Ling 101: Part 11

Problems with Borrowed Words

• the sounds are often not in your system

• even if they are, the sequences often still violate your phonotactics (eg. psi)

Solution to Borrowings

• adapt the borrowed word to your system

  • eg. q → k, psi→si

• say it like a foreigner, even if it violates your phonotactics, or the sound is not in the system

• different languages, and different speakers can take different approaches

  • there’s nothing wrong with either approach

• this kind of adaptation is one of the main reasons people have ‘accents’ when speaking in a foreign language

  • we unconsciously stick to the syllable structure and sounds of our native language

/ʃn, ʃm, ʃl/ onsets

• sound ‘funny’ outside of Jewish or German contexts b/c they violate English phonotactic constraints (we say it like a foreigner)

• children who hear these words a lot could easily re-analyze English, making it sound more like Yiddish

• for now, they are not possible onsets in native English vocabulary

  • but we do get them in specific borrowings 

Austronesian Family

• arguably originated in Taiwan; it still is spoken there, though endangered

• it spread across the pacific, forming the Austronesian family

• in the pacific (and in sharp contrast to Austronesian in Taiwan), some of these languages today have huge numbers of speakers

  • Javanese (76M, Indonesia), Tagalog (47M, Phillipines), Malay/Indonesian (45M, Malaysia, Indonesia), Fijian (350,000, Fiji), Maori (100,000 NZ)

Austronesian → Hawaiian Language

• Austronesian family → Malayo-Polynesian Branch; arrived Hawaiian Islands ~300-400AD

• language was banned in schools (1893), which reduced the prestige of the language, and children spoke English in school everyday

• traditional Hawaiian language nearly died out but recent generations started immersion schools in Hawaiian language

  • the result: today more than 20,000 fluent speakers

Langauge on Hawaiian Islands

• ‘Hawaiian Pidgin’, it is actually a creole

• blends traditional Hawaiian, English, Portuguese, Cantonese, Tagalog, Japanese, Korean and Spanish

• this creole is much more commonly spoken in Hawaii than the traditional Hawaiian language

• more than 600,000 speakers

Traditional Hawaiian Sound System: Consonants

• some Hawaiian words in Hawaiian writing system are close to IPA

  • glottal stop is apostrophe

• 8 total consonant phonemes

• small system

• voice is not a distinctive feature

• /w/ is in free variation with /v/ (not predictable, people just vary)

Traditional Hawaiian Sound System: Vowels

• vowel length is marked with a line (macron) over the vowel

• 10 distinctive vowels including length

Hawaiian Phonotactics

• the biggest onset (# of C’s) is 1

• codas are not possible

• the largest possible syllable (‘maximal syllable’) in Hawaiian is CV:

• no CC clusters at start or end of words or syllable

• only two kinds of syllables: CV or plain V

How does Syllable Structure Explain why even very common words have so many syllables?

• have to put vowels b/w each consonant → leads to many consonants

  • every consonant needs a vowel

• make up for the small # of distinctive vowels

• short CV combinations

Extreme Hawaiian Adaptations

• change sounds: look for the closest similar sound in their system (usually /k/)

• syllabify: add vowels as needed to syllabify (sometimes /i/, sometimes /a/)

  • we can’t predict which vowel they will insert

waɪn

brʌʃ

tɪkət

• waɪn: ɪ → i, n cannot be a consonant, n→ na (result: waina)

• brʌʃ: b→p, r→l, ʌ→ a, ʃ→k, can’t have a CC onset so pl → pal (result: palaki)

• tɪkət: t→k, ɪ →i, ə → i, can’t have coda, so k→ki (result: kikiki)

Shibboleths

• using language differences as a tool for war

• trapping people with their sound systems

• tests for ethnic or other groups based on differences in pronunciation

  • now also used more generally for identifiable differences based on dress, beliefs, etc

Shibboleths: Origin

• Israel, 1300 BC

• War: Gilead vs. Ephraim

• Gileadites wanted to conduct ethnic cleansing

• Gileadites had /ʃ/; Ephraimites didn’t have /ʃ/, only /s/ (would substitute for /s/)

• the Ancient Hebrew word for ‘ear of corn/grain’:

  • Gileadites: /ʃɪbələθ/

  • Ephraimites: /sɪbələθ/

• 42,000 Ephraimites died, because they couldn’t say /ʃ/

Shibboleths: Modern Examples

Conflict in Northern Ireland: /H/

• Protestants: /etʃ/

• Catholics: /hetʃ/

Lebanese Civil War: ‘tomato’

• Lebanese Arabic: banadoura

• Palestinian Arabic: bandoura

The Scheveningen Test: A Dutch Uvular Shibboleth Details

Dutch:

• has /χ/ with dialect variation

  • voiceless uvular fricative (more forward)

