Scotton and Okeju

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Linguistic Society of America

Neighbors and Lexical BorrowingsAuthor(s): Carol Myers Scotton and John OkejuReviewed work(s):Source: Language, Vol. 49, No. 4 (Dec., 1973), pp. 871-889Published by: Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/412066 .

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NEIGHBORS AND LEXICAL BORROWINGSCAROLMYERSSCOTTON and JOHNOKEJU

Universityof Nairobi Bishop Kitching College, UgandaEven with the recent interest in correlating linguistic performancewith socio-logical variables, the tendency in discussions of lexical borrowing s to focus on thewords themselves and to ignore the process. This paper argues that the process ofborrowingdetermines what is borrowed.Most borrowingsmay well be nouns foritems new to the borrowinglanguage. However, given sufficiently pervasive cul-tural contact, speakers may borrowcertain types of corevocabulary items in greatnumbers. Data to support these contentions come from a study of the dialects ofAteso, an East African language.1

Two unfortunate assumptions persist in most writings on lexical borrowings,but will be challenged here. The first assumption lies in the standard theoreticalmodel for describing and explaining types of lexical borrowing, in that itscenter of interest is the end product, the borrowed words themselves. Haugen1950 and Weinreich 1953 have already complained that the socio-cultural settingin which the borrowing takes place has received little attention in studies ofborrowing. The model does, of course, assume that languages come into contact,and it is often noted in passing that the contact is between speakers rather thanlanguages. Still, the model largely ignores the actual process of borrowing, whatDiebold (1961:98) calls 'a sociological learning process, viz. bilingualism andacculturation.'A second standard assumption which we challenge is that lexical borrowingsrepresent mainly new items to the culture of the borrowinglanguage. Borrowingswhich infringe on the corevocabulary of the borrowing language seem to be rarelymentioned.Numerous studies of European languages have been carriedout on these bases.Recent studies of other languages have also tended to follow the same lines,focusing on the results of language contact rather than the process, and mainly

presenting new cultural items as examples of lexical borrowings. So traditionalpractice has continued, in spite of arguments that a new model is needed: e.g.,Haugen (1950:271) writes, 'Talk of substrata and superstrata [within a language1The firstauthor,CarolMyersScotton,wishesto thankJohnOkeju or his aid in theanalysis which led to this article. Without his help in checking the interview tapes, makingnotes about loans present, verifying all Ateso words used in the study, providing informa-tion on Standard Ateso as a reference, and finally in reading an earlierversion of the manu-script, this study could not have been completed. Scotton, however, takes final responsi-bility for the content and interpretation. She also wishes to thank others who aided her inthe field work: James Oporia-Ekwaro,her interviewer; Father G. Hoefnagels at the Catho-lic Church, Molo; Father J. H. Hilders of Soroti; Mr. Silver Obbo of Molo; Mr. and Mrs.Ivan Karp in Amukura;and Mr. Hiro Nagashima, who was doing anthropologicalresearchin Gweri in 1970.She also wishes to thank Einar Haugen and Edgar Polome for reading themanuscript and for their comments. The map was drawn by George S. Barkley.Field work was supported by the Ford Foundation-financedSurvey of LanguageUse andLanguage Teaching in Eastern Africa. Some of the analysis was conducted under a grantfrom the American Association of University Women for 1970-71.871


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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 49, NUMBER 4 (1973)which has borrowed] must remain stratospheric unless we can found it solidlyon the behavior of living observable speakers.'One result of the concentration on the borrowed items, rather than on thespeakers, has been the idea that borrowings are more or less uniformly presentacross dialects. Fishman (1968, fn. 30) strongly attacks the end result of this:As a result of linguistic disregardfor this phenomenonof sub-sets of speakerswhose verbalrepertoires are situationally and functionally patterned ('structured'), the laundry-lists ofexamples of phonetic, grammatical, lexical and semantic 'interference' that have beenpublished are socio-linguistically quite worthless and misleading. Their implication thatmost if not all members of the bilingual speech communities under study reveal the kindsand degree of 'interference' indicated by the examples listed is almost invariably wrong.

However, even given these strong and ably presented pleas, it is interestingthat there have been very few articles published in linguistic journals in the pastfew years about lexical borrowing.2Even articles repeating the assumptions whichwe are questioning are rare; apparently the subject of borrowing is consideredsolved or even dead by many linguists. The data we present here, however, indi-cate that borrowing is not a closed book which warrants opening only for a fewcomments in an introductory linguistics course. The richness and complexity ofthe data available deserve serious analysis with a new orientation.Drawing data now from an African language, Ateso, we will argue that thestandard model for borrowing is unbalanced, and that we must modify both itand our assumptions as to the type of items borrowed. Our main arguments arecontained in the following hypotheses:(1) An adequate model for lexical borrowing must take into account the sub-groups of speakers involved in the language-contact situation and their socio-logical profiles. Speakers of any language can be considered a single unit only inthe sense that they share some common core of competence in that language.Otherwise, and especially in terms of performance,these speakers must be viewedas members of particular sub-groups within the larger community. Differentsocial patterns characterize the sub-groups; different linguistic patterns char-acterize their linguistic performance. What this means in any discussion ofborrowing is that we must differentiate more carefully between (a) borrowingsinto Language X as a whole, (b) borrowings which occur only in certain geo-graphical dialects, and (c) borrowingsin certain socio-economically based dialectswhich may cut across the lines of geographical dialects. While it is widely heldthat every language has its geographical and socio-economic dialects, the ten-dency persists to speak of borrowings into a language as if they were uniform.Our data show they are not.

(2) While our data support the standard empirical observation that manyborrowingsrepresent items new to the culture of Language X (the lexical borrow-ing coming into the culture with the new item), we hypothesize that borrowingswithin the core vocabulary itself are also very common, given sufficiently exten-2For a bibliography of articles, some of which deal with borrowing (although most focuson other sociolinguistic topics), see Fishman 1970. A bibliography of sociolinguistically-oriented articles specifically on African languages is found in Heine 1970.One article whichdoes bring in sociological origins in its discussion of loan words is Polomd 1968.

