The Consequences of Language · Web viewThis means that multilingual communities are quite ordinary occurrences, even if they are not familiar to us. Mandarin English Hindi Spanish

The Consequences of Language Chapter 13.What Happens When Languages Come Into Contact?”

This chapter presents an analysis of what happens when languages come into contact.

1. World Languages.It is difficult for most Americans to comprehend

the extent and diversity of the world’s languages. Africa alone, by recent counts has somewhere in the neighborhood of 1600 distinct languages. This means that in some places one can find several distinct languages located within a few miles of each other. This means that multilingual communities are quite ordinary occurrences, even if they are not familiar to us.

There is also a tendency among westerners to think that English is the world language and that for getting around, English is the best second (or first) language to know in getting around the world. This may be true for people of wealth and education, but English, even when those who use English as a primary second language are included, is far from being the most widely spoken language in the world. Mandarin boasts more than twice the number of English speakers and Hindi together with Bengali, both spoken in India, also have more. Other than English, European languages represent only 11.2% of the world’s speakers.

Yet, when it comes to language study by American middle and high school students, we find 64.5% studying Spanish, followed by French with 22.2%. Japanese is the most popular Non European language studied, but this only amounts to 0.3% of the students. 2. Languages v dialect v variety

One of the reasons for giving the number of languages as estimates is that we are not always sure whether to count a variety as a dialect as opposed to a language. This is not so much a problem of knowing about who speaks what, but one of definition, what do we mean by the terms language and dialect. Not all languages make the distinction between language and dialect. Bamana, the most widely spoken language of the Republic of Mali, is representative of such languages. Bamana has a productive suffix -kan that means something like ‘manner of speaking of’. Thus, Bamana-kan means ‘the manner of speaking of the Bamana (also known as

MandarinEnglishHindiSpanishRussianBengali

17.3%08.4%07.3%06.9%04.9%03.5%

ArabicPortugueseMalay-IndonesianJapaneseFrenchGerman

03.4%03.2%02.8%02.2%02.2%02.1%

Source: World Almanac: American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.

The Consequences of Language: What Happens When Languages Come Into Contact? Chapter 13, Page 2

the Bambara)’ which would translate into 'the language of the Bamana’. Likewise, Hausakan would translate as ‘the Hausa language.’ But one also finds the word Bamakokan meaning ‘the manner of speaking in Bamako (the capital of Mali)’. In this case, we would translate the word as ‘the dialect of Bamana spoken in Bamako’ and Abdulakan would translate as the ‘idiolect of Abdula’. The meaning of the Bamanakan suffix -kan is very close to the modern linguistic meaning of variety. By referring to Swedish, Midwestern English, Bamanakan, etc. as varieties permits us, to discuss them without committing to their status as a dialect or a language. The words used to characterize a phenomenon or situation is often crucial to the understanding it. This may sound a lot like political correctness, but it is much more. For example, the acceptance of the validity of the language-dialect distinction makes it far more difficult to conceive of it in any other way. The setting aside of this distinction, through the use of variety, makes it easier for us to explore alternatives, though it does not guarantee success.2.1. The linguistic distinction between languages and dialect.

Linguists characterize the distinction between language and dialect by beginning with the

term idiolect, which is the way an

individual speaks, particularity the

structural aspects (the phonology, lexicon

and syntax) of this speech. A dialect is

then defined as a set of very similar idiolects admitting to only minor variations in pronunciation,

vocabulary and syntax. A language is then defined as a set of mutually intelligible dialects.

Two dialects are said to be mutually intelligible when a speaker of different dialects can

understand each other without too much difficulty. Usually languages, which have 90% or more

of its basic vocabulary in common, will be mutually intelligible. Implicit in this definition is the

assumption that a dialect can belong to only one language. Thus while British and American

English, or Northern and Southern American English, or African-American and European-

American English exhibit modest structural differences, these differences are not so great that

they prevent mutual intelligibility, and consequently they would characterized as having

dialectal, rather than language, differences.

This linguistic definition stands in opposition to popular English usage. For example,

before the Norman invasion of 1066, English and Norwegian would be considered dialects of the

same language, because they were mutually intelligible. Today, Swedish and Norwegian would

still have to be considered dialects of the same language because they are mutually intelligible.

The same would be true for Spanish and Italian, for Mende, Loko and Bandi in Sierra Leone. On

The linguistic distinction between language and dialect.1. An idiolect is the speech of an individual.2. Dialects consist of structurally similar idiolects.3. Languages consist of mutually intelligible dialects.4. Languages are discrete entities and do not overlap - a

dialect may be a member of only one language.


the other side of the coin, Chinese, German, Igbo (spoken in Nigeria) would have to be seen as

clusters of languages, because of the lack of mutual intelligibility between member varieties.

