Language Contact

Dialects in Contact

• speakers can somewhat understand each other (mutual intelligability)

• it leads to dialect leveling

  • when dialects become more like each other, or meet halfway

• dialect (i.e., varieties of the same language) levelling makes:

  • individual dialects more homogeneous

  • different dialects more similar

Languages in contact

• involve less mutual intelligibility

  • so contact effects generally happen through bilinguals and their language use

Borrowing

• when words from one language become part of another

• the more similar 2 languages are, the more likely borrowing can occur between them

Loan-Translation

• a type of borrowing

• there is a direct translation of the elements of a word into the borrowing language

  • ex; “it goes without saying” from French “il va sans dire”

Nonce Borrowings

• not really switching languages, just bilinguals popping in a word or 2 (more or less similar to code-switching), or “infrequent or one-time use of words from another language within a primary language”

• if a word gets used often enough, it can become an “official” part of the matrix language

• then it’s just called borrowing

  • one way new words get introduced into a language

Ways new words get introduced into a language — Lexical Gaps

• new things and concepts need names

  • why not just use some other language’s word?

• often words for geographical features, animals, tools, foods…

English is a borrower

• as a peasant language, it borrowed from the French nobility

• science terms from Latin, Greek Arabic

• as an imperial language, it borrowed from the places it went

Nativization

• process by which a foreign language, word, or linguistic structure becomes adapted to the phonetic, grammatical, and cultural norms of a new linguistic community)

  • make them follow your pronunciation or grammar rules

    • English doesn’t have a “tl” sound, so “tomatl” from Nahuatl (a group from southern Mexico) becomes “tomato”

  • ex; pronunciation, spelling, grammar

Borrowing Beyond Lexicon

• most influence on English is borrowed words

• occasionally structure can be borrowed

• possibly in Acadian French

• English-like word order

Types of Contact Languages

• Mixed languages

• Lingua francas

• Pidgens

• Creoles

Mixed Languages

• heavy-duty long-term code-switching

• a more likely mixed language

Lingua franca

• language of communication between speakers of different (other) languages

  • named for the shared language of Mediterranean traders in the past

• Often a neutral or third language

Pidgin

• a drastically simplified language

  • small lexicon, little grammatical complexity

• used for basic communication between people who have other first languages

  • trade or plantation slavery

• often, speakers have limited access to lexifier (mother language) language

  • the full language that supplies the words for the pidgin

Creole

• when a pidgin becomes the first language of speakers and is elaborated and expanded

  • although linguists argue about the exact process

• used in a wider range of contexts

• some former pidgins are now (linguistically) creoles

  • Hawaiian Pidgin

(Post) Creole Continuum

• creole languages often coexist with their lexifier languages, or a more standard version of the creole

  • Acrolect

  • Mesolect

  • Basilect

Acrolect

• closest to standard, least creole

Mesolect

• middle variety

Basilect

• least standard, most creole-like

Creole Origin Hypotheses

• some creole languages share common grammatical features despite different origins

• theories attempt to explain these similarities that may have originated from their:

  • lexifier languages

  • innate structures

  • language contact

The Relexification Hypothesis

• creoles stem from a single template language used as a framework

• words from different lexifier languages were slotted into this structure

• possibly spread by sailors and slavers or influenced by a West African language

The Language Biprogram Hypothesis

• children exposed to pidgins reshape them into full languages

• suggests an innate human ability develops the grammar

• provides a structured language from basic input

Other Possible Explanations for Creoles

• similarities are due to universal learning tendencies that simplify languages for communication

  • foreigner talk — speakers simplify speech for better understanding. Common in all languages and forms of communication

• similarities originate from influences from

  • substrate languages

  • superstrate languages

Substrate Languages

• languages spoken by the learners

Superstate Languages

• dominant languages in contact

Contact

When speakers of a language or language variety interact with speakers of a different language or language variety.

Dialect Leveling

The process by which the regional features of the speech of a group of people converge toward a common norm over time.

Code-Switching

When people alternate between at least two languages or language varieties in a single conversation (across sentences or clause boundaries)

Situational Code-Switching

When code-switching is constrained by social context

Lexical Gap

When a particular language doesn’t have a word for a particular concept (and thus usually adopts a word from another language), for example, schadenfreude

Matrix Language

The dominant language in code-switching.

Nonce Borrowings

Individual words from another language that are inserted, often being changed to obey the rules of the matrix language

Borrowings

A linguistic form taken from one language or dialect and incorporated into another, such that monolingual speakers of the latter use it, sometimes with new associations.

Nativization

When a word borrowed from another language is changed so that it behaves like a word from our language

Folk Etymology

A change in a word’s form based on a mistaken understanding of its meaning or composition

Sprachbund

A group of (usually unrelated) languages that have become more similar because of geographical proximity

Mixed Language

A language that shares components of two or more languages, generally in equal proportions.

Michif

An example of a mixed language still spoken in and near Manitoba among the Métis, people of mixed Cree and French ancestry

Lingua Franca

The language used when people who speak different languages need to interact on a regular basis, but have languages that are not mutually intelligible.

Pidgin

A language variety that is stripped down to its essentials, that is, not very linguistically complex. Pidgins arise in language contact situations, for example, trade, and are used as a lingua franca.

Lexifer Language

The language that supplies most of the vocabulary (i.e., lexicon) for a pidgin or creole

Creole

A language variety that develops out of a pidgin in a language contact situation. Unlike a pidgin, a creole is spoken as a first language of some group of speakers, and can be used in the entire range of social settings

Proto-Pidgin

Part of the relexification hypothesis, this is the template language into which the actual words of different lexifier languages are slotted.

Reflexification Hypothesis

The argument that similarities among creoles arise because creoles all over the world have developed from a single template language, which acted as a sort of structural frame into which the actual words of different lexifier languages were slotted.

Language Bioprogram Hypothesis

The argument that similarities among creoles arise because all children have access to an innate biological program that leads them to restructure the very basic input of each pidgin in the same way

Substrate

A variety that has influenced the structure or use of another, more dominant variety

Superstrate

A variety that has influenced the structure or use of another, less dominant variety.

Decreolization

A reduction in the number of creole features in the speech of an individual or community

Basilect

A term used in creole studies to refer to the most creole-like variety, that is, the most distant from the acrolect . See also creole continuum

Acrolect

A term used in creole studies to refer to the least creole-like, or most standard or prestigious variety. See also mesolect, basilect, creole continuum

Mesolect

A term used in creole studies to refer to the intermediate variety between basilect and acrolect. See also creole continuum

Creole Continuum

Subvarieties of creoles fall along a continuum, ranging from basilect, the least standard, to acrolect, the most standard. Mesolect varieties fall in the middle.

Implicational Scale

A scale or ordering that implies that a feature associated with a particular point will also be associated with all points to one side of it