The most prestigious dialect or variety of a particular language.
'However, most of the previous sociolinguistic studies compare how basilects or vernaculars differ from acrolects, disregarding variation in mesolects.'
'In Belize the basilect is what we call ‘broad Kriol’, the acrolect could be called Belizean English.'
noun, Linguistics.
1.
the variety of language in a creole continuum that approximates most closely the standard variety of a major international language, as the English spoken in Guyana or Jamaica.
Examples:
"acrolects can be for standards."
Origin:
1960s: from Greek akron ‘summit’ + -lect as in dialect.
