Language Contact
Pidgins and Creoles
Language Contact
• Speech communities and their cultures often come into contact
• When they do, important effects occur in the languages involved
Language Contact
• Typically languages come in contact as a result of —
– Trade– Conquest– Geographical proximity
Language Contact
• When cultural items are borrowed across community boundaries, words often go with them —
popular examples include:
Karaoke
Taco
CD
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’
Language Contact
• Norman conquest of England in 1066 led to the ‘latinizing’ of the educated stratum of English vocabulary
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)
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?
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
Language Contact
• Seldom are two or more cultures in contact equal in economic influence, power, development, and therefore prestige
Language Contact
• Prestige:
in the bilingual situation, the language of the socially dominant group becomes the prestige variety
English in India and PhilippinesPersian over their empiresLatin over southern Europe, Asia Minor, N. AfricaRussian in Soviet UnionChinese on East Asian continentFrench in Europe, W. Africa
Language Contact
• In a bilingual situation, each of the two or more languages is relegated to different spheres
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
Language Contact
• This is the case in much of
Africa
China
Old Soviet Union countries
Mexico and the Americas
The Philippines
Language Contact
• The language used will depend on the prestige and socio-economic status of the activity
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.
Pidgins
• Pidgins form a language of trade and commerce (lingua franca)
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
Pidgins
• Where a mixed language forms, the language of the dominant language provides most of the vocabulary
Pidgins
• The substrate language exercises more subtle influences in phonology and syntax
e.g., dok, pik, fis in Solomon Pidgin
Pidgins
See 11.2, 384-5, 387 Sentences 1 - 12
• Phonological reduction
• Morphological simplification
• Syntax influence
• 385, 387 Sentences 1 - 12
Pidgins
• Such a language is used by native speakers of other languages in contact situations
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)’
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’
Tok Pisin Data
gras bilong het
gras bilong pisin
gras bilong solwara
sit bilong paia
Tok Pisin Data
was ‘watch’
waswas ‘wash’
sip ‘ship’
sipsip ‘sheep’
bagarapim
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]
Tok Pisin
• http://www.abc.net.au/ra/tokpisin/default.htm
Pidgins
• Pidgins are generally described as a reduced language variety
with a basic vocabulary drawn principally from the lexifier language
(lexifier lg. = dominant language)
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
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
Creoles
• E.g.s in the Americas — Hawaiian creoleCajun, in LouisianaGullah creole, off the coast of S.
CarolinaHaitian creoleJamaican creolePapiamento, on Aruba
Creoles
• Through process of creolization the variety develops in:
morphology (p. 391)
syntax (p. 397, 8)
styles
pragmatics
Creoles
• Generally creoles remain phonologically and morphologically simple
• Tobago Creole (English)me a go a maaket
• Jamaican creoleim a wan big uman
• Hawai’ian creole Haed dis ol grin haus
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
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)
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
Hawaiian creole
Hawaiian creole
Da kaet ste it da fish
Da kaet ste iting da fish
Da cat iting da fish [all mean progressive]
Hawai’ian creole
• http://www.extreme-hawaii.com/pidgin/vocab/
Creoles
• Can a variety serve as both pidgin and creole at the same time?
Creoles
• (pidgin lg.) (creolized lg
mi save go long lotu Mi 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.’
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]
Stylistic variety
• Jamaican creole
im a wan big uman [lowest]
she is a big woman
she is a grown woman [highest]
Bislama
• http://www.news.vu/tam/
• http://www.une.edu.au/langnet/definitions/bislama.html
• http://www2.hawaii.edu/~mhoff/BLMsample.html
Stylistic varietydevelopment of slang, euphemisms
• Bislama (spoken on Vanuatu)Go long bus ‘defecate’ [rural]Go long postofis … [urban]rabis sik ‘STD’wiwi ‘Frenchman’ → franis manmakem sinema ‘make spectacle of oneself’Openem eksesaes buk be in a sexually responsive positiondaboliuke ‘get married’ [from wedding cake]
Creoles
• The development of creoles gives us the opportunity to view the processes involved in the genesis of languages
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