Quichua-Spanish Language Contact in Salcedo, Ecuador: Revisiting Media Lengua Syncretic Language Practices
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Jargons and Pidgins and Creoles, Oh My!
University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity National Collegiate Honors Council 2016 Jargons and Pidgins and Creoles, Oh My! Emily Gray University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ureca Part of the Educational Methods Commons, Gifted Education Commons, Higher Education Commons, Language Description and Documentation Commons, and the Other Linguistics Commons Gray, Emily, "Jargons and Pidgins and Creoles, Oh My!" (2016). UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity. 72. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/ureca/72 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the National Collegiate Honors Council at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in UReCA: The NCHC Journal of Undergraduate Research & Creative Activity by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Jargons and Pidgins and Creoles, Oh My! by Emily Gray University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Linguistics, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is “the science of studying language, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and historical linguistics” (OED.com). Within this field, the study of pidgin and creole languages is the source of much controversy and disagreement. Due to their divergence from typical linguistic features and development patterns, pidgins and creoles have long been ignored by the linguistics community. Considered by many to be “inferior, haphazard, broken” versions of “older, more established languages,” these so-called “bastard tongues” were written off as unworthy of study (Todd 1). Only recently have these forms of language garnered interest from linguistic scholars known as Creolists. -
Modelling Mixed Languages: Some Remarks on the Case of Old Helsinki Slang1
MODELLING MIXED LANGUAGES: SOME REMARKS ON THE CASE OF OLD HELSINKI SLANG1 Merlijn de Smit Stockholm University Abstract Old Helsinki Slang (OHS) a linguistic variety spoken in the working-class quarters of Helsinki from approx. 1900 to 1945, is marked by the usage of a virtually wholly Swedish vocabulary in a Finnish morphosyntactic framework. It has recently been subject of two interestingly contrasting treatments by Petri Kallio and Vesa Jarva. Kallio argues that the morphosyntactic base of OHS gives cause to analyzing it as unambiguously Finnic, and therefore Uralic, from a genetic perspective, whereas Jarva, drawing attention to the possible origins of OHS in frequent code-switching, believes it deserves consideration as a mixed language alongside such cases as Ma’a and Media Lengua. The contrasting approaches of the two authors involve contrasting presuppositions which deserve to be spelled out: should the genetic origin of a language be based on the pedigree of its structure (with mixed structures pointing to a mixed genetic origin) or on the sociolinguistic history of its speakers? Taking the latter course, I argue that the most valid model for the emergence of genetically mixed languages is the code-switching one proposed by Peter Auer. Measuring OHS against Auer’s model, however, it is a marginal case for a mixed language, particularly as Auer’s and similar models imply some composition in structural domains, which seems wholly absent in the case of OHS. Thus OHS is not a genetically mixed language, even if it may have developed as one, had early OHS taken a different course as it eventually did. -
Why Languages and Contacts?
WHY LANGUAGES AND1 CONTACTS? Petr Zima, Faculty of Humanities Charles University, Praha 1. Preliminaries The concept and terminology of “languages in contact” developed by various structuralist schools since Weinreich's time is undoubtedly a great advance over the neogrammarian viewpoint of the traditional comparative linguistics. As for the neogrammarians, they considered the phenomena of mutual influence between languages to be a sort of “dustbin”, where exceptions and complications, impossible to be explained by internal laws of historical development of genetic language trees were to be laid off. That is why the generation of Weinreich has proposed to analyse this field in the light of two (or more) contacting language structures. Yet, this very term and concept of “contact linguistics” – though formulated in opposition to the traditional language trees of the comparativist past – was itself coined under the symbolic influence of the comparativist terminology and concepts. Whereas the neogrammarians were influenced by analogies with trees and branches of Darwin’s biology and Linné’s botany, the concept of languages in contact was also under the influence of figurative thinking, that of the science of man, antropology. In fact, while the neogrammarians presented languages in the light of their analogies with plants and animals, the early structuralist and even post-structuralist approach since Weinreich’s and Haugen’s time presented languages as human individuals in contact. Hence, though critically opposing the neogrammarians’ analogies, this approach built its own theoretical position under the unnoticed, but heavy influence of the same type of methodical parallels rooted in the figurative thinking of another discipline. 2. -
Field-Testing Code-Switching Constraints: a Report on a Strategic Languages Project
