#adstratum

• Adstratum — The totality of foreign linguistic elements introduced into a language and added to its structure after it has been fully formed as a distinct idiom. Distracted from substrate (the tongue of an assimilated indigenous population) and superstrate (the language of conquerors absorbed by locals), adstratum is driven by prolonged contacts, geographical proximity, historical-political ties, or cultural exchanges. Its components yield mostly quantitative changes, expanding the lexicon and affix inventories without altering the core grammar.