Social Aspects of Contact Languages

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Social Aspects of Contact Languages
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Language contact

• LC is the use of more than one language in
  the
• same place at the same time.

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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).

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Typical Situations for Language Contact

• International Trading
• Colonization, slavery and
• wars
• Immigration
• guest workers,
• refugees,
• missionaries

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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 Nimiipuu, which means the real people or
  we the people.

• Nez Perce Tribe Web Site
• Phone  [phone]PO Box 365, Lapwai, Idaho
  83540

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Contact Languages

• CL is any new language that arises in a contact
  situation between the speakers who have no
  language in common

Pidgins
Creoles
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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)

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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

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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), Dutch-based (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)

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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)

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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

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Social Aspects (Peter Mühlhäusler, 1997)
jargon jargon jargon
? stabilized Pidgin stabilized Pidgin
? ? ?
? ? expanded Pidgin
? ? ?
creole creole creole
HawaianCreole English Torres StraitsCreole English New Guinea Tok Pisin
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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)

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The Jargon Stage

• Great individual variation
• Simple sound system
• One or two-word sentences
• Small lexicon

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• 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

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Social Aspects
1) jargon 2) jargon 3) jargon
? stabilized Pidgin stabilized Pidgin
? ? ?
? ? expanded Pidgin
? ? ?
creole creole creole
HawaianCreole English Torres StraitsCreole English New Guinea Tok Pisin
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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
• ? and ð were replaced by d and t
• as in Cameronian Pidgin English den them

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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

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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
  tape-
• 
  recorder
• man bilong pait man belong to fight
  fighter

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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.

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Social Aspects
jargon jargon jargon
? stabilized Pidgin stabilized Pidgin
? ? ?
? ? expanded Pidgin
? ? ?
creole creole creole
HawaianCreole English Torres StraitsCreole English New Guinea Tok Pisin
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Expansion

• Tok Pisin English
• gras grass
• mausgras moustache
• gras bilong fes beard
• gras bilong hed hair
• gras bilong pisin feather
• gras antap long ai eyebrow
• gras nogut weed

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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

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Morphology

• Reduplication
• bad-bad pikin a very bad child
• One item instead of lengthy phrases
• man bilong pait man of fighting -- paitman
  fighter

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Fixed collocation

• blackboi black indentured labourer
• biknem fame
• bikples mainland
• stronghed stubborn
• opunay boldness

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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

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Backslang (tok mainus)

• Taboo Appropriate Translation
• Form
• kepkep pekpek to defecate
• puspus supsup to have sexual intercourse

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Social Aspects
jargon jargon jargon
? stabilized Pidgin stabilized Pidgin
? ? ?
? ? expanded Pidgin
? ? ?
creole creole creole
HawaianCreole English Torres StraitsCreole English New Guinea Tok Pisin
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Creolization

• Involves expansion of vocabulary
• Emerges when the children begin to learn pidgin
  as their native language

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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.

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Post-Creole Continuum

• Guyanese -------- I gave him    
  Acrolect
• Creole ------- a geev im
• English ------- a giv im
  -------- a giv ii
• -------- a did give
  ii       Mesolect
• -------- a di giv ii
• ------- mi di gi ii
  --------- mi bin gi ii --------
  mi bin gii am
  
• ----------- mi giiam    
  Basilect

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Pidgins in the East Europe

• Trasianka (????????) 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 - ???????) 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.

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Some of the Worlds Pidgins and Creoles
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The Caribbean Creoles
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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 world-wide,
  together with other languages or dialects of
  other languages influencing them or influenced by
  them.

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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

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