一个人的独特语言是一个人独特的语言，是一种被认为在一个人的语言或方言使用者中独一无二的语言模式。但它甚至比所有说某一方言的人都更细、更窄。

“分析英语语法”注释：

Because each of us belongs to different social groups, we each speak a language variety made up of a combination of features slightly different from those characteristics of any other speaker of the language. The language variety unique to a single speaker of a language is called an idiolect. Your idiolect includes the vocabulary appropriate to your various interests and activities, pronunciations reflective of the region in which you live or have lived, and variable styles of speaking that shift subtly depending on whom you are addressing. (Thomas P. Klammer, Muriel R. Schulz, and Angela Della Volpe. Longman, 2007)

由希腊语idio（personal，private）+（dia）lect组成的idiolect一词是由语言学家伯纳德·布洛赫（Bernard Bloch）创造的。在语言学中，方言属于语言变异的研究范畴，如方言和口音。

塑造特质

在Slate的一篇文章中，作者Gretchen McCulloch进一步解释了一个人的独特性有多深，以及人们如何对自己的语言提出自己的看法。

[A person's idiolect is] not just vocabulary; it's everything from how we pronounce certain words to how we put them together to what we imagine they mean. Ever have a disagreement with someone over whether an ambiguously-shaded object was actually blue or green? Congratulations, you've witnessed differences in idiolect.... Your sense of English as a whole is really an abstract combination of all of the idiolects that you've experienced over the course of your life, especially at a young and formative age. The conversations you've had, the books you've read, the television you've watched: all of these give you a sense of what exists out there as possible variants on the English language. The elements that you hear more commonly, or the features that you prefer for whatever reason, are the ones you latch onto as prototypical. ("Why Do You Think You’re Right About Language? You’re Not." May 30, 2014)

为了说明一个白痴是多么的个人化，请看阿齐兹·安萨里（Aziz Ansari）在《公园与娱乐》中扮演的汤姆（Tom）的这段对话，他在对话中解释了自己的“俚语”：

Zerts are what I call desserts. Tray-trays are entrees. I call sandwiches sammies, sandoozles, or Adam Sandlers. Air conditioners are cool blasterz, with a z. I don't know where that came from. I call cakes big ol' cookies. I call noodles long-a** rice. Fried chicken is fri-fri chicky-chick. Chicken parm is chicky chicky parm parm. Chicken cacciatore? Chicky catch. I call eggs pre-birds or future birds. Root beer is super water. Tortillas are bean blankies. And I call forks...food rakes. (2011)

独特的(idiolect)和地方话(dialect)的区别

一个人的独特性还包括他或她在不同社交场合使用的措辞或语言水平。

Zdeněk Salzmann在《语言、文化和社会》中指出：

Almost all speakers make use of several idiolects, depending on the circumstances of communication. For example, when family members talk to each other, their speech habits typically differ from those any one of them would use in, say, an interview with a prospective employer. The concept of idiolect refers to a very specific phenomenon—the speech variety, or linguistic system, used by a particular individual. All those idiolects that have enough in common to appear at least superficially alike belong to a dialect. The term dialect, then, is an abstraction. (Westview, 2003)

因此，作为一种抽象，很难量化和明确定义，正如帕特里克·R·贝内特在《比较闪族语言学》中指出的那样。在不同时期：

...linguists have tried to set criteria, to say that two idiolects are members of the same dialect if they have this much in common or are to this degree mutually intelligible, but they pertain to the same language if there are greater differences. But all of the cutoff points are arbitrary. (1998). 

威廉·拉博夫在《社会语言模式》中感叹道：

It must be noted that the very existence of the term 'idiolect' as a proper object of linguistic description represents a defeat of the Saussurian notion of langue as an object of uniform social understanding. (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1972)