Reconstructing sociolinguistic situations: Test case East Africa

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Reconstructing sociolinguistic situations Test
case East Africa

• Maarten MousLeiden University, RCLT, La Trobe

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Structure of talk

• Introduction
• Language contact ltgt language change
• East African contrasting examples
• Parameters of contact situations
• Options for multidisciplinary approaches

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Credo historical linguistics

• contact linguistics presumes the comparative
  method and does not aim at questioning it
• contact linguistics adds to a fuller
  understanding of the linguistics history
  comparative method shows only part of the story
  and may give wrong impression of neat split
• scientific robustness of regular sound change in
  comparative method is absent in contact
  linguistics

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Situations of language contact

• mixed population and bilingualism
• migration
• expansion in small jumps
• expulsion (ostracism as punishment)
• economic links (group and individual)
• client groups
• growing up in other area (Cameroon)
• generational language (Bonek)

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Situations of language contact

• mixed marriage (Gorwaa)
• marriage pattern (e.g. women from outside),
• temporary emigration
• refugees
• trade
• captives of war
• charismatic founder of group (Saygilo doo Magena)

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Situations of language contact

• registers and special languages
• register of respect,
• initiation language
• argot of hippo-hunters
• spirit-possession language
• taboo

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Situations of language contact

• re-settlements
• multilingualism in the city
• seasonal work
• education
• radio

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Patterns (stable?) of language policy

• mono-lingualism (Maasai)
• interpreters
• dominant language
• neutral lingua franca
• maximal multilingualism
• shift

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gene flow and language contact

• expulsion (ostracism as punishment)
• occasional sex (e.g. ritual outside group)
• ritual expert (high status, founder of group)
• marriage pattern (e.g. women from outside)
• war (women from outside)
• refugees (e.g. masters in problems in client
  hunter group, pygmies, Aasax)

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contact ltgt change testcases

• comparable sociolinguistic
• linguistically comparable
• economically comparable
• culturally comparable
• different results

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East Africa

• 4/5 language families. A lot of contact is across
  language family.
• extreme geographical differences
• language density/diversity is not extremely high
  enough to have plenty of contact, not so much
  that it becomes unmanagable
• economic differences

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Test cases

• Maá ltgt Taita
• Aasáx ltgt Akiek
• Iraqw ltgt Alagwa
• Datooga ltgt Maasai

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• Southern Cushitic

• Eastern Bantu

• Southern Nilotic

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Northern Tanzania
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Maá ltgt Taita

• Usambara and Taita mountains Two mountain areas
  not far from each other.
• Once a Cushitic language was spoken.
• In Taita, now only Bantu
• in Usambara a mixed language Maá.

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Taita

• Two Bantu languages Saghala, Davida
• Two former occupants W-asi, Bisha
• several hunter-gatherer groups around Degere,
  Vuna, (A)Laa, (A)Langulu, Waata.
• Bisha agriculturalists burial sites
• Massive sets of Cushitic loans
• some common with Cushitic lexemes in Maa
• Saghala had a lateral fricative

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Lateral fricative

• Wray (1894) used a trigraph tly in Sagala
• now it is an implosive (palatalised?) voiced
  velar stop written as g (Philippson)
• Harris (1978) about Mbale-Davida voiced lateral
  fricative in positions where other dialects have
  a voiced alveolar fricative
• Williamson (1943) writes ?
• Philippson lateral realisation of r
• some correspond with ? in Maa

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Maá

• Mbugu or Maá in the Usambara mountains
• they speak two languages.
• these two languages share one grammar the
  vocabulary is parallel.
• normal Mbugu language is very similar to the
  Bantu language Pare both in grammar and in
  lexicon.
• inner Mbugu language (or Maá) has a lot of
  deviant lexical material which is partly Southern
  Cushitic in origin
• it does not differ in grammar from normal
  Mbugu
• it is a parasite of Normal Mbugu (Mixed Language)

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History scenario

• Pare mountains there was once an (Old Kenyan)
  Cushitic speaking group
• shifted to Pare (Chasu)
• some left the Pare mountains for the Maasai
  plains.
• other remained and completed the shift fully
• some went to the Usambara mountains later

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History scenario

• Mbugu formed a servant group among the Maasai
• expansion of the parallel lexicon of language
  death situation
• considerable influx of Gorwaa people
• fled to Usambara mountains
• reconstitution of one single ethnic group with
  (other) Mbugu
• norm cattle culture
• initiation language in Vudee "Maasai"-Mbugu

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Differences Taita/Pare - Maá

• two groups fused into one
• extra (Maasai, Gorwaa) foreign input
• influx from deviant culture, looks

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Aasáx ltgt Akiek

• Two dorobo groups, i.e. subservient
  hunter-gatherer or people without cattle among
  the Maasai.
• One lost their language (Aasáx)
• the other retained their language (Akiek).

