interintelligible

English[edit]

interintelligible (comparative more interintelligible, superlative most interintelligible)

(linguistics) Of a speech variety, able to be understood by speakers of another variety.
- 1962, Kay Williamson, “Changes in the Marriage System of the Okrika Ijo”, in Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 32(1): 53-60:
  The Okrika dialect, with Kalabari and Bonny, falls into the North-Eastern group of dialects which are partially interintelligible with Brass-Ndembe but not with the Central-Western dialects.
- 1995, Manfred Görlach, More Englishes: New Studies in Varieties of English, 1988-1994, John Benjamins, page 128:
  The sense of independence from London norms ... was difficult to establish with the obvious reality in mind that English, Scottish, Irish, American, Australian and other Englishes are, after all, interintelligible and undoubtedly varieties of one and the same language.