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What is a linguistic stratum?

From a diachronic analysis of the language (i.e., the study of the language through time) every language is subdued to constant change whether it be for internal processes or external influences. From these, arise different concepts such as stratum, substratum, adstratum and superstratum.

stratum is the group of elements that have been integrated to others in the formation of the language.

The lingüistic stratum or strate language is the name given to a language which due to invasion, conquest, cultural factors, domain or other event is substituted by the pressure of another. It is also used to refer to the phonological and grammatical aspects left by the disappeared language over the imposing one and are divided into lexicalmorphological and syntactical stratum.

The term adstratum is used to make reference to the influence of two neighbour languages and dialects, or to those languages coexisting in the same territory which later live in neighbour territories, such as Catalan and Spanish, Galician and Asturian, and Vasque and Spanish. In the evolving process of a language in some moments the border line between a stratum and adstratum may blur since the languages do not disappear, but first coexist and then move.

The superestratum, as a counterpart of the stratum, refers to that language which extends by linguistic domain of other and which is abandoned by its speakers in favour of the original language, over which it exerts certain influx.

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