languages Article Field-Testing Code-Switching Constraints: A Report on a Strategic Languages Project John M. Lipski Department of Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16801, USA; [email protected]; Tel.: +1-814-865-6583 Received: 28 November 2017; Accepted: 28 January 2019; Published: 1 February 2019 Abstract: The present article provides an overview of ongoing field-based research that deploys a variety of interactive experimental procedures in three strategically chosen bilingual contact environments, whose language dyads facilitate a partial separation of morphosyntactic factors in order to test the extent to which proposed grammatical constraints on intra-sentential code-switching are independent of language-specific factors. For purposes of illustration, the possibility of language switches between subject pronouns and verbs is compared for the three bilingual groups. The first scenario includes Ecuadoran Quichua and Media Lengua (entirely Quichua syntax and system morphology, all lexical roots replaced by Spanish items; both are null-subject languages). The second juxtaposes Spanish and the Afro-Colombian creole language Palenquero; the languages share highly cognate lexicons but differ substantially in grammatical structures (including null subjects in Spanish, only overt subjects in Palenquero). Spanish and Portuguese in north-eastern Argentina along the Brazilian border form the third focus: lexically and grammatically highly cognate languages that are nonetheless kept distinct by speakers (both null-subject languages, albeit with different usage patterns). Results from the three communities reveal a residual resistance against PRONOUN + VERB switches irrespective of the subject-verb configuration, thereby motivating the application of similar techniques to other proposed grammatical constraints. -
Languages of the Middle Andes in Areal-Typological Perspective: Emphasis on Quechuan and Aymaran
Languages of the Middle Andes in areal-typological perspective: Emphasis on Quechuan and Aymaran Willem F.H. Adelaar 1. Introduction1 Among the indigenous languages of the Andean region of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, northern Chile and northern Argentina, Quechuan and Aymaran have traditionally occupied a dominant position. Both Quechuan and Aymaran are language families of several million speakers each. Quechuan consists of a conglomerate of geo- graphically defined varieties, traditionally referred to as Quechua “dialects”, not- withstanding the fact that mutual intelligibility is often lacking. Present-day Ayma- ran consists of two distinct languages that are not normally referred to as “dialects”. The absence of a demonstrable genetic relationship between the Quechuan and Aymaran language families, accompanied by a lack of recognizable external gen- etic connections, suggests a long period of independent development, which may hark back to a period of incipient subsistence agriculture roughly dated between 8000 and 5000 BP (Torero 2002: 123–124), long before the Andean civilization at- tained its highest stages of complexity. Quechuan and Aymaran feature a great amount of detailed structural, phono- logical and lexical similarities and thus exemplify one of the most intriguing and intense cases of language contact to be found in the entire world. Often treated as a product of long-term convergence, the similarities between the Quechuan and Ay- maran families can best be understood as the result of an intense period of social and cultural intertwinement, which must have pre-dated the stage of the proto-lan- guages and was in turn followed by a protracted process of incidental and locally confined diffusion. -
Contact Languages Around the World and Their Levels of Endangerment
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by ScholarSpace at University of Hawai'i at Manoa Vol. 12 (2018), pp. 53–79 http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/ldc http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24764 Revised Version Received: 23 Jan 2017 Contact languages around the world and their levels of endangerment Nala H. Lee National University of Singapore This paper provides an up-to-date report on the vitality or endangerment status of contact languages around the world, including pidgins, creoles, and mixed lan- guages. By utilizing information featured in the Endangered Languages Project and the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Languages online portals, 96 contact languages are assessed on the Language Endangerment Index, a method of assessment that is based on four factors including intergenerational transmission, absolute num- ber of speakers, speaker number trends, and domains of use. Results show that the contact languages are most at risk with respect to intergenerational transmis- sion and domains of use. This is explained by the social and historical nature of contact languages. Overall results further raise the concern that the proportion of pidgins, creoles and mixed languages at some level of risk is extremely high. Rea- sons are provided for why linguists should be concerned about the endangerment of these languages. 1. Introduction1 While the language endangerment problem has been generally well- highlighted in linguistics, the endangerment of contact languages has not received the same level of attention. Krauss (1992) postulates that at least half and possibly as much as 90% of the world’s languages will no longer be spoken by the end of the present century, while a more recent empirical study estimates a slightly less catas- trophic rate of loss, at one language every three months (Campbell et al. -