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NEIGHBORS AND LEXICAL BORROWINGSsive contact with another culture. Again, our data from certain Ateso dialectssupport this argument. Only certain types of core items are replaced, and theseare, to be sure, items which are probably the most peripheral in the core. Butour data show extensive borrowingsinto the core, including (a) free-formsystemmorphemes,3such as 'but', 'how much', 'even if'; (b) short phrases which canalmost be viewed as single units, such as 'there is none', 'I don't know'; (c) datesand times; and also (d) some greetings. The essential point is that these borrow-ings always referto concepts already present as active lexical items in the borrow-ing language. Many people, of course, have noted informally some such borrow-ings; the introduction of the Italian ciao 'goodbye' into the speech of youngerspeakers of many European languages is such an example. But our point is thatborrowings of these core FLOATERS may occur with such frequency and in suchquantity that this type of borrowingwarrants the same systematic attention asthat of words for new items.4

(3) Finally, a general hypothesis is proposed about the relation between aspeaker's sub-group membershipand his borrowingpatterns. First, the borrowingof words for new items is most often done by members of two socio-economicsub-groups, which often overlap: (a) those of a relatively high educational level,and (b) those who have traveled most widely. In either case, it is obvious thatthese are the persons whose lives include the greatest opportunity to borrow, asit were, because of the wider horizons available to these groups. This general ideais something of a commonplace, but it connects with one of the hypotheses wewish to propose: that the borrowing of words for new cultural items dependsheavily on an individual's micro-world. Second, a major type of borrowing, thatof corevocabulary floaters, is likely to occur with ANYpeaker-given the culturalcontact-in a general dialect area, regardless of his socio-economic group.That is, we hypothesize that borrowing depends heavily on an individual'smembership in a wider or macro-group (which may well be geographically de-

3Bolinger 1968,for one, uses the term SYSTEM MORPHEME to describe those morphemeswhich signal relationships between words or phrases in a language. The free-form systemmorphemesare also sometimes called FUNCTION WORDS.4We call these words FLOATERS because they are not especially fixed in the structure ofthe donorlanguage-i.e., they areusually wordscomposedof a single morpheme(or, if morethan one, there areusually no inflectionalmorphemes).Given their morphological structure,it seems easier to borrowthem than it would be to borrow an inflected verb form, for ex-ample.Haugen, who has repeatedly emphasizedthe importanceof the 'learning situation' in anyassessment of loan words, notes that such free-form system morphemeswere borrowedbyNorwegian immigrants in the learning situation of entering a new life in America. He writes(1953:372 f.), 'In English came to them [the Norwegian immigrants]all the excitement of anew and pulsing world which was beingbuilt around them ... In such situations they learnedphrases that were not strictly necessary, but which contributed slangy bits of vividness to

their speech, exclamations that brought back the gay informality of American social occa-sions. They learned easily to introduce their sentences with "Well-", to embellish themwith "By golly" and "O.K." and to describe people and things with the standard cliches.of "cute" and "nice".'He also notes (1956:66)that'one of the resistances to borrowingiscertainly contained in the degree of boundness or independence of the linguistic items.Exclamations, which are fully independentutterances, are among the most easily borrowed(i.e. learned) items.'

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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 49, NUMBER 4 (1973)fined, as it mainly is in our data). In one case, borrowing is more an individualmatter; i.e., individual lexical items are borrowedby specific types of individualswithin a community. In the second case, borrowing is more a matter of generaldiffusion, i.e. the pervasive cultural contact between speakers of the borrowinglanguage and the donorlanguage(s), ACROSSocio-economic groups. Of our threehypotheses, this must surely be the most tentative. Yet our data certainly sup-port the possible correlation of differences in types of borrowingwith differencesin magnitude of social contact.

Languages and dialectsin Ateso-soeakina areasUGANDA Ateso= /

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Bantu languages- Luganda,Lusoga, Lugwere,Lunyole, ugwe,Lumasaba,Lusamia,Luluyia(Lukhayo, Lubukusu)Western Nilotic languages- Kumam, DhopadholaEastern Nilotic languages- Ateso, Ngakarimojong, SebeiFIGURE 1.

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NEIGHBORS AND LEXICAL BORROWINGSOur data to support these hypotheses come from Ateso, an Eastern Niloticlanguage,5 spoken by more than 800,000 persons in central and eastern Ugandaand into western Kenya in East Africa; see the accompanying map. Over 90% ofthe Iteso live in Uganda,6 mostly in the governmental area called Teso District,7of which Soroti is the administrative center.1. WHY STUDYLOANS N ATESO?Speakers of Ateso and closely related languagesmake up less than 12% of the population of Uganda. But these Eastern Niloticlanguages are different enough from other Ugandan languages that no other morewidely spoken language can represent them; thus Ateso, as the Ugandan EasternNilotic language with the most speakers, is one of the six official vernacularlanguages for schools in Uganda.8 (English has been the only official languageused in the conduct of government in Uganda since Independence.)The extent and type of borrowinginto Ateso is of particular interest for severalreasons. First, Ateso is spoken in several non-contiguous areas, thus all Atesospeakers do not form one geographical community. Second, in each area, theIteso are something of a minority. If numerical and cultural position has anyeffect on the borrowing which a language does, the Iteso should be relativelyheavy borrowers.The Iteso are numerically a small group and, unlike other smallgroups in the areas where they live, they have no numerous closely relatedneighbors to strengthen their position. Also, in recorded history, the Iteso haveexercised no cultural dominance over any of their neighbors.9 Third, in all cases,

the neighbors of the Iteso speak languages which are relatively or very distantfrom Ateso in a genetic sense. In the usual situation, at least some neighbors ofmost African languages groups speak a related language; however, except for theIkarimojong in northeastern Uganda, the Iteso have no contiguous linguisticbrothers. Elsewhere, they are surrounded either by Bantu speakers, who repre-sent an entirely different language family, or in certain instances by both Bantuand Western Nilotic language speakers. The Western Nilotics are so remotelyrelated to the Eastern Nilotic group that some linguists would contend anyrelationship is mainly a matter of borrowing,without genetic basis.10

5We follow Greenberg1963 n calling Ateso an Eastern Nilotic language. Languagesmostclosely related to Ateso in Uganda areNgakarimojong (about200,000 peakers), Sebei (about60,000 speakers), and Kakwa (about 60,000speakers). Related languages outside Ugandainclude Turkana, Toposa, the Nandi-Kipsigis group, and Masai. All these languages aresometimes referred to as Nilo-Hamitic.6Ateso is the name of the language; the people are called Iteso; a single male is an Etesotand a single female is an Atesot; and the area is called Teso.7 There are about 540,Q00 eople in Teso District, of whom480,000areIteso and60,000areKumam. This is the estimate of Father J. H. Hilders (personal communication, May 1970).8 Ateso receives 12% hoursper week of broadcastingtime on Radio Uganda. It is the offi-cial medium of instruction in primaryschools in Teso District, andliteracy campaignshavebeen conducted by the governmentin Ateso. A governmentnewspaperand religious litera-ture arepublished in Ateso. (These data arefrom Ladefogedet al. 1971.)9See Lawrence1957 or a cultural history of the Iteso in Uganda.10Investigators such as A. N. Tucker, M. Bryan, and G. W. B. Huntingford have arguedthat the languages in Greenberg'sEastern Nilotic group are 'mixed' languages with bothNilotic and Cushitic elements in their basic structures. Greenberg argues that these lan-guages are basically Nilotic, but with Cushitic borrowings.

