The following table (from Bell 1976) shows the 18 different ways of rendering the phrase I gave him one in Guyanese English: The continuum shown has the acrolect form as [aɪ ɡeɪv hɪm wʌn] (which is identical with Standard English) while the basilect form is [mɪ ɡiː æm wan].
Use of the terms acrolect, mesolect and basilect attempts to avoid the value judgement inherent in earlier terminology, by which the language spoken by the ruling classes in a capital city was defined as the "correct" or "pure" form while that spoken by the lower classes and inhabitants of outlying provinces was "a dialect" characterised as "incorrect", "impure" or "debased".
It has been suggested (Rickford 1977; Dillard 1972) that African American Vernacular English is a decreolized form of a slave creole.
After emancipation, African-Americans' recognition and exercise of increased opportunities for interaction created a strong influence of Standard American English onto the speech of Black Americans so that a continuum exists today with Standard English as the acrolect and varieties closest to the original creole as the basilect.
Meanwhile, in southern Africa, Afrikaans is a codified mesolect, or a partial creole,[6][7] with the acrolect (standard Dutch) stripped of official status decades ago, having been used for only religious purposes.