10 Kirill Shishigin (Kemerovo State University) The Theory of Language Hybridity and Prefix Derivation in Yiddish Verbs 1 This paper presents some key propositions from the author's theory of language hybridity, identifying sociolinguistic characteristics of hybrid languages and their diagnostic features compared to traditional, mixed, creole languages and pidgins. Such living languages as Yiddish, Judeo- Spanish, Afrikaans and Äynu are considered hybrid due to their common extralinguistic, sociolinguistic and linguistic features. Also, the paper demonstrates some derivational characteristics of a hybrid language based on the system of Yiddish prefixed verbs, namely the verbs with homonymous prefixes and hybrid polysemous prefixes. Since Yiddish verb prefixes hybridized at different levels and to a different degree, they can be divided into hybrid (homonymous prefixes, hybrid polysemous prefixes and low-hybrid homonymous prefixes) and non-hybrid. The novelty of the approach lies in the fact that the paper offers a new scientific explanation for the concepts of ‘hybridization’ and ‘hybrid language’ and distinguishes between homonymy and polysemy based on a genetically determined archeseme of derivational elements in Yiddish as a hybrid language. Keywords: hybridization, hybrid language, mixed language, creole language, pidgin, Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish, Afrikaans, Äynu, prefixed verb system, prefixed, homonymy, polysemy. *** Various forms of language contacts and their results are still in the focus of modern linguistics. Of special interest today are languages that, to some extent, ‘deviate from the norm’, such as hybrid languages. This article focuses on the theory of linguistic hybridity and the derivation of prefixed verbs in Yiddish and is based on my doctoral thesis “The derivation system of a hybrid language: formation, development and functioning (on the basis of Yiddish prefixed verbs)” ( Шишигин , 2015). 1 The paper is based on a talk given at the 2nd International Conference “Hebrew and Yiddish in the Context of Contemporary Education and Culture”. The talk came about thanks to the Sefer Centre’s support of Jewish Studies (a travel grant of Genesis Philanthropy Group). 11 The hypothesis of language hybridity was first proposed by Lucien Adam in 1883 in his work ‘Les idiomes négro-aryen et maléo-aryen: essai d'hybridologie linguistique’ (Adam, 1883). There he postulated that different races have different language models. And as a result of language contacts these models get ‘cross-pollinated’, or hybridized. Although the first linguistic attempts to define the concepts of hybridization, hybridity and hybrid language were made as early as over a hundred years ago, these terms remain quite tentative and polysemantic. For example, they are sometimes quite ambiguously applied to such diverse phenomena as Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish and Afrikaans, on the one hand, pidgins and Creoles, on the other hand, and also to languages with a significant share of borrowings. I propose a typology of contact idioms that includes: 1) hybrid languages, 2) traditional languages with mixed elements, 3) mixed languages, 4) creole languages, and 5) pidgins. In 1882, Hugo Schuchardt introduced a concept of language mixing and mixed language, exemplifying this phenomenon by African language mixing (Schuchardt, 1882). This term has been widely used since then, often in different meanings. Opinions here are of a wide range, such as: a) all languages have a mixed nature, as postulated by Jan Baudouin de Courtenay ( Бодуэн де Куртенэ ), and according to Hugo Schuchardt, “<...> even a language perceived as absolutely homogeneous has some mixed features” (Schuchardt, 1884: 7), b) “mixed languages do not exist”, according to Max Müller (quoted in: Schuchardt 1884: 5), c) “language mixing is one of the most obscure and dubious concepts, according to Lev Shtsherba ( Щерба ). In the 1970s, Alexandru Rosetti distinguished between two categories of facts: Langue mixte and Langue mélangée (Росетти ). I am going to prove that hybrid languages have a special status, using Yiddish prefixed verbs as the most hybridized subsystem of this language. 