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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 49, NUMBER 4 (1973)2. DATAGATHERING. We have concentrated on two geographical dialects ofAteso which are most prone to borrowing. We do this because: (a) these twodialect groups are relatively removed geographically from the area whereStandard Ateso is spoken; and (b) it can be argued they are as susceptible tocultural identification with the surroundingalien language groups as they are toidentification with any GREATERATESOculture.The specific dialect areas we studied were located in the general area of Tororoin eastern Uganda, and around the village of Amukura in South Teso Districtin Kenya's Western Province. Field work was conducted in May 1970 by Scotton.Twenty-two persons were interviewed in the Tororo area, and samples of theirAteso were recorded.Twenty-six persons around Amukura were interviewed. Forcomparative purposes, thirteen persons were also interviewed in central Uganda,

where Standard Ateso is spoken and where the majority of Iteso live (TesoDistrict). These speakers of Standard or near-Standard Ateso included someindividuals from Ngora, the acknowledged home of Standard Ateso, and alsosome individuals living in Soroti, the largest city in the Ateso-speaking area. Ineach area, an attempt was made to stratify the sample in terms of age, education,and occupation. We mainly chose men as respondents, since African men havewider social contacts than African women. Persons were asked questions designedto elicit speech in Ateso about their everyday activities. Recorded interviewslasted an average of ten minutes.1'During the field work, we also tried to check on borrowings into Ateso by amore formal device. A basic list of 100 core vocabulary items was drawn up inEnglish/Swahili; and individuals, or more often, groups of individuals (such asmen gathered to drink beer) were asked to give the Ateso equivalents of thesewords. In several cases, we asked locally acknowledged experts on Ateso to com-plete the Ateso word list, orto give opinions about borrowingsinto Ateso in theirown areas.'2Our interest was only in loan words into Ateso, not in differencesbetween the dialect areas in Ateso core vocabulary.3. THE TOROROREA.Cultural influences on the Ateso speakers around Tororoare especially complex, as described below.3.1. In the rural areas, speakers of the minor Western Nilotic language,Dhopadhola, arevery numerous. The Padhola, who all live in the Tororo area,make up about 1.6% of the population of Uganda, and probably number160,000.13In many cases, Ateso speakers very decidedly live in a Padhola cul-ture. Furthermore, many Iteso marry Padhola, more often than not adoptingDhopadhola as their home language.11Interviewing was done by an Etesot from the Tororo area, James Oporia-Ekwaro,aMakerereUniversity student at the time. Taped interviews were transcribed and checkedfor borrowingsby Mr. Oporia-Ekwaro,and then by both authors. The second author, John

Okeju,is himself an Etesot from the Soroti area and a speakerof Standard Ateso.12For example, Father J. H. Hilders, the joint author of the Standard Ateso grammar(Hilders &Lawrance1957),kindly supplied us with Standard Ateso equivalents for the wordlist.18Of 17 hours per week of broadcast time for the Western Nilotic languages in 1968,onlyhalf an hour was in Dhopadhola. Dhopadhola is not officially used in any schools, nor arethere any government publications in it. There have been literacy campaigns in Dhopa-dhola, however.

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NEIGHBORSAND LEXICALBORROWINGSThe general belief around Tororo is that the Etesot accepts Dhopadhola as his

language (rather than his Padhola wife learning Ateso) because Ateso is toodifficult for many adults to learn.l4It is ultimately pointless to argue whetherAteso is in fact MORE IFFICULT than any other language such as Dhopadhola,since we have no objective criteria to measure 'degree of complexity' acrosslanguages. But the point to note here is that both Iteso and non-Iteso in thisarea seem to BELIEVEAteso is more difficult than other languages.'5Another reason why Tororo Iteso learn their neighbors' languages morereadily than others learn Ateso may have to do with the Iteso's position in thecommunity. Until very recently-and still today in some instances-the Itesorecognized that they were considered by non-Iteso somewhat as second-classcitizens around Tororo and in western Kenya. Apparently, the more numericallydominant Iteso in the main Ateso dialect area never had to face this problem.But Iteso in the other areas, where they are more recent immigrants (within thelast sixty years), have been looked down upon. Today, more Iteso around Tororoare gaining positions of importance in the political and economic community,but certainly Iteso had little influence in the past. Around Amukura in Kenya,the Iteso still believe their political representation in Kenya politics is less thanthey deserve-although, admittedly, many groups make this complaint. Still,the point is that Tororo Iteso readily state that their status is lower than thatof their neighbors; the Iteso in both Tororo and Amukura seem to learn theirneighbors' languages more frequently than vice versa, and this phenomenon iswidely recognized.16The Padhola influence is strong on all sides of Tororo, although especially tothe immediate north in such villages as Molo and Kidoko. Here we found personscalling themselves Iteso, yet able to speak Ateso only with difficulty, so greatwas their acculturation as Dhopadhola speakers. In Molo, a group of Iteso menfound drinking beer from communal pots were conversing in Dhopadhola. Whenasked for various vocabulary items from our word list in Ateso, they did switchto Ateso and could give Ateso equivalents. Several times, however, they con-ducted their discussion of the equivalents first in Dhopadhola; and sometimesthey gave the Dhopadhola equivalent by mistake, apparently thinking it wasAteso. Of the 22 Iteso interviewed in the Tororo area, only three said they couldspeak no Dhopadhola at all, and several said they spoke Dhopadhola better than

14 In fact, Ateso is a difficult language, having a fair degree of inflection in its nominaland verbal systems, and including a system of gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter)with an accompanying system of agreementbetween nouns and their modifers or pro-forms.Tone is also a feature of Ateso, and is used both to differentiate lexical items and to signalgrammatical relationships, such as differencesbetween verbal tenses.15 John Okeju points out that, in the Standard Ateso area around Soroti, OTHER ethnicgroups are more likely to learn Ateso in a mixed situation than are the Iteso to learn theirlanguages. E.g., members of the Bakenyi (a Bantu group) who are in close contact withIteso are always the ones who bridgethe linguistic gap by learning Ateso. Similarly, many ofthe Kumam (a West Nilotic group) learn Ateso.16 It is certainly true that other minority linguistic groups have proved to be moreexcep-tional second-languagelearners than their neighbors.This is the case of the Berberin north-ern Africa, who live in an Arabic-dominatedsociety. Both this and the Iteso case would tendto support a hypothesis that facility in second-languagelearningdependsheavily onpsycho-logical and practical considerations.

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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 49, NUMBER 4 (1973)Ateso. Many claimed that, of all the second languages they know, they were mostfluent in Dhopadhola.

