Language Change and Cultural Contact Olha Mahidenko (Hauptstudium LN) Language and Culture Prof. R. Hickey SS 06

Introduction I. Borrowings, Calques and Interferences. II. Pidgins and Creoles III. Language Death

I. Borrowings Borrowing (lexical copying, lexical change): the transfer of a word from one language into a second language, as a result of some kind of contact, between speakers of the two. Some Scandinavian loan words band, bank, birth, call, die, dirt, egg, fellow, gap, gasp, get, five, harbor, ill, keel, kid, knife, low, odd, race, root, scare. score, seat, sister, sky, take, their, they. Trust, want. window

I. Borrowings: Examples Some Latin borrowings in the OE wall, street, wine abbot, alms, altar, angel, apostle, candle, canon, deacon, demon, pope, priest, prophet, psalm, relic, temple. Some French loan words in ME food: pork (swine), beef (cow), mutton (sheep) law: judge, court, just, marry government: state, power, people religion: saint, pray, save, nature names: Helen, John, Henry, Luke fashion: button, collar, diamond, dress, embroidery, fashion, jewel, pearl

I. Calques Calque: a word or phrase constructed by taking a word or phrase in another language as a model and translating it morpheme by morpheme. Examples: Greek sym-pathia → Latin com-passio → German Mit-leid meaning “with-suffering” English television → German Fernsehen meaning “far-seeing” English skyscraper → German Wolkenkratzer, Russian небоскреб

I. Interferences Interference (also transfer): the non-deliberate carrying of linguistic features from your mother tongue into a second language which you also speak. Examples: “foreign accent”: French (Celtic, Germanic) and Romanian (South Slavic) seem so different from each other and Latin. Two systems of forming comparatives and superlatives: Germanic: strong-stronger-strongest French: interesting-more interesting-most interesting

II. Pidgins and Creoles Pidgin: an auxiliary language constructed from bits and pieces of one or more existing languages by people who have no language in common. A pidgin is not a natural language; it has a tiny vocabulary and no grammar to speak of. Creole: a natural language (mother tongue) which derives from an earlier pidgin...

II. Pidgins and Creoles The total number of pidgins and creoles is around 350. The total number of speakers may be estimated at around 100 million. Lexemes of a superstrate Grammar Of a substrate Creole A Pidgin “parent languages” a “daughter languages”

III. Language Death Language death: the disappearance of a language as a mother tongue… Sudden language death results from: a. natural disasters: A volcanic eruption on Sumbawa Island wiped out all the speakers of Tamboran in 1815 b. human intervention: 90% of the indigenous population of North America was eradicated between 1600 and 1800 by diseases carried by the Europeans and their Animals; The Tasmanians of Australia and the Beothuks of Newfoundland both became extinct by the XIXth century as a result of conquest and genocide by the Europeans.

III. Language Death Gradual language death: a. may fall out of daily use, becoming restricted to ceremonial and formal functions: Coptic Christians of Egypt use Coptic only as a liturgical language b. usually takes the form of language shift. Basque in France, Welsh and Scots Gaelic in Britain. Substrate/minority language Superstrate/dominant language

References Crystal, David, The English Language. Penguin Books,1990. Foley, William A., Anthropological Linguistics: an Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, Trask, R. L., The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics, Edinburg:Edinburgh University Press, 2000.