12 Hybridization is a process of language (L) development, in which: a) the language (L) (in our case — German) is the mother language for a secondary group of its speakers (Ashkenazim) who are ethnically different from its native speakers (Germans), b) the language (L), while being used by its secondary speakers, has contact with languages (C) (Semitic and Slavic) which are also used by these speakers in their multilingual environment, c) over time, the contact languages (C) begin to affect and then produce a systemic effect on the mother language (L), d) as a result, a hybrid language (H) (Yiddish) develops whose source language (L) (German basis language) crosses, through adstratum, with the systemic layers of different levels of contact languages (Semitic and Slavic donor languages). In my opinion, such living languages as Yiddish, Judeo-Spanish, Afrikaans and Äynu (a language spoken in western China) can be considered hybrid languages with common distinctive extralinguistic, sociolinguistic and linguistic features. Table 1 gives a brief comparison of sociolinguistic characteristics of hybrid languages and Table 2 shows some diagnostic features that distinguish hybrid languages from traditional languages with mixed elements, mixed languages, creole languages and pidgins. Language hybridity manifests at different levels, including phonetics and graphics. According to Sergey Proskurin, “the possibility of writing vowels and consonants and, in fact, recording the whole linear flow of speech is unavailable to other than Indo-European cultures. For example, the consonant-syllabic Semitic writing serves the Hebrew tradition and has a specific matrix structure” ( Проскурин 2007: 66). The Hebrew writing system is also used by the Yiddish culture that has different systems for writing Semitic elements, on the one hand, and Indo-European elements, on the other. Judeo-Spanish originally used the Hebrew alphabet, and in 1928 it started using the Latin alphabet (especially in Turkey) for secular texts and the Hebrew alphabet for religious ones ( Еврейско -испанский язык ; Bunis 1999: 55–75). Afrikaans, along with the Latin alphabet, uses the Arabic graphic tradition, as in the literature of the Cape Muslims ( Сиим 2004: 3). So, in these cases, the European-Jewish and European-Muslim hybridity manifests itself at the level of language culture. Table 1. Comparative sociolinguistic characteristics of hybrid languages Object of Yiddish Judeo-Spanish Afrikaans Äynu comparison 1. Mother language German Spanish Dutch Persian 2. Secondary Ashkenazim Sephardim South African white Äynu speakers (their (Hebrew) (Hebrew) colonists (unknown) original mother and coloured slaves language) (colonists’ languages and indigenous languages) 3. Contact donor Hebrew and Jewish- Hebrew and Jewish- Malaysian Creole Uyghur languages that Aramaic, Slavic languages Aramaic, Catalan, Portuguese, French, created a Portuguese, Turkish, German, English, 1 3 multilingual Arabic, French, Arabic situation for Italian secondary speakers at the genesis stage 4. Their status in literary, non-official (the literary, literary, official language of 20th and 21st second official language in non-official in South Africa since ethnic centuries the Byelorussian SSR in (has never been 1925 (along with communication the 20th century; still the official) English) and self- second official language in identification the Jewish Autonomous Region, Russia), language of teaching Table 2. Diagnostic characteristics of hybrid languages compared to traditional, mixed, creole languages and pidgins Traditional Object of Mixed Hybrid language language with Creole Pidgin comparison languages mixed elements 1. Type of basis Basis language preserved Protolanguage, As a rule, Pidgin: Lexificator: language (period in written records, living often two living at the 1st stage of living lexical of formation) in 21st century: at the 1st undocumented, languages genesis — not a donor language, stage of genesis, the only today dead intentionally mother language not a mother mother language for (until the 2nd combined for future speakers language for secondary speakers (10–19th millennium AD) (19–20th (20th century) speakers (19–20th centuries) centuries) centuries) 2. Pace of genesis Gradual: Language 1 over centuries or a century continuum: Fast: Very fast: 4 in a multilingual over several over a few decades over a few years environment millennia or centuries 3. Perception by The new language As a language speakers tradition perceived continuum, The new language tradition perceived as a daughter as a daughter language of the no distinction language of the source language; components of the source language; components between mixed source language possibly distinguished from those of of the source language components donor languages possibly distinguished from those of donor languages 4. Speakers' Always different Common, related Related to or Always different from that of the ethnicity from that of the source to or different different from source language speakers language speakers from that of contact that of source language speakers language speakers 5. Involvement of No Unprovable No Yes source language speakers in the genesis 6. Type of Adstratum Substratum and/or superstratum Superstratum interaction between basis language and donor languages 7. Functionality Full functionality (at least,