3.2. Even though the Padhola influence is strong, the Bantu presence in theTororo area is probably the dominant one over time. This can be accounted forby a number of factors: (a) the sheer number of Bantu speakers in the area, al-though many of the individual language groups are small; (b) the pervadinginfluence of Baganda culture (with its Luganda language) in all of Bantu-speaking Uganda; (c) a history of Luganda usage, originally under the British,as a language of administration, education, and religion, second only to Englishand often superseding English in the hinterlands. Despite the weakening of theBaganda political influence after the 1966 Revolution, Luganda continues as theofficial vernacular language in the Tororo-area schools, and is the medium ofinstruction for the first primary grades. In practice, some other languages, in-cluding Ateso, are used instead in some schools. Also, Luganda is probably themost generally used lingua franca, with all but one or two persons in our Tororosample claiming to know at least some Luganda.Often, the question of whether Luganda influence on Tororo Ateso is direct orindirect is next to impossible to assess, and we do not attempt it here. This is sofor two reasons: (1) Luganda also left its impression (usually first) on StandardAteso, and many of the Luganda loans in Tororo Ateso were probably firstborrowed into the Soroti-Ngora dialects, since there were Baganda in this areafrom 1898 on; (2) many words for new cultural items were borrowedinto Lugandafrom Swahili.The numerous smaller groups of Bantu speakers who live as immediate neigh-bors of the Tororo Iteso also have influenced loans into Ateso. But becausewords in many of these languages, especially loan words, resemble those inLuganda, it is difficult to assess the directions of any influence or its extent.These groups include speakers of Lugwere (about 170,000), Lunyole (about140,000), and Lusamia/Lugwe (about 130,000). North of Tororo, in the generalarea of Mbale, are speakers of yet another Bantu language, Lugisu (Lumasaba),numbering about 510,000.17And across the border in Kenya are speakers of thevarious Bantu languages which make up the Luluyia complex.Fewer of the respondents claimed to speak one of the minor Bantu languagesin the area than claimed to speak Dhopadhola, Luganda, or Swahili. But still,most claimed either to speak or understand a little in at least one of these lan-guages, and many claimed to speak several of them. One man had a Gweremother, another a Gisu mother, another a Nyole mother, and still another wasmarried to a Munyole. There seems to be less intermarriage with these Bantugroups than with the Padhola. Of the nine other Tororo-area men who weremarried, five had Teso wives and two had Padhola wives, with two having bothPadhola and Teso wives.

3.3. Since it is the main lingua franca all over East Africa, Swahili exerts con-siderable influence on all other East African languages, including Ateso around17None of these Bantu languages is an officialvernacular in the schools. There have beenliteracy campaigns in Lugisu and in Lasamia/Lugwe, but not in the other languages. In1968,41 hoursper week of radio time on Radio Uganda went to Lugisu and32 to Lusamia/Lugwe, but none to Lugwereor Lunyole.

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NEIGHBORS AND LEXICAL BORROWINGSTororo. Swahili, also a Bantu language, has been most influential as the mediumthrough which words for new cultural items have entered other East Africanlanguages. Speakers of Swahili were among the first people to come into contactwith foreigners in East Africa, with items and concepts new to the East Africansituation. These Swahili speakers were either coastal dwellers who spoke Swahilias a first language, or traders using Swahili in the up-country as a lingua franca.As these Swahili speakers came in contact with new items, first through theArabs, then through adventurers such as Portuguese explorers, and finallythrough the colonizing and missionizing British, they often borrowed names ofnew items. Swahili is still actively borrowing many words from both Arabic andEnglish, as well as occasional words from other languages. In turn, other EastAfrican languages borrow these words, sometimes through Swahili and occasion-ally directly from English. It seems the rule that East African languages preferto borrow words for new items rather than make up words out of nativemorphemes.Few of our Tororo-arearespondents could speak Swahili well; but all the mencould speak it to some degree, and some with real fluency. Neither of the twowomen interviewed claimed to speak Swahili or would even try. Men who hadtraveled, or who worked in a situation where they often came into contact withmen of other ethnic groups, usually could speak something approximatingStandard Swahili, although still a rather distant approximation.

Still, Swahili has no real officialstanding in Uganda. Its only officialrecognitioncomes from the fact that since 1971 it has been one of the many languages inwhich Radio Uganda broadcasts. It is used as a medium only in primary schoolsfor the military, and is a subject in only a very few secondary schools. ButEnglish, the official language, is not known by large percentages of the popula-tion; thus Swahili, as a widely known language, is often used as a lingua franca.18Thus, even though Swahili has only informal status in eastern Uganda, its func-tion as a lingua franca means that Tororo Iteso find it useful to know; and itexerts an influence on the Ateso spoken there.3.4. Finally, of course, we must consider the strong influence of English onlanguages in East Africa. Even though, in general, only the relatively well edu-cated (with some secondary schooling) even CLAIM to know and use English,every person's life and language is affected by English and the culture of Englishspeakers in the Tororo area. First, there is the matter of prestige. The speakingof English is associated with the higherranges of the socio-economic scale. Second,there is the matter of the almost inevitable pervasiveness of Western culture astransmitted by the English language. Development and progress are measuredin terms of European-based practices, for better or worse. With these practicescome new terms: cement-making is described in terms of English loans; office

and factory routine, and such new concepts as unions, are most naturally dis-18 Accordingto Ladefoged et al., 52%of the men surveyed in Uganda as a whole claimedto be able to hold a conversation in Swahili; 51%claimed the same ability in Luganda, butthis figureincludes the 16%of the population who speak Luganda as a first language. 28%claimed conversational ability in English. Scotton 1972reports that 97% of the workingpopulation surveyed in Kampala claimed to know some Swahili. Many of these people wereimmigrants to Kampala from outlying areas.

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LANGUAGE,VOLUME 9, NUMBER4 (1973)cussed in the language of the culture which brought them, English. Even somemen who are no more than peasant farmers become accustomed to using suchwords as hybrid n referringto their corn crop. In some cases, even though a wordfor a similar process exists in the indigenous language, some speakers use anEnglish loan for the foreign process, especially if the speaker knows English well.Thus, when talking about attending evening classes in accounting, a youngEtesot, whom we interviewed in Ateso, used an English base takingand inflectedit with Ateso afixes to produce e-taking-ai 'I was taking'. Although only five ofthe 22 people interviewed in the Tororo sample claimed to speak any English,the speech of all showed the effects of contact with English in the loan wordspresent.

4. THEAMUKiUA AREA.As the crow flies, Amukura Iteso in western Kenyaare less than 10 miles from the Iteso in Tororo town, but they are culturally muchmore distant than this. First, there is the matter of physical and political barriers,the Uganda-Kenya border and the Malaba River on the boundary. Also, unlesshe walks cross-country, the traveler faces up to a 50-mile road journey betweenTororo and Amukura. During the rainy season, some roads-even the mainones-are impassable in this area.The Tororo Iteso and their Amukura brethren are further separated fromeach other by a band of Bantu peoples who form something of a unit, since theyall speak dialects of a common written language, Luluyia. These Baluyia people,who live in Kenya's Western Province and spill over into Uganda, numberjust over one million, and are a relatively large language group by East Africanstandards. The Baluyia who live in Uganda, southwest from Tororo and justover the border, are the Basamia. Immediately around Amukura live theBakhayo. Another dialect group, the Babukusu, live northwest from Tororo inKenya.In the midst of this Baluyia domain, about 28,000 Iteso live in the Kenyagovernmental areacalled South Teso, aroundAmukura.19These Iteso of Amukuraexist in a many-layered cultural milieu which is somewhat similar to that of theTororo Iteso, but which is always different in degree and usually in kind. Thefollowing factors are present:

4.1. The Amukura Iteso themselves form the dominant culture in the imme-diate Amukura area: it is estimated that about 80% of the population in theAmukura sub-location are Iteso.20Around Tororo, the Iteso are only one of manygroups and certainly not the most numerous one; but in Amukura, the Itesodomination is shown by their control of all the main local administrative postssuch as chief, sub-chief, and agricultural officer. The weekly Amukura baraza(town meeting), with all participants Iteso, is held in Ateso; outsiders addressingthe assembly speak Swahili.19Somewhat to the north in Kenya, in Bungoma District, is an area called North Tesowhere about 15,000Iteso live. We deal here only with South Teso, and specifically withAmukura sub-location.20Estimate by Ivan Karp, who was gathering data for an ethnological study of the Itesoin the area in 1968-70(personalcommunication,May 1970).

