Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One layer or stratum superimposed on another.
- noun Linguistics The language of a later, invading people imposed on and leaving features in an indigenous language.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A stratum or layer above another, or resting on something else.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A stratum, or layer, above another.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun geology A
stratum that is on top of another - noun linguistics A
language imposed upon a population that previously spoke another language
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun any stratum or layer superimposed on another
- noun the language of a later invading people that is imposed on an indigenous population and contributes features to their language
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The whole superstratum, which is oftentimes many feet in thickness, consists of the debris of vegetable and animal matter; for these swamps are scarcely more noted for their luxuriant vegetation, than they are for their abundance of insects and reptiles.
An Address before the Medical Society of North Carolina, at Its Second Annual Meeting, in Raleigh, May 1851, by Charles E. Johnson, M.D. Charles Earl 1851
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[M3] “is on” means the substratum-superstratum relation.
Analytic Philosophy in Early Modern India Ganeri, Jonardon 2009
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The formation of Israeli was NOT the result of language contact between spoken Hebrew and a powerful superstratum, such as English in the case of some vernacular Arabics, Kurdish in the case of Neo-Aramaic, or French in the case of English.
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Like in France, where the result of the contact of Gaulish Latin, as a spoken substratum, with superstratum Frankish only surfaced in writing in the ninth century after the Carolingian Reform, it needed a strong external impetus to adjust the written language to the spoken practice.
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I therein said that I should visit these hills on my way down the river; and I am fully convinced from close examination, that they are a part of the same original superstratum, which I therein described, though 7 or 800 miles separated from them.
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A plain which lay between us and the sea appeared to consist of barren sand, covered towards the sea with a superstratum of salt.
Travels in Nubia 2004
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The superstratum was very light, and brownish black, the remainder yellowish brown, the yellow tints as well as the stiffness increasing downwards.
Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries William Griffith
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On leaving Surruk Durrah we entered the narrow gorge before alluded to; it is five miles long, and has precipitous sides, at the bottom of which rushed a foaming torrent: the formation of the hills was slate with a superstratum of limestone.
A Peep into Toorkisthhan Rollo Gillespie Burslem
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"Colonial Magazine," vol.ii. p. 309, says the finest Indian corn he ever saw was in the Himalayas of the Sikim-range, where the soil consists of a substratum of decomposed _mica_ from the under or rocky stratum, with a superstratum of from three to six inches of decayed vegetable matter, from leaves, &c., of the ancient forests.
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The soil is generally deep, more or less yellow, and somewhat clayey; the hollows having a thin superstratum of black mould.
Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and the Neighbouring Countries William Griffith
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