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Akiek

• In the middle of the Maasai plains
• about 50?
• honey specialists
• beehives are made by the Cushitic Burunge
• a Southern Nilotic language
• very close/identical to the Okiek in Kenya
• a bee hunting dorobo group.
• no knowledge about their brothers.
• contact with the Maasai in Maasai
• no language death
• homogeneous

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Aasáx (Winter 1979)

• Hunter-gatherers dorobo among Maasai
• Story of the loss of their language
• Rinderpest
• Maasai join Aasax as survival option
• Maasai daytime village language
• Aasáx acquired cattle
• dominant language in settlement had changed
• cultural identity had changed
• when Maasai left the village so did the others.

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dorobo

• such groups attract drop-outs, adventurers and
  criminals
• can be ethnically very heterogeneous

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Difference

• Shift cultural goal and economy

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Alagwa ltgt Iraqw

• 10-20.000 vs gt500.000
• Iraqw come from Alagwa area
• no dramatic linguistic changes
• recent bilingualism in Swahili

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Alagwa

• widespread bilingualism in Bantu Rangi but not in
  interior
• Rangi neighbours
• once dominant political power (really?)
• slowly decreasing
• influx of Burunge women few centuries ago
• some admixture of Datooga

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Lexical influence

• Burunge gt Alagwa (double reflexes)
• Rangi gt Alagwa
• Alagwa gt Rangi
• Alagwa gt Sandawe (economic influence)
• pre-Alagwa ltgt pre-Sandawe

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Structural transfer

• word order influence Rangi gt Alagwa
• no pronunciation influence on Alagwa
• morphology loss of final suffixes (Burunge)

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Iraqw

• from 3 to 27 clans immigrant society
• linguistically and culturally history of
  Iraqw-Datooga contact
• several Bantu clans gt Iraqw,
• Alagwa gt Iraqw
• Sandawe gt Iraqw,
• Suule What did the Suule speak? No
  recollection
• shift without trace

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history of Iraqw-Datooga contact

• highland plains were once Datooga
• but Iraqw before Datooga
• Iraqw-Datooga conflicts
• Hegemony Iraqw, Datooga, Iraqw
• Iraqw bilingualism in Datooga in certain area
• More Datooga bilingualism in Iraqw now
• Datooga become farmers and Iraqw

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Iraqw

• little dialect differentiation, no central
  organisation, migration within
• no neighbours
• some non-recent Bantu borrowings
• chupa gt tupa gt chupa

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Datooga gt Iraqw

• cultural vocabulary
• sentence connector
• indirectly, shape of selectors
• prepositions of space
• structural conditions gt morphophonological
  reductions

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Pre-Datooga gt Pre-Iraqw lexicon

• warfare ltcry to gather people to fightgt,
• leather work leather bag for meat or honey,
• metal work pair of metal spiral earrings,
• cow colours brownish,
• cattle disabilities, barren cow, cow without a
  womb,
• flora acacia sp., Acacia nilotica, tree
  sp.,
• fauna tape worm, mythical giant snake,
  ostrich,
• body parts beard, vagina, mane of lion.

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Datooga gt Iraqw

• warship and acquisition of glory sing songs to
  acquire glory, leather garments and decoration
• metal and iron work neck ring of brass
• cattle colours and cattle terminology of shining
  colour, multicoloured cow with white sides,
  cow with a head of a different colour than the
  rest of the body, cow with huge black and white
  spots
• cattle diseases cattle disease that involves
  immobility, rinderpest
• cattle names cow acquired by ivory, cow
  acquired by a donkey, cow acquired during war,
  cow found on the road, cow with white tail,
  cow acquired to settle a debt
• flora, fauna
• body parts front of upper leg, collarbone
• culture dance in a circle

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Iraqw gt Datooga

• cultural vocabulary
• reinterpretation of vowels and vowel harmony
• phonological contrast of two voiceless dorsal
  obstruents as reanalysis of ATR vowel harmony
• development of preverbal clitic cluster transfer
  of structure, not of form

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pre-Iraqw gt pre-Datooga lexicon

• agriculture beans, sweet potatoes flower on
  the top of the maize plant, pestle
• furniture and utensils in the house, mat
  bed beer filter
• cultural practices such as seclusion
• psychological concepts intelligence, soul,
  worry, grieve
• communication greet

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Datooga and Maasai

• In common
• two cattle complex people
• transhumance
• age sets

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• Profound influence of Datooga on farming
  communities without economic shift Iraqw,
  Nyaturu cattle acquired from Datooga
• Maasai no influence on farming communities
• Maasai war, hatred, fear, disrespect
• Maasai more radical cattle people
• Southern Nilotes cattlefarming
• Prehistory Sirikwa, Engaruka

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Sprachbund Abflussloses Gebiet
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Tanzanian Rift Valley Sprachbund
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Tanzanian Rift Valley Sprachbund
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Tanzanian Rift Valley Sprachbund
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Tanzanian Rift Valley Sprachbund
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Linguistic manipulation in the area

• respect registers Datooga, Nyakyusa
• other taboo limited
• initiation/secret society languages unknown

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reconstructing past contact situations

• Assumption contact situations in the past are
  not different from those now
• If all things equal the simplest wins
• Propose scenario to explain present outcome

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problems with the scenario game