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NEIGHBORS AND LEXICAL BORROWINGS4.2. As members of the larger Iteso community with its center in the Soroti-

Ngora area, the Amukura Iteso are considerably more removed than their Tororocounterparts. First, they are geographically more distant from Tesoland. Second,as citizens of a different nation, they have little practical call to think of them-selves as members of the greater Iteso community. Still, distinct cultural tiesremain between the Amukura Iteso and Ugandan Iteso. The mere fact thatKenyan Iteso maintain the Ateso language and Ateso customs attests to this.21Also, our data show that the Kenyan Iteso travel a good deal-especially themen-and often to areas of Uganda where Iteso live. Further, the Amukura Itesoreported they listen to Ateso broadcasts over Radio Uganda; several AmukuraIteso noted that some dialect divergences are narrowing and attributed this tolistening to Standard Ateso on the radio.

4.3. Both the Amukura Iteso and the Tororo Iteso, once outside the home-oreven in the home-live in a heterogeneous environment. For the Amukura Iteso,the milieu is somewhat less varied since almost all their neighbors are Baluyia,while around Tororo we find a number of groups, the Padhola and various smallBantu groups. Marriageof the AmukuraIteso with Luyia women is very common,perhaps even more common than inter-ethnic marriages around Tororo. Thismay be because the Bakhayo who live around Amukura are primarily one clan;and according to clan doctrine, a Mukhayo must marry outside the clan. Of the14 men in our sample who reported having wives, six had Luyia wives. Of thosehaving only one wife, seven were married to Teso women, but one was marriedto a Mukhayo. Six had more than one wife; of these, five had one Teso wife andalso one or more Luyia wives; one had two Teso wives. Of the seven womeninterviewed, two were Luyia women (one a Mukabras and one a Mubukusu)married to Teso men; four were Iteso also married to Iteso; and one was un-married.Around Tororo, we found that a mixed marriage, especially with a Padholawife, invariably meant that the Etesot husband would learn his wife's languagefor use in the home. Such is not strictly the case around Amukura, perhaps be-cause the larger and less fragmented nature of the Ateso community reinforcesAteso's position as the appropriate language. Still, most people in our Amukurasample said they spoke some Luluyia (usually Lukhayo), and in general the Iteso(men) still learned something of their Luyia wife's language.

21The following evidence indicates that Amukura Iteso are indeed conscious of theirethnic identity, and that speaking their own language plays a part in preserving this iden-tity. A discussion was taking place in English, in a bar near Amukura on a night in April1970,about the whereabouts of a typewriter belonging to the local school. Then one personintervened and said in Ateso, 'When Iteso gather together as we are now, the commonestlanguage used is English. Why is this so?' Another fairly important community figure, alsoan Etesot, added in Ateso, 'This is true, because I have heard most of our secrets beingknownby non-Iteso. The only way to make people of other tribes not know our secrets is bypracticing to speak our own language when we are alone.' Then the first man went on, thistime in Swahili, saying he did not see why some people should boast by using English. Theword'boast' offendedsome of the speakers, and a fight almost started. But people quicklyfinished their beer and left-one saying in parting, in Ateso, 'You are too silly to say thatwe boast by speaking English.' (Details of incident kindly supplied by Ivan Karp.)

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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 49, NUMBER 4 (1973)Even with this inter-marriage and accompanying knowledge of Luluyia

dialects, the Amukura Iteso do not seem to be especially influenced by Luluyiain their production of Ateso. We noted that one man (with a Luyia wife) spokehis Ateso with an overlay of Lukhayo intonation patterns; but for the most part,the external influences on Amukura Ateso seem to come mostly from Swahili orEnglish, which far outstrip Luluyia as the dominant cultural forces.Ateso spoken in Tororo is also most regularly influenced by the dominantBantu language (in this case, Luganda) as well as English and Swahili, ratherthan by the culturally less prominent minor languages in the area. But we alsonoted that Dhopadhola exerts a great deal of influence on Tororo Ateso. Evenso, loan words from Dhopadhola seem less frequent than from the other lan-guages. Rather, the most distinctive influence of Dhopadhola is seen in codeswitching from Ateso to Dhopadhola for whole phrases or even sentences, whileostensibly speaking Ateso.

4.4. As members of a wider community, Amukura Iteso naturally think ofthemselves as Kenyans; and Swahili is the dominant carrierof GREATERENYANCULTUREn this rural area. English may be the official language of Kenya, but itis largely the vehicle of the relatively educated, who are not numerous in ruralvillages such as Amukura. Swahili, however, is the vehicle of all. Every re-spondent, except for one old woman with no schooling at all, professed to knowsome Swahili; and many showed that they spoke Swahili very well, several nearto the Standard dialect. Local administrative officials (who also know English,we might note) spoke Swahili especially well, and said they used it constantly.The 1969 announcement that Swahili is to become an official Kenyan languagein the near future may have spurred people to use more Swahili, and even toclaim to know more Swahili than in the past. This was our general impression ontravels in Kenya, and specifically in our field work around Amukura; other re-searchers have noted the same phenomenon.22The Amukura Iteso, particularly those in administrative positions or otherjobs in which they meet the wider public daily, contrast with the Tororo Itesoin their command of Swahili. Around Tororo, most Iteso claimed eitherDhopadhola or Luganda as their 'best' second language; around Amukura, theclaim was almost always Swahili. A sub-chief in the Tororo area, when askedabout Swahili's future in Uganda, declared Swahili's potential as a nationallingua franca; but he himself spoke very halting and sub-standard Swahili.

4.5. As in Tororo, the Amukura Iteso live in a cultural milieu dominated atcertain levels by English. We found the same kind of English loans in both areas,almost always noun loans for new objects and concepts. More Iteso in Amukuraclaimed to know English than they did in Tororo, however. Of the 26 personsinterviewed around Amukura, half claimed to speak English. All 13 (except forone man who had been a cook in European hotels in Kisumu) were educated tothe Primary 8 level or above. We had fewer Iteso educated to this level in ourTororo sample.

22 Ivan Karp notes that his field assistant, who had previously claimed English as his'best' second language, reversed himself and claimed Swahili as his second language afterthe KANU announcement about Swahili's future official status (personal communication,1970).