Clearly then, the linguistic definition clashes with popular usage. Normally, when a

technical definition is offered to replace a popular one, it is done so because it does provide some

insight not captured by the popular one. In this case, the linguistic definition has replaced the

pejorative popular definition with a seemingly value free one which can be applied to any

collection of language varieties to situation to identify languages and member dialects.

2.2. The pejorative English meaning of the words ‘language’ and ‘dialect’.Like the word soul (see chapter 8), Modern English defines the language-dialect

distinction in several different ways. In this section, we explore the pejorative meaning, the one that linguists objected to and for which they offered their alternative.

English definition of language and dialect (pejorative meaning).

Examples of English usage.

1 Languages are discrete entities and do not overlap. You are either speaking German or Dutch.2 Dialects are structurally inferior to languages, lacking

formal grammatical rules and standards of speaking and lack the full range of expressibility of a language.

If you keep using ungrammatical statements, because of your dialect, nobody will understand you.

3 Languages have writing systems; dialects do not. It is not easy to write in dialect.How many dialects in Africa have alphabets?

4 Dialects may be associated with languages, like the southern dialect of English or juxtaposed to them as in the phrase “African dialects.”

Many writers like to use dialect to flesh out their characters.How many dialects are spoken in Africa?

Statement 1, which agrees with the linguistic definition, maintains the naturalness of the concept of languages. Statements 2 and 3 assign a sense of inferiority to dialect, on a number of grounds, and imply that if given a choice, one would be better of speaking a language and not a dialect. We term these statements ideological because they privilege certain groups (mainly Westerners) as intellectually superior over others. Linguists consider these assertions wrong. No varieties, whether written or spoken, are grammatically or communicatively superior to other varieties, all varieties possess the same capacities to express meaning. Furthermore, linguists consider the matter of whether a language has an accompanying system of writing to be irrelevant. Part of their reasoning is based on the existence of language universals, which points to the commonality of human language.

While statements 2 and 3 privilege language over dialect, statement 4 is also ideological in that it allows this privilege to assert that there are places in the world where people do not speak real languages. The linguistic definition avoids this perspective, while still offering a plausible characterization of the language-dialect difference.2.3 The Problem with the linguistic definition.


Yet, while the linguistic definition has overcome the bias of the popular definition, it fails on formal grounds. This happens when it encounters a variety that is mutually intelligible with two other dialects that are themselves that are not mutually intelligible. For example, standard German and standard Dutch are not mutually intelligible, but between Amsterdam to Berlin, one finds a serious of dialects that share mutual intelligibility with adjacent dialects all along the way. This means that the linguistic definition would assign the German-Dutch border dialects to both German and Dutch. But to do so violates another principle maintained by both the popular and linguistic definitions, that dialects can only be assigned to one language. 2.3 The Naturalness of the Language/Dialect Distinction.

The problem of indeterminacy suggests that the boundaries drawn between languages are not natural phenomena but rather constructed by people.1 Furthermore, mutual intelligibility may reflect the degree to which people in a given area interact more than the degree of difference of their varieties. My parents, for example, reported difficulty in understanding British comedy. Thus, while there may be areas of mutual intelligibility, these areas do reflect any natural phenomenon.

But as a social construction, the language-dialect distinction is worth pursuing. How can we best understanding its meaning? What is its ideological content?2 How did it develop? What do differing claims about the status of a given variety mean in terms of power and privilege? The pursuit of the meaning of language and dialect needs to be found in the way the term is used in a particular language and not seek to discover a natural basis, which does not exist. To illustrate the artificiality (man-made) property of the language-dialect distinction we cite two episodes of African history, which I call ‘the restructuring of Shona’ and the ‘invention of Tsonga.’The crystallization of Shona.

The information presented in this section draws extensively from the work of Chimhundu (1992). To begin with, the varieties belonging by what is now called Shona do appear to represent some sort of linguistic unity distinct from other neighboring varieties such as Ndebele, even though until 1931 there was no consensus as to what to call it or how it was internally constituted. Even more importantly, the area had never been a political entity in the sense that

1 The nature of language itself also contributes to this problem. Once a concept is assigned to a signifier and enters into the structural system and becomes a signified, it opposes and differentiates itself from other signs (with their signifieds)in the system. This leads to the characterization of the phenomena around us as discrete and non overlapping entities, regardless of the situation in the natural world. This makes it difficult for us to deal with phenomena that are non discrete for we are forced to place bounds on what we experience if we are to talk about it. The color spectrum provides such an example. While this is a limiting factor in semiological systems, it is also what enables us to talk about anything at all.2 Furthermore, the presumption that the basis for the language-dialect distinction was to be found in an empirical investigation using mutual intelligibility reflects the process of naturalization, that is a culturally constructed phenomenon is made to appear as something independent of human definition.


there was a state which embraced all and only Shona speakers. To be sure, at one time or another, there were states that embraced some of this area, but such states usually embraced non-Shona speaking areas as well. More typically, the area was composed of autonomous, self-governing communities without an over arching state apparatus. In other words, the current Shona-speaking area has never constituted a nation in the sense that we have been discussing the term.