• in spelling sch =/sχ/

German

• has /x/ 

  • voiceless velar fricative

• neither /sx/ nor /sχ/ is possible

• in spelling, sch = /ʃ/

The Scheveningen Test: A Dutch Uvular Shibboleth Events

• 1940-1945, Holland occupied by Nazi Germany 

• Dutch resistance army developed 

• German spies infiltrated the resistance

  • languages are very similar, so it’s easy to learn and become a spy

• the Dutch solution: Scheveningen is a seaside resort in Holland pronounced with the /χ/, used it as the shibboleth

  • Dutch: /'sχeɪvənɪŋə(n)/

  • German: /ʃeɪvənɪŋən/

Evolution of French R: Background

• example of how talking like foreigners can potentially influence language change

• r sounds around the world include:

  • /ɹ/: central approximant (English R)

  • /r/: alveolar trill (Spanish R)

  • /ɾ/: alveolar flap (Scottish English R)

  • /ʁ/: voiced uvular fricative (German R and Parisian Friench)

• these ‘r’ sounds are made in different ways, but they sound similar (share certain special sound frequency properties)

• this is why different languages associate them with /r/ and also switch between them

Evolution of French R

• Marie Antoinette was a German speaker using /ʁ/

• before Marie Antoinette’s time, most French speakers said /r/ (voiced alveolar trill)

• when Marie Antoinette became the queen of France /r/ > /ʁ/

  • not necessarily by directly borrowing it, but possibly influenced by German

• this particular change might have happened anyway, but we know overall that German was a huge influence on French, thru contact b/w the cultures

Lip Rounding: Back vs Front in English

• rounding makes vowels sound more back

  • why non-low back vowels are usually rounded (/u, ʊ, o, ɔ/)

• unrounding (spread lips) makes vowels more front

  • why front vowels are normally unrounded (/i, ɪ, e, ɛ, æ/)

Front-Rounded Vowels

• front rounded vowels are harder to hear b/c the lip-rounding makes them sound more back, but they exist

• /y, ʏ, ø, œ/

• German examples in figure; front rounded vowels doubled the system

• in writing (front rounded vowels appear with umlauts)

• English does not have distinctive front rounded vowels, and uses the umlaut only in borrowings, dieresis, or to look cool

  • dieresis: a mark placed over a vowel to indicate that it is sounded in a separate syllable

Back Rounded Vowels

• hard to hear b/c the spread lips make them sound less back

• /ɯ/ in Korean

Written Languages in America

• most languages in Americas did not have written forms until very recently

• Mayan is an exception, the system is original to Central America, but evolved in similar ways to Egyptian (and is now no longer used)

• all other systems in the Americas prior to contact with Europeans were from the same region, Mesoamerica (though Incans had a system which may have also been writing)

• several other First Nations languages did develop original writing systems after first contact, starting w/ the Cherokee syllabics systems developed in the 19^th century

Cherokee Writing Systems

• invented by a Cherokee speaker (Iroquian family) named Sequoyah

• they saw from a distance that white people were using symbols to represent language and decided to make one for Cherokee from scratch

• the first attempt was purely logographic, but he soon realized it was way too many symbols → he figured out that it was easier to use syllabics

• the Cherokee system was the inspiration for several other systems still used in North American languages

Wakashan

• 7 languages

• West Coast of Van, Island and Mainland coat, North of Island

• all severely endangered

• closest traditional neighbors= Salish

• Wakashan and Salish ppl were often in conflict, but also had millenia of contact including trade, slavery and intermarriage

Wakashan vs Halq’ Sound System

• same fricatives, ejectives

• more non-ejective stops than Halq’ (has voice)

Wakashan vs Salish

• linguists have determined Wakashan and Salishan languages are not historically connected

  • despite many similiarities, not many clear cognates found in the two groups except for borrowings

• the borrowings and contact made the languages grow more alike over thousands of years

  • kids hear impossible phonotactics and change it over time

Sprachbund

A group of languages, with no single historical source that have come to share many features thru borrowing and contact

Mainland Southeast Asian Sprachbund

• 5 distinct families

• all evolved tone, have similar syllable structures, have similar patterns for counting nouns, have similarities in certain other grammatical patterns

• it was contact and borrowing that made them similar like this

Language Families Spoken in BC

• Haida and Ktunaxa are languags by itself (isolate, family of one)

• Salish: many languages

• Wakashan: 7 languages

• the southern families all form a Sprachbund, which makes them look superficially similar

• Alonquian is a big family, spread across large areas of Canada and US

• Tsimshainic: 4 identifiable systems, but not clear where to draw the line at languages

• Na-Dené: tend to have distinctive tone, huge family (at least 46 languages), inside and outisde BC and down in S. US

  • not fully accepted yet, but some linguists have linked Na-Dene to Siberia

Newfie English

• european settlement early 1600s (settlers from Ireland & SW England)

• ϴ>t, ð>d

• /aɪ ɔɪ/ merger → /ɑɪ/

• in most Engl. dialects, a 3^rd person subject triggers –s on verb

• Newfie engl. adds an s to any present tense sentence