Languages in contact

LING 400

Winter 2010

Overview

• Language contact situations– Coexisting languages– Diglossia– Superstratum/substratum– Development of new language

For further learning: LING 430 (Pidgin and Creole Languages)

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Tree model of language change

•A good model of innovative changes•But inadequate: ‘isoglosses can cut across well-established linguistic boundaries’

Wave model of language change

Wave model

‘linguistic innovations spread, like waves created by a stone thrown into a pond, from their point of origination to the periphery, slowly lowing their momentum and intersecting with the waves created by other innovations’

•Useful for modelling influences of one language on any adjacent

Coexisting languages

• Groups of equal power– Canada: French and English– Northeast England (8-11th cent. AD): Old

English and Danish

• Limited or extensive bilingualism

Bilingualism• Over half(?) of the world’s population bilingual• Common in

– India

– Papua New Guinea

One pentilingual• Mohamed Guerssel (Morocco)

– Berber (language of home)– French (local common language)– W. Moroccan colloquial Arabic (friends)– Modern Standard Arabic (school)– English (later school)

Diglossia• In bilingual societies, coexisting languages with specialized

functions• Colloquial Arabic

– language of home– used among friends

• Modern Standard Arabic– learned at school

• experience of a speaker from United Arab Emirates– grew up speaking Gulf Arabic– started learning MSA age 10– all middle, high school classes taught in MSA

– used in broadcasting, giving a lecture – needed to succeed in government– generally regarded as superior to colloquial– taught at UW

Israel Syria Iraq Afghanistan

Yemen Saudia Arabic UAEMorocco Algeria Tunisia Libya Egypt

Malta CyprusColloquial Arabic

• 6-7 major colloquial languages

• Varieties at geographical extremes mutually unintelligible

Unequal languages in contact

• Superstratum language– language of politically, culturally and/or

economically dominant group

• Substratum language– language of less dominant group

• English has been both

Superstratum substratum

• Sami (Lapp) speakers learn Finnish (but typically not vice versa)

5th century Germanic invaders, invited to help defend Celtic Britain from Pict/Scot invasions, also drove Celts to fringes of Britain

•many borrowings from English into Celtic languages, few borrowings from Celtic into English: crag (cf. Welsh craig ‘rock’), dun (cf. Irish and Gael. donn ‘brown’)

•In modern UK, Welsh speakers learn English (but typically not vice versa)

8th-11th c. Danish invasions of

England

• Resulted in extensive bilingualism, borrowing into English– fellow, egg, window,

skirt, sky, get, take, both, they, them, their

• Danes also invaded Normandy [Norman < North man]

https://depts.washington.edu/llc/olr/linguistics/clips/DanishInvasions_ref.mov

Danish-origin place

names in England

• Following Danish defeat in 878, Danish settlement/rule (‘Danelaw’) confined to NE England

Norman invasion• 1002 Aethelred took refuge in Normandy from Vikings;

married Norman woman • 1042 Aethelred’s son Edward became king of England• 1066

– Edward died without offspring– dispute over succession: Harold Godwinsson of Essex vs. William,

Duke of Normandy– Norman victory at battle of Hastings

detail from the Bayeux tapestry

After the Battle of Hastings

• 1066-1070 ‘campaign of pillage and destruction’ in England

• Why didn’t French replace English after Battle of Hastings?

https://depts.washington.edu/llc/olr/linguistics/clips/Norman_ref.mov

Post-1066 contact situation Never large numbers of bilinguals (20%?)

– lower nobility (Norman/English marriages)– government officials, merchants

• French-speaking minority (2-10%)– ruling class, upper clergy

• William tried to learn English but gave up

– soldiers, other merchants, artisans

• English, language of subject people – (former) upper classes, lower clergy– peasants (80%)

• Extensive lexical borrowing into English (apx. 10,000 words)– beef, baron, government, religion, fashion, etc.– < passive, not active knowledge of French

• Extensive connection with Normandy and France (King of England = Duke of Normandy) until 1204 (dispute over marriage)

• Fewer and fewer bilinguals– French shifted from local to foreign prestige

language– 1284: Fellows of Merton College, Oxford,

spoke English (not Latin or French)– 1295: Edward I tried to gain popular support by

claiming that the king of France intended to obliterate English

Development of a new language

• May be developed by speakers who otherwise share no common language

• A hybrid language (‘jargon’, ‘pidgin’, ‘expanded pidgin’)

• Functions as lingua franca

Lingua franca

• Speakers of languages A, B use C for communication– Latin in medieval Europe – English (air traffic controllers)

• https://depts.washington.edu/llc/olr/linguistics/clips/AirTrafficControl_ref.mov

– French in Morocco– Modern Standard Arabic throughout Arabic-

speaking world

Characteristics of pidgins• No native speakers• Lexicon

– derived from one or more languages

• Grammar– variable across speakers– relatively simple sound inventory– little affixation or irregularity– coordinate rather than subordinate clauses

Some pidgins

• 1737: ‘That mixed Language called Lingua Franca, so necessary in Eastern Countries [of Europe]: It is made up of Italian, Turkish, Persian, and Arabian.’ [OED]

• Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea)

• Krio (Sierra Leone)

• Chinook Jargon (NW North America)

Chinook Jargon

• Oregon-Alaska, east to Montana

• 100,000 speakers (5% population), late 19th century– decline in number of speakers since 1920s

• Origins (controversial)– a precontact language used as lingua franca

Nootka

Chinookan

Chinook Jargon

• Main Native American source languages

Chinook Jargon

• Evolved with white trading and settlement

• Used by 19th c. traders, natives and missionaries

• Even formal situations: written invitations, opera (1), newspaper

Chinook Jargon

• Lexicon– dictionaries: 800-2000 words– cf. English: 750,000 words

• Phonology: /r/ > /l/– rum > lum– rope > lop– grease > clease

Borrowings from Chinook Jargon• Into English

– chum (salmon) (< Nootka ‘spotted’)– tumwata ‘waterfall’ (Tumwater)– tillicum ‘friend’ (Tillicum Village)– chuck ‘water’ (< Nootka ‘water’)

• salt chuck ‘salt water’

• skookum chuck ‘rough water’

– tyee ‘chief’ (various proper names)

Borrowings from Chinook Jargon

• Into Sahaptin– [kuʃúu] ‘pig’ (< CJ < Fr)– [láam] ‘alcoholic beverage’ (< CJ < Eng?)– [músmustsɨn] ‘cow’– [ts’í] ‘sweet’

Summary

• Possible results of language contact– Bilingualism– Development of new language– Lingua franca– Language shift (later)

Question

• Are you bilingual?– Which languages learned when?– When/where used?

• Or do you know someone who is bilingual?– What is their language history and current use?