Idiolect

Forensic linguists, recognizing that no two people use language in exactly the same way, will examine the idiolect of an extortion letter to determine authorship.

The surveillance agency found him by spotting his idiolect on an Internet forum.

Tom has a very distinct idiolect.

"I've never seen that word before. Are you sure it's French?" "Oh, that's just Tom's idiolect. He likes to come up with his own way of saying things, usually based on his experience with other languages."

In my idiolect of English, I do not aspirate plosives, and the first part of the word "Australia" rhymes with "cow."

Everybody has his or her own idiolect of each language that he or she knows. My own English idiolect is weird for some. In speaking, I choose a variety of accents, depending on the listener. When I speak English to Filipinos, I try to use a more Filipino-accented English, because it is easier for them to understand. When I speak to a Canadian or American, I shift to a more North American accent. In writing, I learned the American way until age 10 in the Philippines. From age 10 and above in Canada, I learned Canadian English writing, up to university level. My appetite for science fiction and fantasy books from both American and British authors has affected my writing style. Some Cantonese opine that my writing is British, and it reminds them of England. My philosophy is that English is an international language and its origin can be divorced from its essence, as the case, I think, also of Spanish and French. Ergo, I urge Cantonese to divorce the essence of English from its land of origin. My favourite English writers are the British sci-fi author Olaf Stapledon and the American inventor-philosopher Buckminster Fuller.

My English writing has several influences. From age 10 and under, I learned American English writing, in tandem with Tagalog writing, in the Philippines, then from age 10 and above, in Canada, I learned Canadian English writing until university. Meanwhile, reading various American and British science fiction and fantasy books moulded my mind, as well as did the French that I have been learning since Grade 5 in Canada. Then in university, I learned Spanish and Japanese. There were bits of Esperanto in my teenage years, during university, and after university. Ergo, other languages have influenced my English writing idiolect.

She perfected the fictional idiolect, fashioning habits of speaking for even minor characters that rendered them utterly singular.