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Download Download The Genesis of Michif: A First Hypothesis PETER BAKKER University of Amsterdam Michif as a Mixed Language Since Richard Rhodes read the first paper on Michif at the Eighth Algon­ quian Conference in 1977, much work has been done on the language. A number of additional papers have been read at the Algonquian Conference (Weaver 1983; Rhodes 1985, 1987; Papen 1987) and others have been pub­ lished elsewhere (see Bakker 1989c for a bibliography). Most of this work focussed either on description or on the problem of genetic classification that this language poses. Michif remains an unusual language, with its verb phrase from Cree and its noun phrase from French. Does the language have two half grammars, and two phonological systems? Is it a Romance or an Algonquian language, or a Creole, a pidgin, a mixed language, or whatever? These are the questions that people have tried to answer. It is now probably agreed that Michif is a mixed language. It is a convincing case, even for those linguists who maintain that mixed languages do not exist. Its mixture is also unique: Michif has (Plains) Cree verbs and French nouns. No other language has a similar distribution of elements from two different languages. Nobody thus far has attempted to explain its genesis, although this is one of the more intriguing problems this language poses. In this paper1 I will present a preliminary answer to this question. The problem can be phrased as consisting of two sub-questions: first, why is Michif a mixed language? Second, why is the language mixed in this particular way? To Fie dwork on Cree and Michif were made possible with a Canadian Studies Graduate Student Award in 1987-1988. This research was also supported by the foundation for Linguistic Research, which is funded by the Netherlands Orga­ nization for Scientific Research, NWO. I also thank the people who helped me doing my fieldwork, and Pieter Muysken for his comments. All mistakes remain my own. lem<UI1 12 THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 13 answer this, I will first present some facts that are not widely known from the study of sociolinguistics and languages in contact, giving examples of several other mixed languages, many of them unknown among linguists. These languages all appear to be of the same type, though Michif still appears to be very different from these. Then a brief typology of situations of multilingualism will be given. One of these will lead to the birth of mixed languages. Michif at first sight seems very different in its mixture from the other mixed languages, but I will show that in fact it is the same social forces and the same linguistic process that lead to the genesis of these mixed languages, including Michif. If we accept this, a number of hitherto unexplained structural aspects of Michif can be explained with this hypothesis, such as the appearance of Cree obviation suffixes with French nouns, and the Cree demonstratives in the French noun phrase. I will conclude with some general remarks. French and Cree are given in standardized French and Cree spelling rather than a phonetic spelling. Cree spelling follows Wolfart and Ahenekew (1987). Most of the data cited are from the Turtle Mountain dialect and are taken from Laverdure and Allard (1983), although some are from my own fieldwork in Saskatchewan. In the Michif examples, the Cree elements are set in italics. Some Other Mixed Languages A number of clearly mixed languages have emerged on all continents. These languages can be considered as belonging to language family A as well as belonging to language family B, with the same amount of justification. Here I will deal with a number of these. In these examples, the elements from one of the contributing languages (those that contribute grammatical elements) will be in italics. The first one is spoken in a number of mestizo communities in Namibia and South Africa called Basters (B), Oorlamse and Griquas. These people have Afrikaner and Nama Hottentot/Khoikhoi ancestry. Their history is very similar to that of the Canadian Metis (Kienitz 1983). In the mixed language spoken by these people, who also speak Khoikhoi and Afrikaans, the content words are Afrikaans, a semi-creolized derivative of Dutch (D), and the grammatical elements are Nama (Khoikhoi or Hottentot) (K). The mixed language is used as an intragroup language. The following is an example (Besten 1988:26): (1) B: Heeltemaal-.se natuur-a-xu bedorven-/»e K: Hoaraga-se ub-a-xu gau-he totally-ADV nature-CAS-P rotten-PASS 14 PETER BAKKER D: Van nature helemaal bedorven 'totally rotten in nature' It can be observed that the syntax and the bound morphemes are identical to Khoikhoi and that all the lexical morphemes are