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NEIGHBORS AND LEXICAL BORROWINGS5. TYPESOFBORROWING. Let us now turn our attention to specific examplesof loan words found in the recorded Ateso of our informants. We can readily seehow the differencein general cultural milieu, from the Tororo dialect area to theAmukura area and to the Standard dialect area, makes its presence felt in theincidence and types of loans which occur in each area. Further, although in this

paper we put the most emphasis on these macro-group differences, we can alsosee how certain loan words are a feature only of certain sub-sets of Ateso speakers;e.g., we will see that the useof English verb loans is found only in educated Ateso.The first thing which strikes us about Ateso loans is a commonplace: relativelyspeaking, large numbers are noun loans, and the same ones can be found in allAteso dialects studied, including Standard Ateso (Soroti-Kumi area). But thenature of these loans is such that the same ones, and with about the same inci-dence, would probably appear in many East African languages and even in manylanguages of the non-industrialized world. These are the nouns which areborrowed directly or indirectly, mainly from English, for new objects and con-cepts, such as e-soda'soda pop', a-motoka motor car', and (e)-batisimu'baptism'.While we recognize the incidence of such loans and will discuss them, what isof more interest in our study is the type and incidence of loans into the corevocabulary of Ateso, borrowingsfor which operablewords already exist in Ateso.Such borrowings support our hypothesis that, given strong enough cultural con-tact, groups of speakers of a language will make core borrowings as well as bor-rowings for words for new cultural items. Our data show the following patternsconcerning borrowings into the core vocabulary:

(1) There is relatively very little borrowing into the core vocabulary by re-spondents from the Standard Dialect area. In the transcriptions of interviews ofseven persons from Soroti town, only two such borrowings occur: Swa. makosa'problems' in place of the native Ateso a-tionus, and kede 'with' from Kumaminstead of Ateso nepepe ka. Likewise, we found very few core borrowings in thespeech of the six respondents interviewed in areas from Gweri to Kumi. Again wefound kede; and paka (Swa. mpaka) 'until, up to' was used instead of Atesoaitodol. One respondent also used a-musiri (Lug. omusiri) 'garden plot' insteadof the Ateso equivalent, amana.

(2) This very limited borrowing into the core vocabulary contrasts sharplywith that in the Tororo area and in the Kenya sample from Amukura. Further,we get contrast between these two areas themselves. But since both these dialectareas are geographically separated from the area where Standard Ateso is spoken,and since the cultural influences of neighbors are somewhat different, we hadhypothesized that we would expect different patterns of borrowing. In general,this is what we found:

(a) In both areas, the VOLUMEf borrowing in general is greater than whereStandard Ateso is spoken. That is, we find more noun loans, more verb loans,more alien self-standing system morphemes, and more code switching in referringto dates and times, and even in whole sentences.(b) The source for the majority of the loans varies in these two areas accordingto the dominant cultural influences. Around Tororo, most core loans come from

Luganda and Dhopadhola; aroundAmukura, most core loans come from Swahili.

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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 49, NUMBER 4 (1973)(c) In both areas, noun and verb replacement loans (i.e. loans to take the placeof words already existing in Ateso) are relatively infrequent, but occur withabout the same incidence. The sources are the dominant cultural forces in the

area; e.g., around Tororo we finda-mani (Lug. amani) 'strength' used instead ofthe Ateso agogongby one respondent. Also aki-jokite (Dhopadhola joko) occursas in Kinyek akijokite ong 'Don't trouble me' instead of the Ateso equivalent,Kinyek aitapas or Kinyek aitican eong.Around Amukura, most such loans comefrom Swahili; thus we find e-bidi (Swa. bidii) 'effort, diligence' instead of theAteso agogong. Alongside Ateso aki-tumor 'to be delayed', aki-celewar (Swa.-chelewa)is found.23Some replacements come from English, but relatively few:e-kapenta 'carpenter' instead of Ateso e-keonwas recorded in Tororo.

(d) We found very few loan translations in any of our samples. The main onefound is 'thank you for working', based on Lug. weebaleemirimu. In both theAmukura and Soroti areas, this occurs (with Ateso words) as eyalama aswam,although it is perhaps more common around Tororo, where yoga aswam is theAteso equivalent.

(e) Many more borrowings of the self-standing system morpheme type (corevocabulary floaters) occur in Amukura Ateso than in the Ateso spoken aroundTororo. Almost all of those in Amukura are from Swahili; but those from Tororocome from Luganda, Dhopadhola, and Swahili. Some of the Amukura loans,such as bas (Swa. basi) 'it's finished, well', etc., also occur in other dialects ofAteso, including the Standard dialect. Others, such as saidi (Swa. zaidi) 'more'in place of Ateso noi, are very common around Amukura; but they would bevirtually non-existent around Soroti, for example.Some examples of core vocabulary floaters which we did find around Tororoinclude the following. Naye 'but', from Luganda, is very common, as in thisinteresting sentence: Nesi da Etesotnaye nesi Epalat 'He too is an Etesot, but heis a Padhola.' Sasa 'now' (Swahili) is widely used around Tororo and at leastknown around Soroti; we recorded this sentence at Molo north of Tororo: Sasaekwaikini kwana eong ai? 'Now what can I do?' (The idea 'now' actually isexpressed twice in this sentence, with the Swahili loan sasa and with the Atesokwana.)We hypothesize that the large number of varied borrowingsof this type are somuch more prevalent in Amukura than in the Tororo area because of the un-diluted and constant influence of Swahili in western Kenya. Further, the socialnorms which sanction the general use of Swahili give it a prestige second only tothat of English. Around Tororo, no single second language would be in suchgeneral use as is Swahili around Amukura. Finally, since so many people under-stand Swahili there, the Ateso speaker who uses Swahili loans in his Ateso,consciously or unconsciously, is sure he will be understood. The Tororo Etesotusing Dhopadhola loans, for example, may well be understood by other localIteso, but the possibility of incomprehension is certainly greater than with theAmukura Etesot using Swahili.

28 In Ateso orthography, the voiceless alveo-palatal affricate is written as c; in Lugandaand Swahili (as in English), it is written as ch.

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NEIGHBORS AND LEXICAL BORROWINGSThus we hypothesize that there are fewer such loans in Tororo Ateso becausethere is no one dominating alien culture, as there is in Amukura, from which anEtesot can borrow such words and expect to be understood by all those to whomhe speaks. Some such loans do creep into the Tororo Etesot's Ateso, of course;the young people especially like to show off their versatility. But, often as not,the Ateso equivalent seems favored over a loan.In both areas, although English has the highest actual prestige, extensiveloans from English, especially core loans, must-in practicality-be restricted toa few sub-groups, since only educated Iteso would understand them.(f) Code switching for numerals and dates is common in both the Amukura andTororo dialect areas. Around Tororo, the Ateso speaker sometimes switches to

Luganda. Around Amukura, it is almost the rule that numbers and dates arespoken in Swahili.

(g) Code switching for whole sentences is found only around Tororo, and onlyin the areas where the Padhola culture is very strong. Both Dhopadhola andLuganda sentences or phrases were recorded in this instance.

