A multiethnolect is a language variety, typically formed in youth communities in working class, immigrant neighborhoods of urban areas, that contains influences from a variety of different languages. Unlike an ethnolect, which associates one language variety with one particular ethnic group, speakers of a multiethnolect often come from varied ethnic backgrounds, and their language usage can be more closely attributed to the neighborhood in which they live than their nationality or that of their parents. The term "multiethnolect" was first coined by Clyne (2000)[1] and Quist (2000).[2] Research of multiethnolects has thus far focused primarily on urban areas in northwestern Europe, such as Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Great Britain, but the phenomenon is far more universal than that.[3] Researchers Jacomine Nortier and Margreet Dorleijn call multiethnolects “a phenomenon of all times, that was only waiting for linguists to give it a name."[4] In recent research, multiethnolects are often explored as a form of contact language, meaning a language that is used for communication between two speakers who don't share a native tongue.
Multiethnolects appear to be less homogeneous than either dialects or sociolects and are assumed to be context-bound and transient, to the extent that they are ‘youth languages'.[3] Aasheim (1995) first coined the term kebabnorsk, referring to the Norwegian multiethnolect spoken primarily by immigrant youth in neighborhoods of eastern Oslo.[5][6] Wiese (2006) uses the term German Kiezdeutsch, meaning ‘neighbourhood German’, to refer to multiethnic youth language in Germany. Cheshire et al. (2011) claim that the term Jafaican, which refers to youth language in multiethnic parts of London, a name that has close associations with hip-hop, is a type of multiethnolect; many older people claim that young people in London today sound as if they are "talking black".[3] Kotsinas (1988) uses the term rinkebysvenska (named after one such district, Rinkeby) to refer to the Swedish characteristics of multiethnolects that are spoken in districts of Stockholm. Multiethnolects are considered to be a type of Labovian "vernacular".
The reasons for the emergence of European multiethnolects at this point in history is presumably linked to specific types of community formation in urban areas which have seen very large-scale immigration from developing countries. People of different language backgrounds have settled in already quite underprivileged neighbourhoods, and economic deprivation has led to the maintenance of close kin and neighbourhood ties. Castells (2000) writes of prosperous metropolises containing communities such as these: ‘It is this distinctive feature of being globally connected and locally disconnected, physically and socially, that makes mega-cities a new urban form’.[3]
Cheshire, Nortier, and Adger state that 'a defining characteristic is that [multiethnolects] are used by (usually monolingual) young people from non-immigrant backgrounds as well as by their bilingual peers'.[7]