The difference between Indigenous and Vernacular

When used as adjectives, indigenous means born or engendered in, native to a land or region, especially before an intrusion, whereas vernacular means of or pertaining to everyday language, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.


Vernacular is also noun with the meaning: the language of a people or a national language.

check bellow for the other definitions of Indigenous and Vernacular

  1. Indigenous as an adjective (chiefly, of living things):

    Born or engendered in, native to a land or region, especially before an intrusion.

  2. Indigenous as an adjective:

    Innate, inborn.

  3. Indigenous as an adjective:

    Of or relating to the native inhabitants of a land.

  4. Indigenous as an adjective:

    Of or relating to a language, culture, or ethnic group that has not spread by colonization, or that has been on the receiving end of colonization.

  1. Vernacular as a noun:

    The language of a people or a national language.

    Examples:

    "A vernacular of the United States is English."

  2. Vernacular as a noun:

    Everyday speech or dialect, including colloquialisms, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.

    Examples:

    "Street vernacular can be quite different from what is heard elsewhere."

  3. Vernacular as a noun:

    Language unique to a particular group of people; jargon, argot.

    Examples:

    "For those of a certain age, hiphop vernacular might just as well be a foreign language."

  4. Vernacular as a noun (Roman Catholicism):

    The indigenous language of a people, into which the words of the Mass are translated.

    Examples:

    "Vatican II allowed the celebration of the mass in the vernacular."

  1. Vernacular as an adjective:

    Of or pertaining to everyday language, as opposed to standard, literary, liturgical, or scientific idiom.

  2. Vernacular as an adjective:

    Belonging to the country of one's birth; one's own by birth or nature; native; indigenous.

    Examples:

    "a vernacular disease"

  3. Vernacular as an adjective (architecture):

    Of or related to local building materials and styles; not imported.

  4. Vernacular as an adjective (art):

    Connected to a collective memory; not imported.