Stratum (linguistics) - Superstratum

Superstratum

A superstratum or superstrate (plural: superstrata or superstrates) is the counterpart to a substratum. When one language succeeds another, the former is termed the superstratum and the latter the substratum. In the case of French, for example, Latin is the superstrate and Gaulic the substrate.

A superstrate may also represent an imposed linguistic element akin to what occurred with English and Norman after the Norman Conquest of 1066 when use of the English language carried low prestige. The international scientific vocabulary coinages from Greek and Latin roots adopted by European languages (and subsequently by other languages) to describe scientific topics (anatomy, medicine, botany, zoology, all the 'ology' words, etc.) can also be termed a superstratum, although for this last case, "adstratum" might be a better designation (despite the prestige of science and of its language).

Several theories infer an Altaic superstratum in the phylogenetic make-up of the languages of East Asia. For instance, some linguists contend that Japanese consists of an Altaic superstratum projected onto an Austronesian substratum. Similarly, some scholars suggest that the Chinese language of Northern China underwent Altaicization to different degrees, though this has also been attributed to contact and/or substrate effects.