We hypothesize that such extensive code switching is found around Tororobecause it is here where the Ateso culture is most fragmented. The Tororo Itesolive in a pattern of interspersal with their alien neighbors, so that some Itesohave almost lost their Ateso identity. Around Amukura, and even more so inTeso District, of course, the Iteso tend to live more as one group, even thoughthere are aliens not far away.But no real conclusions can be drawn here about code switching, since our dataare limited. Code switching for as much as an entire sentence was found only inthe speech of four persons of the 22 interviewed in the Tororo area. That is, whenasked to speak Ateso in the formal interview situation, most respondents couldmake their Ateso a satisfactory vehicle of communication. But in a more in-formal situation, as in the beer-drinking session visited near Molo, almosteveryone-all Iteso-switched constantly from Ateso to Dhopadhola, withDhopadhola actually dominating. Further detailed study is obviously neededbefore specific conclusions can be suggested.6. DETAILSON TYPESOF BORROWING.n more detail, the types of borrowingwhich exist in our samples are as follows:

6.1. By far the greatest number of borrowings, grouping all dialects together,are nouns for objects or concepts new to the Ateso culture. Some of these arewords of relatively long standing in Ateso (60 to 70 years perhaps), such ase-mudu 'gun' or e-didi 'religion' (from Lug. emmundu and eddiini). Others aremuch more recent and not yet assimilated into the Ateso phonotactic system,such as e-servingai 'service' (in a petrol station), from English. Some loans arevery widespread; e.g., words such as e-paba/e-pamba 'cotton' or e-muceri 'rice'(from Swa. pamba and mchele or Lug. eppambaand omuceere)are commonplacein the speech of every rural respondent. Words associated with education oradministration also occur frequently, such as e-somero'school' in Standard andTororo Ateso (from Lug. essomero), and sikuli (from English through Swahili)in Amukura Ateso; e-musolo 'tax' (from Lug. omusolo) in many dialects, even in

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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 49, NUMBER 4 (1973)Kenya, although it is e-solo in Standard Ateso; e-lukudo 'main road' (from Lug.olugudo) in Tororo Ateso, e-gudoin Standard Ateso and e-barabara(from Swa.barabara)or e-rotofor a lesser road in Amukura Ateso. Nouns for objects or con-cepts involving industrialization and schools almost always come from English,and sometimes are borrowed in a relatively non-incorporated form, e.g. ledger,e-staff, e-standard,formeka 'formica', and e-radio. Other very common loans dealwith buying and selling, such as a-pesa/a-pesan 'money, monies' (from Swa.pesa or Lug. eppeesa).Some nouns occur only around Tororo, or conversely only around Amukura;e.g., e-gobola/e-gobolola sub-county' (from Lug. eggombbolola)s found mainlyonly in the Tororo area. It used to be employed in Standard Ateso; but now anAteso equivalent, e-tem,has become more popular, at least around Soroti. Also,katale/e-katale (Lug. ekatale) 'market' is mainly a Tororo borrowing. AroundAmukura, e-sokoni (Swa. sokoni) is the common rendering. Also, barasa (Swa.baraza) 'meeting' is a common loan in Amukura Ateso only.

6.2. A few nouns are for objects or concepts which already exist in Ateso, butfor which the existing Ateso words do not quite capture the modem meaning.E.g., e-biasara 'business' (Swa. biashara) is used instead of Ateso a-gwelanar,which has more the meaning of 'trade, bartering'. A-uto is used in Uganda Atesofor 'cooking oil' (Lug. wuto) instead of the Ateso a-rurwak,which means rather'animal fat', formerly used for cooking. E-kooti 'court' has an Ateso counterparte-dieketwith the same general meaning; but e-kooti is equally common, and itsuse usually indicates a graver situation. A-saduku 'box' (from either Swa.sanduku or Luganda) is used today for a receptacle for small objects and clothes;the native Ateso for 'box' is e-tuja, but refers rather to a larger woven structuregenerally used as a granary.

6.3. A few loans are strictly replacements for nouns already existing in Atesofor the same object or idea. Rwothi 'chief' from Dhopadhola is common aroundTororo instead of the Ateso e-jakait. Speakers from Amukura using e-sambai'plot, farm' (Swa. shamba) could use Ateso a-mana 'garden plot' or e-manikor'larger plot'. But Ateso a-mana is sometimes replaced (by a-musiri from Lug.omusiri in Uganda Ateso) because it may be mistaken for e-mana 'vagina'.E-transfer 'a transfer' is sometimes used instead of the Ateso ai-julio, especiallyby English-speaking Iteso. A-mucaalat 'lady' was long ago borrowed (from Lug.omukyala) as a term for the wife of an important person; but it is now used forany respectable woman, and thus often replaces a-beru. Maskini 'poor one'(Swahili) is widely used as a euphemism instead of the Ateso loican. A-banja'debt' (Lug. ebanjja) was adopted around Tororo, first by the Padhola, whoseword banja was then borrowed by the Iteso. It also occurs in Standard Ateso,but the native a-pesen is more common. E-musuja 'fever' (Lug. omusujja) is incommon usage around Tororo instead of Ateso e-imidi; it is also used aroundSoroti by some Iteso. Mammaa 'mother' (perhaps from Dhopadhola or Luganda,but many languages have similar forms) is preferred by some Iteso aroundTororo; cf. Ateso toto, still dominant in Standard Ateso. In the Molo area,a-codopingot'a woman who has left her husband' is used by the younger genera-

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NEIGHBORS AND LEXICAL BORROWINGStion (from Dhopadhola codo 'break' and pingo 'handcuffs'); a-kobo s the nativeAteso word preferredin Soroti. An Amukura respondent used e-gireid 'grade' for'quality' where he might have used the Ateso equivalent a-doketait. Anotherrespondent used e-musia 'end' (from Swa. mwisho), but Ateso e-sangis more com-mon in Standard Ateso.Some replacements have been reversed, so that Ateso originals are now pre-ferred. At least in the Soroti area, the Ateso e-muron'doctor' is now taking overfrom the loans daktari (Swahili) and e-musawo (Lug. omusawo). Also, ecoloni'latrine' (from Swa. chooni or Luganda) is in use in all areas today; but someconsider it crude, and prefer the Ateso ai-pany.Thus we see that while English is ultimately the major donor language for newobjects and concepts, borrowings which are replacements generally come fromlanguages of neighbors rather than the more alien English.6.4. Borrowed verbs arerelatively few; in general, they stand for new concepts,although a few replace Ateso equivalents. No single language is the dominantdonor. Representing a new concept is ai-tuuda/ai-tuud 'to sell' (from Lug.okutunda):although Ateso had the verb ai-swec,this has more a sense of barteringthan of selling objects for money. Ai-puga (Lug. okwefuga)'to rule' stands for aconcept new to the Iteso, who had no central authority in traditional societies,but were organized around clans. Ai-siom 'to study' and ai-wadik 'to write'(both either from Swahili or Luganda) also stand for new concepts. Aki-filinga,as in akifilinga letters 'the filing of letters', also stands for a new idea.One replacement is ai-serving, which appears in the speech of one respondentin an inflected form, i-serving-aete 'you (pl.) serve (food)', where the Atesoi-jaanakin would have sufficed.

