Language Contact

Linguistics 203

Languages of the World

Major Language Families

Source: Comrie et al. (2003)

Lack of Language Contact

• leads to greater differences in related languages/dialects

• Reasons for lack of contact • migration

• physical boundaries (mountains, rivers, etc.)

• political

• religious / cultural

Language Contact

• causes languages to become more similar

• shared vocabulary

• shared grammatical structures

• shared sounds / sound systems

• etc

English vocabulary

• English • Norman Conquest in 1066

• French became language of aristocracy for next 300-400 years

• Large influx of French vocabulary; often more erudite or specialized

French origin Anglo-saxon French origin Anglo-saxon

combat fight finish end

conceal hide gain win

cordial hearty mount go up

economy thrift perish die

egotism selfishness tolerate put up with

Sprachbund

• A group of unrelated languages which come to share similarities due their proximity and language contact (and not due to common inheritance).

Balkan Sprachbund

Source: Comrie et al. (2003)

Balkan Sprachbund

• Languages from four Indo-European families

1. Slavic

Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian

2. Romance

Romanian

3. Hellenic

Greek

4. Albanian

Albanian

Balkan Sprachbund

• definite article is a suffix (except in Greek)

Romanian lup-ul wolf-the

(cf. Spanish) el lobo the wolf

Bulgarian voda-ta water-the

(cf. Russian) ta voda that water

Albanian mik-u friend-the

Data in ‘Balkan Sprachbund’ section mainly from Comrie et al. (2003) and lecture notes from Matthew Gordon.

Balkan Sprachbund

• Have case system with Nom (subject), Acc (direct

object), Dat (‘to’ + NP), Gen (‘of’ + NP)

• Nom+Acc may be merged, and Dat+Gen may be merged

Romanian lup-ul-ui

wolf-the-to/of (cf. Spanish*) al lobo ‘to the wolf’

del lobo ‘of the wolf’

Bulgarian na starikut to/of the.old.man

(cf. Russian) stariku ‘to the old man’ starika ‘of the old man’

Greek tu anthrópu to/of the.man

*Spanish is not traditionally claimed to have case. This is just for comparison.

Balkan Sprachbund • subjunctive replaces infinitive (not in Croatian)

• probably borrowed from Greek

Greek ϑelo na γrafo I.want that I.write

‘I want to write’

Serbian hocu da pisam I.want that I.write

‘I want to write’

Romanian da-mi sa beau give-me that I.drink

‘give me sthg to drink’

Bulgarian daj mi da pija give me that I.drink

‘give me sthg to drink’

(cf. Croatian) hocu pisati I.want to.write

‘I want to write’

(cf. Czech) Chci psát I.want to.write

‘I want to write’

(cf. French) Je veux ecrir I want to.write

‘I want to write’

Balkan Sprachbund

• future tense comes from verb ‘want/wish’

Greek ϑa (=ϑelo na) γrafo ‘I will write’

Serbian pisa-cu ‘I will write’

Romanian o ʃa scriu ‘I will write’

Albanian do të shkruaj ‘I will write’

(cf. Spanish) escribir-é < escribir hé

‘I will write’ ‘I have to write’

Balkan Sprachbund

• numbers 11-19 mean ‘1/2/etc. upon 10’ • probably borrowed from Slavic languages

Bulgarian edi-na-deset ‘eleven’

Romanian un-spre-zece ‘eleven’

Albanian njëm-bë-dhjetë

‘eleven’

(cf. French) onze ‘eleven’

(cf. Czech) jedenáct < jeden-na-deset one-on-ten

‘eleven’

(cf. Russian) odinadzat < odi-na-dzat

‘eleven’

<c> is pronounced [ts] in Czech

Kupwar Sprachbund

• Kupwar is village of about 3,000 in India

• Four languages: • Two Indo-European (Indo-Aryan):

Urdu (Muslim landowners)

Marathi (Untouchables; low-prestige)

• Two Dravidian: Kannada (Jain landowners, Hindu craftsmen)

[Telugu] (Hindu rope-makers; low-prestige)

• Marathi, Kannada spoken there about 600 years

• Urdu spoken there about 3-400 years

Data in this section is from Jones & Singh (2005)

Kupwar Sprachbund

• Language determined by caste

• Males in area are bilingual or multilingual

• Interaction between groups (e.g. working) led to similarities.

• Marathi is preferred for inter-group interactions, including education.

• Marathi is the language of the lowest caste

Kupwar Sprachbund

• Grammatical structures are now almost identical

• Vocabulary remains distinct • maintains group identification for religious, caste

reasons

Kupwar

Urdu

pala jəra kaat ke le ke a ya

Kupwar

Marathi

pala jəra kap un ghe un a l o

Kupwar

Kannada

tapla jəra khod i təgond i bə yn

greens a.little cut having taken having come PST I

‘I cut some greens and brought them.’

Kupwar Sprachbund

• Gender distinction in original languages • Urdu: masc (unmarked), fem

• Marathi: masc, fem, neutral (unmarked)

• Kannada: masc & fem (humans only); neutral (all non-humans)

• Gender distinction in Kupwar village • Kupwar Urdu: masc (humans and non-humans), fem

(humans only)

• Kupwar Marathi: as in Kannada

Kupwar Sprachbund

• ‘to be’ with adjective predicates • not used in Kannada, used in Kupwar Kannada

Urdu tumhar-a ghər bər-a hay

Kannada nim məne doddu

Kupwar Urdu tumhara ghər bəda hay

Kupwar Marathi tumcə ghər mothə hay

Kupwar Kannada nimd məni dwədd eti

your house big is

‘Your house is big.’