• limits of imagination
• never are all other things equal

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Language contact change

• transfer without shift (borrowing)
• transfer with shift (imposition)
• (bilingualism)
• code-switching
• language manipulation (emblematic/respect)
• lexicon transfer

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Examples of contact

• Borrowing Datooga gt Iraqw
• Shift Iraqw gt Datooga
• Code-Switching Sheng
• Identity Maa
• Respect Khoi-San gt Nguni

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Contact no change

• shift without change
• borrowing undone
• code-switching with no lasting effect
• argot disappears
• taboo recycles

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Contact change in lexicon

• Additive borrowing Taita Bantu, Iraqw,
  Datooga, Algawa Complete shift
• Replacive borrowing in core vocabulary Maa
  (KhoisangtNguni) lexical manipulation for
  identity / respect (possibly distinguishable)

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Contact change in phonology

• lateral fricative in Taita (but disappeared)
  carry over of pronunciation in transferred
  lexicon stage in shift
• lateral fricative in Maa replacement as
  manipulation identity formation
• split in Datooga k/q and vowel reduction
  reinterpretation of phonetic differences/adaptatio
  n to old language habits shift with trace

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• Morphophonological reductions in Iraqw
  restrictions of old language shift with trace

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Structural changes

• spatial preposition in Iraqw carry over of
  concept and structure from old language (D)
  shift with trace
• etc

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structural changes in shift

• Bilingualism of e.g. Datooga in Iraqw.
• Iraqw dominant language
• Pronunciation habits and surface syntax of
  Datooga in Iraqw speech
• Categorisation, meaning, structure of Datooga in
  Iraqw speech
• Categorisation, meaning, structure of in Iraqw
  Datooga speech

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Which changes materialize

• 3 often disappears because these speakers shift
  to Iraqw. But if they dont and influence rest of
  Datooga or if their speech becomes a new
  language, it may look the opposite (shift Iraqw
  to Datooga) (Maa)
• 1,2 whether these changes spread to all speakers
  depends on linguistic and non-linguistic factors

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Factors

• linguistic complications, simplifications,
  advantages in the receiving language
• prestige shifters
• number of shifters
• are they mothers
• do they remain an ethnic entity

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Proposed correlations socio-history language
change

• Guy-Ross based on Van Coetsem

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Van Coetsem framevan Coetsem 1988,2001, Winford
2003

• Differences in stability across language
  components (grammar more stable than lexicon)
• Recipient language agentivity (borrowing)
• Source language agentivity (imposition)
• Linguistic dominance (not social) in bilingualism

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contact situations

• Recipient L agentivity A?B
• Source L agentivity A?B
• Agents / Agentivity
• imitation / adaptation
• 1 borrowing
• 2 imposition
• processes in individual

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Examples

• RecL activity, borrowing, extreme case Media
  Lengua Quechua with every lexeme borrowed from
  Spanish
• SourceL activity structures of dominant language
  in recipient language. Dominant language can be
  the new language influencing the language which
  is in process of being abandoned in cognitive and
  grammatical structure. Asia Minor Greek (RL)
  Turkish (SL) dominant. (and RL activity when
  speaking T)

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Additions by Reh

• If only migration as cause for contact
• Added factors
• Intensity of contact
• Linguistic heterogeneity of community

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Other factors

• identifiable group after migration
• degree of bilingualism
• language attitude
• size of group
• prestige

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Individual Community

• Model refers to the mind of the individual
• Essential is language as social construct
• establishment of the norm

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Shift

• complete shift (common ?)
• shift with effect of original language on
  recognizable community with effect on language
  as a whole
• shift with carry over of vocabulary (e.g. pygmy
  technical vocabulary)
• arrested shift, u-turn when too late,
  re-borrowing of original vocabulary

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How common is shift without a trace

• Nyaturu gt Sandawe
• Many Iraqw clans
• Datooga among Alagwa
• Mbugu-Pare speakers

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Shift with trace

• Bisha gt Saghala
• X gt Pare (Maá)
• Iraqw gt Datooga
• Datooga gt Iraqw
• Burunge gt Alagwa

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Other Comparable situations

• Northern Songhay
• Mozambican Swahili
• Pygmies
• Creole studies
• etc

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languages of pygmiesDuke, Daniel 2001 Aka as a
contact language sociolinguistic and grammatical
evidence. MA University of Texas at Arlington.

• speak different languages
• which probably were once language of their patron
• also speak language of patron
• pygmy special vocabulary
• patrons and their language are link and obstacle
  to outside world (forest pygmies have better
  knowledge of languages of wider communication)

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Creole languages

• study link socio-history and outcome of language
  change
• similar sociolinguistic situations for a number
  of them
• similar outcome
• imcomplete second language acquisition

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Mixed LanguagesBakker

• grammar and (basic) lexicon not from the same
  source
• originate in new communities of systematic mixed
  marriage mothers grammar with fathers lexicon
• originate as extended argot of itinerant and
  other groups who maintain identity under
  pressure grammar of dominant language, deviant
  lexicon
• note the genetic difference for the two scenarios

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prospects of multidisciplinary

• need for chronology, time depth
• need for quantative approach
• indication for some factors from archeology,
  genetics, not for language attitude,
  communication policy