The Routledge Linguistics Encyclopedia
THE ROUTLEDGE LINGUISTICS ENCYCLOPEDIA The Routledge Linguistics Encyclopedia is a single- Optimality Theory volume encyclopedia covering all major and Research Methods in Linguistics subsidiary areas of linguistics and applied lin- Slang guistics. The seventy nine entries provide in-depth coverage of the topics and sub-topics of the field. The following entries have been recommissioned Entries are alphabetically arranged and exten- or substantially revised: sively cross-referenced so the reader can see how Animals and Language, Artificial Languages, areas interrelate. Including a substantial intro- Computational Linguistics to Language Engi- duction which provides a potted history of lin- neering, Contrastive Analysis/Contrastive Linguis- guistics and suggestions for further reading, this tics, Corpus Linguistics, Critical Discourse is an indispensable reference tool for specialists Analysis, Dialectology, Discourse Analysis, Dys- and non-specialists alike. lexia, Genre Analysis, Historical Linguistics, Into- This third edition has been thoroughly revised nation, Language and Education, Language, and updated, with new entries on: Gender and Sexuality, Language Origins, Lan- guage Surveys, Language Universals, Linguistic Attitudes to Language Typology, Metaphor, Pragmatics, Rhetoric, Conversation Analysis Semantics, Semiotics, Sociolinguistics, Stylistics, English Language Teaching Systemic-Functional Grammar, Writing Systems. Gesture and Language Idioms Language and Advertising Kirsten Malmkjær is Professor of Translation Language -
MIXED CODES, BILINGUALISM, and LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requi
BILINGUAL NAVAJO: MIXED CODES, BILINGUALISM, AND LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Charlotte C. Schaengold, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2004 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Brian Joseph, Advisor Professor Donald Winford ________________________ Professor Keith Johnson Advisor Linguistics Graduate Program ABSTRACT Many American Indian Languages today are spoken by fewer than one hundred people, yet Navajo is still spoken by over 100,000 people and has maintained regional as well as formal and informal dialects. However, the language is changing. While the Navajo population is gradually shifting from Navajo toward English, the “tip” in the shift has not yet occurred, and enormous efforts are being made in Navajoland to slow the language’s decline. One symptom in this process of shift is the fact that many young people on the Reservation now speak a non-standard variety of Navajo called “Bilingual Navajo.” This non-standard variety of Navajo is the linguistic result of the contact between speakers of English and speakers of Navajo. Similar to Michif, as described by Bakker and Papen (1988, 1994, 1997) and Media Lengua, as described by Muysken (1994, 1997, 2000), Bilingual Navajo has the structure of an American Indian language with parts of its lexicon from a European language. “Bilingual mixed languages” are defined by Winford (2003) as languages created in a bilingual speech community with the grammar of one language and the lexicon of another. My intention is to place Bilingual Navajo into the historical and theoretical framework of the bilingual mixed language, and to explain how ii this language can be used in the Navajo speech community to help maintain the Navajo language. -
A Brief Descriptive Grammar of Pijal Media Lengua and an Acoustic Vowel Space Analysis of Pijal Media Lengua and Imbabura Quichua
A Brief Descriptive Grammar of Pijal Media Lengua and an Acoustic Vowel Space Analysis of Pijal Media Lengua and Imbabura Quichua by Jesse Stewart A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Manitoba in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Linguistics University of Manitoba Winnipeg Copyright © 2011 by Jesse Stewart Abstract This thesis presents an acoustic vowel space analysis of F1 and F2 frequencies from 10 speakers of a newly documented variety of Media Lengua, called Pijal Media Lengua (PML) and 10 speakers of Imbabura Quichua (IQ). This thesis also provides a brief grammatical discription of PML with insights into contrasts and similarities between Spanish, Quichua and other documented varieties of Media Lengua, namely, Salcedo Media Lengua (Muysken 1997) and Angla Media Lengua (Gómez-Rendón 2005). Media Lengua is typically described as a mixed language with a Quichua morphosyntactic structure wherein almost all content words are replaced by their Spanish-derived counterparts through the process of relexification. I use mixed effects models to test Spanish- derived vowels against their Quichua-derived counterparts in PML for statistical significance followed by separate mixed effects models to test Spanish-derived /i/ vs. /e/ and /u/ vs. /o/ for statistical significance. The results of this thesis provide suggestive data for (1) co-existing vowel systems in moderate contact situations such as that of Quichua and (2) moderate evidence for co-exsiting vowel systems in extreme contact situations such as mixed languages. Results also show that (3) PML may be manipulating as many as eight vowels wherein Spanish-derived high vowels and low vowels co-exist as extreme mergers with their Quichua- dervied counterparts, while high vowel and mid vowels co-exist as partial mergers; and (4) IQ may be manipulating as many as six vowels instead of the traditional view of three wherein Spanish-derived high vowels have completely merged with their native Quichua counterparts. -