identical to Afrikaans. The second example is from South America. The language is called Media Lengua (M) or Utilla Ingiru ('little Quechua'). It is spoken in several dialects both as a first language and as a second language by Ecuadorian Amerindians who form a geographical and cultural buffer group between the Quechua-speaking Indians in the mountains and the Spanish-speaking Europeans in the towns (Muysken 1981). It is spoken alongside Quechua (Q) and Spanish (S), both as a mother tongue and as a second language. This language is a mixture of Spanish and Quechua. The content words are Spanish and the grammar is Quechua. Some examples: (2) M: dimas-fa llubi-pi-ga, no i-sha-chu Q: yalli-da tamia-pi-ga, mana ri-sha-chu too-much rain-SUB-TO, not go-lFU-NEG S: Si llueve demas, no voy a ir. 'If it rains too much, I won't go.' (3) M: miza despwesitu kaza-mu i-naku-ndu-ga, ahi-fci buda da.-naku-n Q: miza k'ipa wasi-mu li-naku-pi-ga, chi-bi buda ku-nafcu-n mass after house-to go-PL-SUB-TO there-LOC feast give-PL-3 S: Yendo a la casa despues de la misa, ahi dan una boda. 'Going home after mass, they give a wedding feast there.' There is a similar language called Callawaya (C) or Machaj-Juyai, spo­ ken as a ritual language by Amerindian curers in Bolivia, which is our third example. The language is a mixture of Quechua and Pukina, an extinct language formerly spoken in the area. Basically the lexicon is Pukina and the grammar is Quechua (Stark 1972). (4) C: lurisitu-ga yani k'ata-pun: Pedro-manto k'i:-hti-n Q: Luwisitu-qra aswan hatun-puni Pedro-manta ka-sa-n Luis-TOP more big-EMPH Pedro-ABL be-DUR-3 'Luis is bigger than Pedro.' An example from Asia is Senkyoshigo (S), a mixture of English and Japanese which is the in-group language of American Mormon missionaries who work in Japan (Smout 1988). An example: (5) S: Hey dode, have you benkyo-ed your seitens for our shukai today vet? companion study scripture meeting toda COm|,ani°n' have you studied vour scriptures for our meeting THE GENESIS OF MICHIF 15 Here, again we see that the grammatical system is English and the lexicon is mostly Japanese. Comparable, but not exactly identical examples are reported from Aus­ tralia, where most aboriginal communities have a taboo language which is used in presence of certain in-law relatives, apart from the normal language. Both languages have separate names. The two languages are identical in structure, but differ in the shape of the lexical morphemes. An example from the Dyribal community, where the languages are called Guwal (G) and Jalnuy (J) (Dixon 1980:62-63): (6) G: jaban-^u bayi wagay-mam'-nt/tim:, wuurba-nyu J: balbiji-pu bayi nyirrinda-rrj-nyum:', wuyuba-rn'-nyu eel-PURP he-ABS spear-REFL-PERF.REL tell-REFL-PRES 'He was saying that he'd been spearing eels.' Finally two examples from Europe. Both are Romani dialects spoken by Gypsies. The first example is the dialect of Britain, called Poggedi Jib 'broken tongue' (P) or Angloromani by linguists (Hancock 1984): (7) P: ma: roka, you dlv, the gD:ja'« shun-in' NEG speak you fool the non-Gypsy is listen-ing 'Don't speak, you fool, the non-Gypsy is listening.' The grammatical elements are English, the content elements are Romani. The second is the (now almost extinct) language of Gypsies in the Basque Country, called Motzaileen Hizkuntza 'sheep-shearers' language' by the lo­ cal Basques and Basque Romani (R) by linguists (Ackerley 1929; Bakker 1990). It was spoken alongside Basque (B), but probably most of its speak­ ers, after 1850 at least, did not know standard Romani. (8) R: xaua, goli keau-2afc, mol but-ei-ago akhin-en child-DET sing-IMP wine much-COMP-COMP have-FUT d-u-k it-have-you B: Haurro, kanta zak, arno gehiago ukanen duk. 'Child, sing, you will have more wine.' There are other cases of Romani mixing with the languages of the host country, among others in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Armenia, Spain and France. In all these mixed Romani dialects, and in the other languages mentioned above, the pattern is identical: the lexical material is from one language, and the grammatical material is from another language. Those elements that have lexical and grammatical meaning (personal pronouns, demonstratives, question elements, etc.) show some variability. These ele­ ments can be in either of the two languages, or in both. 16 PETER BAKKER We see that the languages in contact are typologically very diverse. There are relatively isolating languages such as English or Swedish, and somewhat heavilier inflecting languages such as Romani and Spanish, lightly agglutinative language as Nama/Khoinkhoi and highly agglutinative lan­ guages such as Quechua, and heavily inflecting/agglutinative languages such as Basque.
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