The integration of communal lexicons in communication: Evidence from Hindu and Muslim children in India

Successful communication often requires speakers to consider what their interlocutors are likely to understand. One challenge arises from the uneven distribution of linguistic knowledge across individuals. According to the theory of communal lexicons, speakers draw not only from their personal vocabulary but also from assumptions about which words are shared with their interlocutors based on community membership. While prior work suggests that adults adjust their language in this way, there is limited empirical evidence that such expectations shape actual word choices. Even less is known about whether and how children make these inferences and incorporate them into their speech.We present a series of studies investigating whether children understand that different communities can have distinct communal lexicons, whether they use social group information to infer linguistic knowledge, and whether these inferences affect their referential expressions. We also explored how dominance asymmetries between groups influence this process. The studies were conducted in a school in Vadodara (Gujarat, India), where Hindu (majority) and Muslim (minority) children regularly interact—providing a natural context in which to study communal lexicons and intergroup communication.Our findings partially support the communal lexicon hypothesis. Older Muslim children were the only group who consistently adapted their word choices based on the religious identity of their interlocutor, suggesting they had developed both accurate expectations about shared vocabulary and the ability to adjust their language accordingly. In contrast, younger children showed limited ability to form such expectations, even when they understood the meanings of the words themselves—indicating that this capacity may develop gradually with age and experience.Crucially, our results also suggest that the communal lexicon theory must be extended to account for power asymmetries between majority and minority groups. Muslim children, as members of the minority group, likely face greater need to navigate across communal boundaries and may develop more refined communicative strategies as a result. Hindu children, by contrast, appeared less attuned to such differences.Together, these findings show that (i) children may not fully grasp or integrate communal lexicons until later in development, and (ii) group dominance dynamics crucially shape the opportunities and motivations for developing this capacity. Our work suggests that members of minority groups not only have greater exposure to the dominant group’s lexicon but also become more skilled at aligning their speech to others’ knowledge. In contrast, members of dominant groups may have fewer opportunities or incentives to develop this skill. Future research should examine whether such asymmetries persist in adult communication, and to what extent social hierarchies influence linguistic adaptability across the lifespan.