An autonomous language or variety is usually a standard language that has its own established norms, as opposed to a heteronomous variety.
An autonomous language will usually have grammar books, dictionaries and literature written in it. Autonomy is largely a sociopolitical construct rather than a result of specific linguistic differences.
Examples of languages which have previously been considered to be autonomous, but are now sometimes considered heteronomous are: the Scots language, now generally thought of as a dialect of English; Occitan, sometimes thought of as a dialect of French; and Low Saxon, widely considered to be a dialect of German.
Trudgill, P. (1992) "Ausbau sociolinguistics and the perception of language status in contemporary Europe" in International Journal of Applied Linguistics. Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 167-177
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