¿Qué Diciendo Nomás? Tracing the Sources of the Andean Spanish Gerund
John Benjamins Publishing Company This is a contribution from Spanish in Context 10:2 © 2013. John Benjamins Publishing Company This electronic file may not be altered in any way. The author(s) of this article is/are permitted to use this PDF file to generate printed copies to be used by way of offprints, for their personal use only. Permission is granted by the publishers to post this file on a closed server which is accessible to members (students and staff) only of the author’s/s’ institute, it is not permitted to post this PDF on the open internet. For any other use of this material prior written permission should be obtained from the publishers or through the Copyright Clearance Center (for USA: www.copyright.com). Please contact [email protected] or consult our website: www.benjamins.com Tables of Contents, abstracts and guidelines are available at www.benjamins.com ¿Qué diciendo nomás? Tracing the sources of the Andean Spanish gerund John M. Lipski In Quechua-dominant Spanish interlanguage in the Andean region the gerund is frequently found instead of finite verb forms typical of monolingual Spanish. Using data collected among Quichua-Spanish bilinguals in northern Ecuador, this study challenges claims that direct transfer of the Quichua subordinator -s(h)pa — often called a “gerund” — is the immediate source of the Andean Spanish gerund. Quichua-dominant bilinguals produce Spanish gerunds mostly in subordinate clauses, reflecting the general pattern of Quechua. However, in a Quichua-to-Spanish translation task, -shpa was most frequently translated as a gerund by school children who had received Quichua language classes, and least frequently by traditional Quichua-dominant speakers. -
Andean Venezuelan
Venezuelan Andean Spanish Intonation Venezuelan Andean Spanish Intonation* Lluïsa Astruca, Elsa Morab and Simon Rewc The Open University and The University of Cambridgea Universidad de Los Andesb The University of Cambridgec 1. Introduction Lying in western Venezuela, the state of Mérida is traversed by the eastern branch of the northern Andes and has an area of 11,300 km2, which corresponds to approximately 1.2% of the national territory. The main economic activities of the region are agriculture and tourism. The city of Mérida itself has 300,000 inhabitants (2001 census) and constitutes a national cultural and university centre. The Universidad de Los Andes is a major source of employment in the region, specifically in the areas of teaching, research and services. The structure of this chapter is as follows. Section 1 first offers an overview of past intonational research in Venezuelan Spanish and especially in Venezuelan Andean Spanish and then describes the methodological procedure used in the present study. Section 2 presents an inventory of pitch accents and boundary tones found in the Mérida dialect. Section 3 analyses the basic intonation contours found in the Mérida corpus. Finally, Section 4 summarises the nuclear patterns in the different sentence types. The study of intonation does not have a long history in Venezuela and, furthermore, the rather scant research has been mostly oriented towards dialectology. The first study of the intonation of Venezuelan Spanish was published in the phonetics section of El habla de Caracas (Mosonyi 1971). A decade later, Obregón (1981) carried out a dialectal study in which he analysed the distribution of certain characteristic patterns (which he called construcciones entonativas) and which led him to propose a division into five dialectal areas: Mérida and Táchira (southwest), Maracaibo (northwest), Nueva Esparta and Sucre (east), Apure and Guárico (south) and the rest of the country (centre). -
1 Language Use, Language Change and Innovation In
LANGUAGE USE, LANGUAGE CHANGE AND INNOVATION IN NORTHERN BELIZE CONTACT SPANISH By OSMER EDER BALAM A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2016 1 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the guidance and support from many people, who have been instrumental since the inception of this seminal project on contact Spanish outcomes in Northern Belize. First and foremost, I am thankful to Dr. Mary Montavon and Prof. Usha Lakshmanan, who were of great inspiration to me at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. Thank you for always believing in me and motivating me to pursue a PhD. This achievement is in many ways also yours, as your educational ideologies have profoundly influenced me as a researcher and educator. I am indebted to my committee members, whose guidance and feedback were integral to this project. In particular, I am thankful to my adviser Dr. Gillian Lord, whose energy and investment in my education and research were vital for the completion of this dissertation. I am also grateful to Dr. Ana de Prada Pérez, whose assistance in the statistical analyses was invaluable to this project. I am thankful to my other committee members, Dr. Benjamin Hebblethwaite, Dr. Ratree Wayland, and Dr. Brent Henderson, for their valuable and insighful comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to scholars who have directly or indirectly contributed to or inspired my work in Northern Belize. These researchers include: Usha Lakshmanan, Ad Backus, Jacqueline Toribio, Mark Sebba, Pieter Muysken, Penelope Gardner- Chloros, and Naomi Lapidus Shin.