macrolanguage.
A "language" by common usage, which is in fact a dialect continuum consisting of widely varying varieties that may be distinct languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility.
Meaning & usage
A "language" by common usage, which is in fact a dialect continuum consisting of widely varying varieties that may be distinct languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility.
A group of mutually intelligible speech varieties that have no traditional name in common, and which may be considered distinct languages by their speakers.
A book-keeping device where – when a language as defined under the ISO 639-2 standard developed by the US Library of Congress, for the purpose of encoding the languages that published books are written in, does not correspond to a single language under the ISO 639-3 standard developed by the Summer Institute of Linguistics, for the purpose of listing all the world's languages in their publication Ethnologue – the ISO 639-2 language is assigned an ISO 639-3 code as a "macrolanguage".
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *meh₂ḱ- Proto-Indo-European *-rós Proto-Indo-European *mh₂ḱrós Proto-Hellenic *makrós Ancient Greek μᾰκρός (măkrós)der. French macro-der. English macro- Proto-Indo-European *dn̥ǵʰwéh₂s Proto-Italic *dn̥ɣwā Latin dingua Latin lingua Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-tós Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂tos Proto-Italic *-ātos Latin -ātus Proto-Indo-European *-ikos Proto-Italic *-ikos Latin -icus Latin -āticus Latin -āticum Vulgar Latin *linguāticum Old French languagebor. Middle English langage English language English macrolanguage From macro- + language.
Try it on your idea.
macrolanguage has 13 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.
These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.
Explore the name generatorA word with a source.
Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.