Transcript Social Aspects of Contact Languages - Uni

Social Aspects of
Contact Languages
*Language contact*
LC is the use of more than one language in the
same place at the same time.
Russenorsk

Russenorsk (or "Russonorsk") was a pidgin
language combining elements of Russian and
Norwegian, created by traders and whalers from
the Norwegian Svalbard archipelago and the
Russian Kola peninsula in the 19th century.
Russenorsk was a ‘seasonal’ language, not used
continuously throughout the year but only
during part of the summer fishing season
(Lunden 1978: 213).
Typical Situations for Language
Contact

International Trading

Colonization, slavery and
wars

Immigration:
“guest workers”,
refugees,
missionaries
Nez Percé Jargon Speakers

The Nez Perce Tribe is
located in North Central
Idaho near Lewiston.
Although they are called the
Nez Perce, that name came
from a French Canadian
interpreter and means
“pierced nose.” Most Nez
Perce did not pierce their
noses, and although the name
is widely used they refer to
themselves as Nimi’ipuu,
which means the “real
people” or “we the people.”

Nez Perce Tribe Web Site
Phone: (208) 843-2253
PO Box 365, Lapwai, Idaho 83540
Contact Languages

CL is any new language that arises in a
contact situation between the speakers who
have no language in common:
Pidgin


Pidgins are speech-forms which do not have native
speakers, and are therefore primarily used as a means of
communication among people who do not share a common
language. (Muysken/Smith 1995: 2)
Pidgins are languages developed by speakers of distinct
languages who come into contact with one another and
share no common language among them. Pidgins typically
spring up in trading centres and in areas under
industrialization, where the opportunities for trade and
work attract large numbers of people with different native
tongues. (Cipollone/Keiser/Vasishth 1998: 357)
Origin of Pidgin





English “business” in a defective Chinese
pronunciation
Portuguese ocupação “business”
Hebrew pidjom “exchange, trade”
Portuguese pequeno “small, child”
Phonetic resemblance with “pigeon”
Classification





Military pidgins: Sabir (Lingua Franca), Juba Arabic…
Seafaring and trade pidgins: Russenorsk, Eskimo trade
Jargon, Tok Pisin, Mobilian Jargon…
Plantation pidgins: English-based (Jamaica, Trinidad,
Nicaragua), French-based (Haiti, Guadalupe), Dutchbased (Virgin Islands), Spanish-based Papiamento
(Aruba, Curaçao), Portuguese-based (island off the
coast of West Africa)
Mine pidgins: Pidgin A-70 (Truck-drivers’ Bulu)
Immigrants’ pidgins: Cocoliche (Argentina)
Creoels
Traditionally, creole languages were defined
as pidgin languages that had been adopted
as the first, or native, language of a group of
speakers.
(Cipollone/Keiser/Vasishth
1998: 363)
Origin of Creoles




Portuguese crioulu “white man” (16th century)
Portuguese criar “to nurse, breed, nourish”
“Slave born in a colony” or “non-indigenous
animal”
Concise Oxford Dictionary “settler in W.Indies
and used with nouns referring to something like
“exotic” or “spicy”
Social Aspects (Peter Mühlhäusler, 1997)
jargon
jargon
jargon
↓
↓
stabilized
Pidgin
↓
stabilized
Pidgin
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
expanded
Pidgin
↓
creole
creole
Hawaian
Torres Straits
Creole English Creole English
creole
New Guinea
Tok Pisin
Jargon
A [prepidgian unstable] jargon is an extremely
rudimentary and variable type of language
formed in contact situations. If the
conditions are right, jargons can settle and
crystallize into [pidgins or creoles].
(Cipollone/Keiser/Vasishth 1998: 363)
The Jargon Stage




Great individual variation
Simple sound system
One or two-word sentences
Small lexicon
*Russenorsk
moja/twoja
‘me/you’
imorra
‘tomorrow’
dag
‘day’
morra-morra dag
‘the day after tomorrow’
*Chinese-Russian Jargon of Kjachta:
uma konecaijlo (sanity + finished) ‘mad’
ruka sapogi
(hands + boots)
‘gloves’
jazyka meda
(tongue + honey) ‘skilful orator
Social Aspects
1) jargon
2) jargon
3) jargon
↓
↓
stabilized
Pidgin
↓
stabilized
Pidgin
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
expanded
Pidgin
↓
creole
creole
Hawaian
Torres Straits
Creole English Creole English
creole
New Guinea
Tok Pisin
Stabilization
Unstable pronunciation and phonology
 Elimination and reduction of the sounds:
 [s], [∫] and [t∫] were replaced by [s] as in Tok
Pisin san ‘sun’, sem ‘shame’ and sok ‘chalk’
 [θ] and [ð] were replaced by [d] and [t]
as in Cameronian Pidgin English den ‘them’

Morphology
Portuguese estam ‘they are’ → -nan pluralizer
*buki/bukinan –
‘book/books (Papiamentu)
 Time relationship was indicated by morphemes:
*mi baimbai go
I will [by and by] go
 Category of case:
*bel bilog me (Tok Pisin)
‘my stomach’