6.5. Finally, a large number of borrowings into the core vocabulary commonto the Tororo and Amukura dialects fall into four groups:(a) Words for numbers or dates. One Tororo man, while speaking Ateso, gavehis age in Luganda as asatu mu mwenda'thirty-nine'. One respondent combinedSwahili with Ateso in saying salasini ki-kang'thirty-five' (Swa. thelathini'thirty'),

although the Ateso word for 'thirty', akaisauni, is quite possible. One Molospeaker referred to the years 1962 and 1963 in Luganda as nkaga mubiri, nkagamusatu.In and around Amukura we found that switching to Swahili for numerals anddates was almost the rule, regardless of socio-economic sub-group. Thus, at abaraza meeting of all Iteso conducted in Ateso, we heard such phrases as tareheishirini na tano 'the date of the 25th', shilingi moja 'one shilling', mwakamwili'two years' (Swa. miaka miwili), themanini 'ninety'. Lug. siminu 'fifty' was alsoused. Other Amukura respondents were just as likely to switch to Swahili fornumerals. This practice of giving numerals in Swahili is so pervasive that oneAmukura farmer, who found no need to use a single loan word in his interview,finally switched to Swahili to give his age as salasini na tisa 'thirty-nine'.The fact that English is so little used in this type of code switching is worthnoting. As noted above, English tends to be reserved as a donor language forstrictly new objects and concepts. English names are common for the months,

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LANGUAGE, VOLUME 49, NUMBER 4 (1973)however, and this is true in many East African languages. But this may bebecause many African languages, including Ateso, have very cumbersome waysof expressing the months. Even Swahili, which does employ a short form mweziwa 'month of ...' as in mweziwa tisa 'month of the ninth', frequently uses Englishloans such as Septemba.

(b) Short self-contained phrases. Especially in the Amukura sample, we foundnumerous instances of short phrases from Swahili being used in Ateso, eventhough Ateso equivalents were readily available. Examples include Letepesa hapa'Bring the money here', hakuna 'there is not', Si namna hii 'Isn't that so?'

(c) Code switching for long phrases or whole sentences. Such switching wasfound in a markeddegree only aroundTororo, where several respondents switchedto either Dhopadhola or Luganda. The extreme case was a man from the Molo-Kidoko area who was very weak in Ateso, and at times answered Ateso questionsentirely in Dhopadhola and once in Luganda. Educated respondents from anydialect area occasionally produced English phrases, as in Ebo ajaatere siong ...e-strongone 'Yes, we do have a strong one' (referringto a trade union).(d) Self-standing system morphemes. The speech of Amukura respondentsfairly bristles with such loans from Swahili, e.g. yaani 'that is to say', raisi(Swa. rahisi) 'easier', ata 'even, up to' (Swa. hata), alakini 'but' (Swa. lakini), tu'just; no more'. A number of these same loans from Swahili, as well as some fromother languages, were also found in the Tororo area, but not so frequently.Swahili examples in Tororo include bure 'uselessly' and tena 'again'. More fre-quently, as we would expect in the Tororo area, loans which are self-standingsystem morphemes come from either Luganda or Dhopadhola. E.g., while Swa.kabisa 'entirely' is very common in Ateso around Amukura, in the Tororo areaa Luganda loan nyo, with the same meaning, is in wide usage. From Dhopadholawe find such examples as kada 'even if'. Dingding 'very much' (Nilotic origin?) isalso common around Tororo. In eyalama dingding 'thank you very much' (com-bining Ateso and the loan), we find what seems a loan translation from English.7. CONCLUSION.e have presented data from several dialects of Ateso that

support the following contentions:(1) An adequate model for lexical borrowingmust first consider the borrowingprocess itself, i.e. the nature and extent of cultural contacts, and how they varyaccording to sub-groups within the borrowing group. Only then does one examinethe product of the borrowing,the words themselves. Previous studies of borrowingwhich have dealt with the process at all perhaps have been too preoccupied withthe idea that the amount of borrowing which takes place is determined by thestructures of the languages in contact.24Although we do not address ourselves

directly to this premise, our evidence from Ateso shows that the socio-cultural4Diebold (111)brings up the same point. He writes that, rather than assume that inter-ference is determined by the structures of the two languages in contact, 'A more modestpremisewould merely state that the two language structures set up limits of variability tointerference. My data strongly suggest that sociological factors like age of learning, thelearning situation itself, and intergroup social relations are equally crucial factors in de-termining the form of Spanish-derivedinterferencephenomenain Huave.'

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NEIGHBORS AND LEXICAL BORROWINGScontext, not the structures involved, seems more important in the process. Thelanguages from which Ateso has borrowed so heavily all have very alien struc-tures.

(2) Borrowings of certain types into the core vocabulary of a language need tobe recognized, alongside borrowings for items new to the culture. That our re-searchhas revealed many such borrowingsin certainAteso dialects may reflect thefact that we studied tape recordings of actual linguistic performances. Ideally,of course, we should have made many more recordings in a variety of socialsituations. But at least we have tried to follow the suggestion of Labov 1970 andothers who emphasize the social context of language. They have pointed out theneed to get away from the old one-language-one-informant approach, and tobase descriptive studies and theories about language on actual linguistic per-formance of a representative sample of speakers.(3) Finally (on the basis of data from only one language, to be sure), wehypothesize that even the type of items borrowed may well depend on the typeof cultural contact. We suggest that lexical items for new cultural items tend toappear in the greatest number in the speech of individuals of specific socio-economic groups, those who have education and/or have traveled widely. Butwe suggest that borrowings of the type of core items we have found, such asself-standing system morphemes ('but', 'always', etc.) are not restricted to thespeech of any single sub-group of speakers within a dialect area, given sufficientcultural contact with speakers of the donor language.REFERENCESBOLNGER,WIGHT.968.Aspectsof language.New York:Harcourt,Brace & World.DIEBOLD,. RICHARD,R.1961.Incipientbilingualism.Lg. 37.97-112.FISHMAN,OSHUA. 1968.Sociolinguistic erspectives nthe studyof bilingualism.Lin-guistics39.21-49.. 1970. Sociolinguistics.Rowley, Mass.: NewburyHouse.GREENBERG,JOSEPH . 1963. The languages of Africa. International Journal of AmericanLinguistics29:1,Part II.HAUGEN,EINAR. 950. Problemsof bilingualism.Lingua2.271-90.. 1953.The Norwegiananguagen America:a studyin bilingualbehavior.Philadel-phia: Universityof PennsylvaniaPress.(Reissued,Bloomington:ndianaUniversityPress, 1969.)-- . 1956.Bilingualismn the Americas: bibliography ndresearchguide.University,Ala.: AmericanDialect Society.HEINE,BERND.970.Statusand use ofAfricaningua rancas.Miinchen:WeltformVerlag.HILDERS, J. H., and J. C. D. LAWRANCE.1957.An introductiono the Ateso language.Nairobi: Eagle Press.LABOV, WILLIAM.970. The study of language n its socialcontext.StudiumGenerale23.30-87.LADEFOGED, PETER;RUTH GLICK;and CLIVERIPER. 971.LanguagenUganda.Nairobi:OxfordUniversityPress.LAWRANCE,. C. D. 1957.TheIteso.London:OxfordUniversityPress.POLOM~, EDGAR. 1968. Lubumbashi Swahili. Journal of African Languages 7.14-25.SCOTTON,AROLMYERS.1972.Choosinga lingua franca in an African capital. Edmonton:Linguistic Research.WEINREICH, URIEL.1953. Languages in contact. New York: Linguistic Circle of NewYork.[Received19 May 1972.]

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