Language Contact

1. Language Contact Pidgins and Creoles

2. Language Contact • Speech communities and their cultures often come into contact • When they do, important effects occur in the languages involved

3. Language Contact • Typically languages come in contact as a result of — • Trade • Conquest • Geographical proximity

4. Language Contact • When cultural items are borrowed across community boundaries, words often go with them — popular examples include: Karaoke Taco CD

5. Language Contact • Cultural concepts often arrive in the new speech community with their names Jp. secuhara ‘sexual harrassment’ Ch. xi nao洗脑 ‘brain washing’

6. Language Contact • Norman conquest of England in 1066 led to the ‘latinizing’ of the educated stratum of English vocabulary

7. Language Contact • Thereafter most of the high culture words in English were imported from French pork, beef government, education entertain, television, telephone • and virtually every word used in the educated vocabulary, in law, the arts, education, medicine and science (11.4)

8. Language Contact • Even the names of countries result from language contact: Vietnam — derived from Ch. yue nam越南 Annam — derived from Ch. an nam 安南 But what about the United States? England? China?

9. Language Contact • Names frequently cross language boundaries — • John, Mark, Paul, James, Mary, etc. came from Semitic language family via Bible • more than half of Vietnamese names derive from Chinese names

10. Language Contact • Seldom are two or more cultures in contact equal in economic influence, power, development, and therefore prestige

11. Language Contact • Prestige: in the bilingual situation, the language of the socially dominant group becomes the prestige variety English in India and Philippines Persian over their empires Latin over southern Europe, Asia Minor, N. Africa Russian in Soviet Union Chinese on East Asian continent French in Europe, W. Africa

12. Language Contact • In a bilingual situation, each of the two or more languages is relegated to different spheres

13. Language Contact • In a society where three languages are spoken, A, B, and C ‘Status-stressing’ spheres of government, high commerce, church, school, will use language A Home life and local commerce will be undertaken in B, or C

14. Language Contact • This is the case in much of Africa China Old Soviet Union countries Mexico and the Americas The Philippines

15. Language Contact • The language used will depend on the prestige and socio-economic status of the activity

16. Pidgins • Formation: Pidgins form between members of two or more groups in contact, in which each user of the pidgin is a native speaker of another language.

17. Pidgins • Pidgins form a language of trade and commerce (lingua franca)

18. Pidgins • Pidgins formed along the coast and rivers of Africa, the mines of S. Africa* The Carribean the coasts of Asia and the South Pacific Tok Pisin has spread over much of Papua, New Guinea

19. Pidgins • Where a mixed language forms, the language of the dominantlanguage provides most of the vocabulary

20. Pidgins • The substrate language exercises more subtle influences in phonology and syntax e.g., dok, pik, fis in Solomon Pidgin

21. Pidgins See 11.2, 384-5, 387 Sentences1 - 12 • Phonological reduction • Morphological simplification • Syntax influence • 385, 387 Sentences1 - 12

22. Pidgins • Such a language is used by native speakers of other languages in contact situations

23. Tok Pisin Vocabulary Data mi go ‘I (am) go(ing)’ yu go ‘you (sg.) (are) go(ing)’ mi lukim yu ‘I see you’ yu lukim mi ‘you see me’ mipela go ‘we (are) go(ing)’ [pela marks plural] yupela go ‘you (pl.) (are) go(ing)’

24. Tok Pisin Data papa bilong mi ‘my father’ haus bilong mipela ‘our house papa bilong yu ‘your (sg.) father’ haus bilong yupela ‘your (pl.) house’

25. Tok Pisin Data gras bilong het gras bilong pisin gras bilong solwara sit bilong paia

26. Tok Pisin Data was ‘watch’ waswas ‘wash’ sip ‘ship’ sipsip ‘sheep’ bagarapim

27. Tok Pisin Data bilong ‘of (+ possessive) long ‘for, to’ wantaim ‘with’ Asde dispela man i stilim pik ‘Yesterday this man stole a pig’ [pela marks adjectival]

28. Tok Pisin • http://www.abc.net.au/ra/tokpisin/default.htm

29. Pidgins • Pidgins are generally described as a reduced language variety with a basic vocabulary drawn principally from the lexifier language (lexifier lg. = dominant language)

30. Creoles • Creoles are generally described as the result of ‘nativization’ (creolization) • Prior to the formation of the creole was a jargon or a pidgin that was the native language of no one

31. Creoles • Nativization / creolization occurs when children grow up speaking the variety as a native language • In the mouths and minds of children over generations, the creole becomes a fully developed human language

32. Creoles • E.g.s in the Americas — Hawaiian creole Cajun, in Louisiana Gullah creole, off the coast of S. Carolina Haitian creole Jamaican creole Papiamento, on Aruba

33. Creoles • Through process of creolization the variety develops in: morphology (p. 391) syntax (p. 397, 8) styles pragmatics

34. Creoles • Generally creoles remain phonologically and morphologically simple • Tobago Creole (English) me a go a maaket • Jamaican creole im a wan big uman • Hawai’ian creole Haed dis ol grin haus

35. Creoles • but many historical languages are phonologically and morphologically simple, too • E.g., Spanish, with five vowel system, Persian with three vowel system • E.g., Chinese is entirely uninflected

36. Hawaiian creole • Creoles tense systems Dey wen pein hiz skin (wen indicates past) Yu gon trn in yaw pepa leit? (gon for future, not yet occurred; no ‘be’ auxiliary verb)

37. Hawaiian creole Da kaet ste in da haus (ste for verbs of location) Get tu mach turis naudeiz (get for ‘there are’) Haed dis ol grin haus ( haed for ‘there were’) Nau yu da hed maen (no ‘be’ verb) Mai sista skini

38. Hawaiian creole Da kaet ste it da fish Da kaet ste iting da fish Da cat iting da fish [all mean progressive]

39. Hawai’ian creole • http://www.extreme-hawaii.com/pidgin/vocab/

40. Creoles • Can a variety serve as both pidgin and creole at the same time?

41. Creoles • (pidgin lg.) (creolized lg mi save go long lotuMi sa go lo lotu ‘I go to church’ bel bilong me i hat mi belhat ‘I am angry’ em i man bilong pait em i paitman ‘he is a fighter’ [creole sentence:] Mi no bin sa go klas ‘I didn’t usually go to class.’

42. Stylistic variety • Tobago Creole (English) me a go a maaket [lowest] me goin to maaket ah goin to maaket I’m going to market I’m going to the market [highest]

43. Stylistic variety • Jamaican creole im a wan big uman [lowest] she is a big woman she is a grown woman [highest]

44. Bislama • http://www.news.vu/tam/ • http://www.une.edu.au/langnet/definitions/bislama.html • http://www2.hawaii.edu/~mhoff/BLMsample.html

45. Stylistic varietydevelopment ofslang, euphemisms • Bislama (spoken on Vanuatu) Go long bus ‘defecate’ [rural] Go long postofis … [urban] rabis sik ‘STD’ wiwi ‘Frenchman’ → franis man makem sinema ‘make spectacle of oneself’ Openem eksesaes buk be in a sexually responsive position daboliuke ‘get married’ [from wedding cake]

46. Creoles • The development of creoles gives us the opportunity to view the processes involved in the genesis of languages