Phrase-like formula






Early Tok Pisin – sip : ‘sheep’, ‘ship’, ‘jeep’, ‘jib’
Hiri Motu
Gloss
Translation
kuku ania gauna smoke it thing
‘pipe’
lahi gabua gauna fire burn thing
‘match’
godo abia gauna voice take thing
‘taperecorder’
man bilong pait man belong to fight ‘fighter’
Pidgin French

The French forces occupied the remote valley of Dien Bien
Phu in the Winter of 1953. Under French rule, the French
language was widely used in the cities Many less educated people,
including merchants, low ranking civil servants, army veterans,
and domestics working for French households, also had some
familiarity with the language, although their knowledge might be
limited to a form of pidgin French. In the rural areas the
language generally was less well-known , but a number of
minority peoples learned its rudiments in school or during
service with the French army. The pidgin has completely
disappeared after the withdrawal of the French.
Social Aspects
jargon
jargon
jargon
↓
↓
stabilized
Pidgin
↓
stabilized
Pidgin
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
expanded
Pidgin
↓
creole
creole
Hawaian
Torres Straits
Creole English Creole English
creole
New Guinea
Tok Pisin
Expansion








Tok Pisin
gras
mausgras
gras bilong fes
gras bilong hed
gras bilong pisin
gras antap long ai
gras nogut
English
grass
moustache
beard
hair
feather
eyebrow
weed
Phonology
Reduction: baimbai → bai
*Ol man bai stap wantaim hetman bilong ol
‘People will stay with their leader’
 Vocalic intrusion in ‘speak’ and ‘straight’ :
*spik (stable pidgin) sìpik (expanded pidgin)
→Nigerian Pidgin
stret (stable pidgin) sitiret (expanded pidgin)
→Tok Pisin

Morphology
Reduplication:
*bad-bad pikin
‘a very bad child’
 One item instead of lengthy phrases:
*man bilong pait ‘man of fighting’ -- paitman
‘fighter’

Fixed collocation





blackboi
biknem
bikples
stronghed
opunay
black indentured labourer
fame
mainland
stubborn
boldness
Poetic metaphors


bel bilong mi i hevi
my belly is heavy
‘I am sad’
bel bilong mi i isi
my belly is easy
‘I am contented’
Backslang (tok mainus)



Taboo Appropriate
Translation
Form
kepkep
pekpek
‘to defecate’
puspus
supsup ‘to have sexual intercourse’
Social Aspects
jargon
jargon
jargon
↓
↓
stabilized
Pidgin
↓
stabilized
Pidgin
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
expanded
Pidgin
↓
creole
creole
Hawaian
Torres Straits
Creole English Creole English
creole
New Guinea
Tok Pisin
Creolization


Involves expansion
of vocabulary
Emerges when the
children begin to
learn pidgin as their
native language
Post-Creole Continuum (DeCamp, 1971)

Basilect is a term for dialects of speech which have
diverged so far from the standard language that in
essence they have become a different language.

Mesolect refers to all varieties between acrolect and
basilect and to the phenomenon of code-switching used
by some users of creole languages who also have some
fluency in the standard language upon which the contact
language is based.

Acrolect is a register of a spoken language that is
considered formal and high style.
Post-Creole Continuum
Guyanese
Creole
English
-------- I gave him
•
------- a geev im
•
------a giv im
-------a giv ii
-------a did give ii
-------a di giv ii
------mi di gi ii
--------mi bin gi ii
-------mi bin gii am
----------mi giiam
Acrolect
Mesolect:
Basilect
Pidgins in the East Europe

Trasianka (трасянка) is a unique
feature of Belarusian language,
the Belarusian-Russian patois (a
very offensive word). In
Belarusian language the word
itself "trasianka" literally means
low quality hay, when indigent
farmers mix (shake - трасуць)
fresh grass with the yesteryear's
dried hay. There are certain social
problems with speaking in
trasianka, especially the issue of
generation gap that trasianka and
literary Belarusian create between
parents and children, and the
rejection and alienation that has
been experienced by some
nationalistic activists who insist
on using correct literary
Belarusian.
Surzhik is called an Ukrainian-Russian
Pidgin. The word means amixed
wholewheat bread or a flour from it,
f.e. wheat and buckwheat, or a man of
the mixed race. Ukrainian language
was suppressed by decrees of Russian
State since Catherine The Great. It was
prohibited to write and print in
Ukrainian. The language was in the
period of stagnation. In the situation
of statelessness, when the high society
was exclusively Russian speaking,
when the Ukrainian language was
limited to speaking in the the village
and all the term literature was based
on borrowings, the Ukrainians had to
adjust themselves to the language of
the ‘pan’ (or master) and due to their
illiteracy they began to mix the
elements of the two languages.
Surzhik is a temporary element, a
leftover of the slave mentality of
Ukrainian serfs.
Some of the World’s Pidgins and
Creoles
The Caribbean Creoles
Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics

Society for Pidgin and
Creole Linguistics
is organized in the
interest of the academic
community and not for
profit. Its object is the
study of pidgin and
creole languages worldwide, together with other
languages or dialects of
other languages
influencing them or
influenced by them.
Papua New Guinea











Kólim nem bilóng yu?
Call name belong you
What is your name?
Mi laik yu gívim wára long mípela.
I like you give water to we
Please, give us some water
Mónitaim - morning
Biksan - noon
Apinún – afternoon (16-18)
Tudak – too dark, night
Biknait - midnight
Taim san I go daun - dawn