Southern Africa Sprachbund

Click sounds • Exist in Khoisan

languages

• Borrowed into some Bantu (Nguni) languages like Zulu and Xhosa

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:African_language_families_en.svg

Northwest America Sprachbund

• Includes: • Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tshimianic languages, Wakashan

languages, Chimakuan languages, Coast Salisha languages, Lower Chinook, Alsea, Siuslaw, Takelma, Kalapuya, Coos, and some Pacific Coast Athabaskan languages.

Source for data in this section: Mithun (1999)

Northwest America Sprachbund

• Common phonological traits: • large consonant inventories

• small vowel inventories (3-4 vowels)

• three-way plosive contrast

• existence of ejectives

• frequent use of glottal stop

• many distinguish velar /k/ and uvular /q/

• distinguish some velar sounds for roundedness

• existence of multiple laterals

• Many common grammatical traits, too.

*Mithun (1999) doesn’t include Yup’ik Eskimo in her description of this sprachbund, but it shares most of these phonological traits (see Lyovin 1997:355)

New Languages

• Language contact gives rise to other situations as well

• Pidgin languages

• a ‘mash-up’ of several languages; no native speakers

• Creole languages

• a pidgin language that has become a native language

Pidgin Languages

• Reasons they arise:

– contact between various groups of people

– no common languages exists

• Vocabulary largely based in one language • e.g. English-based pidgin

• Generally have little prestige

Pidgin Languages

• Common traits • simplified phonology (consonant clusters reduced,

preference for CV syllables, basic vowels (/a, e, i, o, u/))

• simplified morphology (little use of affixes, use of reduplication)

• simplified syntax (coordinated clauses preferred to subordinate clauses, tense indicated by separate word, SVO word order*)

• simpilified vocabularies

Creole Languages

• When a pidgin is learned as a native language, it becomes a creole language.

• some pidgins die out, some remain pidgins, others become creoles

• Children fill in ‘gaps’ in the grammar and vocabulary.

• often have little prestige • (e.g. Haitian Creole; Tok Pisin is a major exception)

Creole (Tok Pisin)

1. Ol ikilim pik bipo. 2. Na pik bai ikamap olosem draipela ston. 3. Na pik ia [ol ikilim bipo ia] bai ikamap olosem draipela ston. Sapos yumi tingting gut long dispela tripela tok, yumi ken klia long tupela samting. Nambawan samting, sapos pik istap long (1) em inarapela pik, na pik istap long (2) em inarapela, orait, yumi no ken wokim (3). Tasol sapos wanpela pik tasol istap long (1) na (2), em orait long wokim (3). Na tu, tingting istap long (1) ia, mi bin banisim insait long tupela banis long (3), long wonem, em bilong kliaim yumi long wonem pik Elena itok en.

1. They killed the pig. 2. The pig looks like a big rock. 3. The pig [that they killed] looks like a big rock. If we think carefully about these three sentences, we can obtain two interpretations. First, if the pig of sentence (1) is one pig, and the pig of sentence (2) is another pig, then we cannot construct (3). However, if the pig in (1) and (2) is the same, then we can construct (3). Thus, I have bracketed in (3) the meaning corresponding to (1) with two brackets, because it has the purpose of identifying for us which pig Elena is talking about.

Source: Finegan (2004)

Lingua Franca

• language used as common language for groups of speakers of different languages

• a pidgin/creole can be a lingua franca, but a lingua franca need not be a pidgin/creole

Code-mixing/switching

• bilingual speakers often mix two languages in same utterance/conversation

• around ½ world’s population is bilingual/multilingual

Language/Dialect Continua

• Languages and dialects are not as easy to distinguish as their separate names suggest

• Change from one place to another is often gradual • Southern Swedes can communicate better with Southern

Danish speakers in Denmark than with northern Swedes*

• Germans near Holland can communicate better with Dutch speakers near the border than with southern Germans*

• Changes do not all spread in same direction, or to same extent

*This is true of local varieties, not standard varieties.

West Germanic Dialect Continuum

West Germanic Dialect Continuum

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Continental_West_Germanic_languages.png see also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_dialects

West Germanic Dialect Continuum

Source for this and following slides: Johnson, Sally. (1998). Exploring the German Language. Oxford University Press. New York, NY.

West Germanic Dialect Continuum

West Germanic Dialect Continuum

Romance Dialect Continuum

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Romance_20c_en.png

Romance Dialect Continuum

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Romance-lg-classification-en.png

Romance Dialect Continuum

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languages

Sinitic Language Continuum

Source: http://schools-wikipedia.org/images/709/70957.png (modified)

References

• Comrie, Bernard, Stephen Matthew and Maria Polinsky. (Eds.). (2003). The Atlas of Languages, revised edition. London: Quarto Inc.

• Finegan, Edward. (2004). Language: Its Structure and Use. 5th edition. Thomson Wadsworth

• Jones, Mari C. and Ishtla Singh. (2005). Exploring Language Change. New York, NY: Routledge.

• Lyovin, Anatole. (1997). An introduction to the languages of the world. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Mithun, Marianne. (1999). The Languages of Native North America. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.