Language contact

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Language contact

• Ling 102

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Language contact

• Contact between distinct languages either through
  written form or through direct social contact
  between speakers

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Language contact

• Contact between distinct languages either through
  written form (i.e. Latin and contemporary
  English) or through direct social contact between
  speakers (Turkish and German, in Germany Spanish
  and English, in the US Catalan and Spanish, in
  Spain)

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Language contact

• Borrowing adoption by one language of linguistic
  elements from another language
• Lexical words, idioms, phrases
• Il va sans dire --gt it goes without saying
• Kettenraucher --gt chain smoker
• Structuralphonology (prestige), morphology (-er
  suffix from Latin -arius), syntax

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Language contact

• Lexical borrowing requires only low-intensity
  contact
• Structural borrowing requires higher intensity
  contact --gt at least some bilingual speakers

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Pidgin Languages

• What happens if speakers of mutually
  unintelligible languages are brought together and
  need to communicate?
• Adopt a common language --gt in the Middle Ages,
  scholars from all parts of Europe adopted Latin
• Creation of a Pidgin language

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Pidgin Languages

• Pidgin --gt languages developed by speakers of
  distinct languages who come into contact with one
  another and share no common language
• Typical of trading centers

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Pidgin Languages

• Mixtures of elements from all languages in
  contact
• Superstrate language socially or economically
  dominant language
• Substrate nondominant languages

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Pidgin Languages

• Tok Pisin (from talk pidgin, languages spoken
  in Papua New Guinea)
• Superstrate English

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Pidgin Languages

• Tok Pisin
• What do the following words mean?
• Dok
• Fis
• Hukim
• Painim
• Nogut
• Baimbai
• Sekan

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Creole languages

• Pidgin language that becomes the native language
  of a group of speakers
• More stable and complex than a creole
• Tok Pisin --gt from pidgin to creole, it is now
  official language