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