rules of a taxonomic code, especially, not using scientific Latin.e.g.“An English vernacular name for Rosa multiflora is multiflora rose.”
noun
- The language of a people or a national language.e.g.“The principal vernacular of the United States is English.”
- Everyday speech or dialect, including colloquialisms, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.e.g.“Near-synonyms: basilect, demotic”
- Language unique to a particular group of people.e.g.“Near-synonyms: jargon, argot, dialect, slang”
- A language lacking standardization or a written form.
- Indigenous spoken language, as distinct from a literary or liturgical language such as Ecclesiastical Latin.e.g.“Vatican II, a church council in the 1960s, allowed the celebration of the mass in the vernacular.”
- A style of architecture involving local building materials and styles; not imported.
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