The apparent unity of Shona was muddied during the 19th century when Christian missionaries from several different denominations and nationalities established missions the Shona speaking area. Each groups proceeded on its own to generate proselytizing literature to carry out its mission. Partly because these missions worked in different dialectal areas, but mainly because these missionaries lacked linguistic sophistication, they imposed their native linguistic traditions on the language and relied on interpreters who were not fully proficient in Shona or in English. As a result, different written variations of Shona evolved in each of the mission areas suggesting that there was far greater diversity within Shona than actually existed.3

Representatives of these missions, having failed in their own attempts to develop a common system of writing for Shona, commissioned the South African linguist, Clement Doke to undertake a dialect survey and make suggestions about a common writing system for the language. Doke (1931) posited six different “dialect groups” of the language which he dubbed “Shona” consisting of: Korekore; Zezuru; Manyika; Ndau; Karanga and Kalanga as shown in the adjacent map, and represents how Shona is understood today. The drawing of dialect boundaries exaggerated both the differences across boundaries and internal cohesion within and in so doing, reified the existence of these dialects so that today, these dialect groups are understood to be real dialects admitting to little internal variation.

Supervising Doke was an advisory committee composed of representatives from some, but not all of the missions involved. Two missions were not represented at all;

3 These differences included: the choice in letters to mark sounds; spelling conventions; word division; and word choices.

Missions Variety(ies) Rep*Roman CatholicAnglicanMethodist (United)Methodist (American)Dutch ReformedLondon Missionary SocietyNo missions

Zezuru, ManyikaManyikaManyikaNdauKarangaKalanga, NdebeleKorekore

YesYesNo(Anglican)YesNoNoNo

* Representation on Doke Commission


the Korekore group and the Kalanga group were not represented; and that same person represented Manyika and Ndau.4

This representation had two important consequences. First, when differences in vocabulary occurred, the commission relied most heavily on Zezuru and to a lesser extent on Karanga. Manyika and Ndau were drawn on occasionally, and Korekore and Kalanga were completely ignored). Chimhundu (1992) points out that this merely reflected the degrees to which each dialect was represented on the commission. Second, Kalanga was reclassified as a dialect of Ndebele (another Bantu language) to which it is adjacent, despite the fact that Doke recognized it as being mutually intelligible with other varieties of Shona. This was considered advisable because of its geographical isolation from the other Shona varieties, and more importantly because it did not have a representative on the Doke commission and to the fact that like Ndebele, it was under the aegis of the London Missionary Society.

As a result of this mission activity and the subsequent Doke commission, Shona has been crystallized in the European mold as a single language with a common literary dialect and a common name. This construction took place without the any significant participation of the Shona-speaking population. Furthermore, since its expulsion from Shona and reassignment to Ndebele, Kalanga is becoming less like Shona and more like Ndebele (Ethnologue, 10th Edition, 1984:302).The invention of Tsonga.

Patrick Harries (1987 and 1989) describes the process by which a brand new language, Tsonga, was created by missionaries working in the northern and eastern Transvaal (South Africa), and including the southern part of Mozambique.

Although in the 19th century, most of the population of this region spoke one Bantu language or another, it could not be characterized as linguistically homogeneous. Politically the area was characterized by autonomous villages with a centralized authority, although for much of the 19th century, these communities fell under the political domination of groups to the north, west and south, it at no time constitute a self-contained state with its own identity. In fact, what singled this area as an entity at all according to Harries was its foreignness to any other known group in the area. The name Tsonga comes from Zulu, a South African language, and means ‘conquered peoples in costal areas north of the Zulu, a term that carried pejorative overtones.

4 The fact that all of the committee members were non Shona, and that no Shona speakers were part of this process speaks to the power held by foreign groups during the period of colonialization.


In 1873, this area was assigned to the Swiss Missionary Society. As in the case of Shona, an important first step for the missionaries was to establish a written version of the local language in order to create religious texts. Given that there were several quite-different, Bantu-based varieties being spoken in the area, the task of producing a written language, which had been given to the Swiss missionary, Henri Berthoud, is portrayed by Harries as one of "compiling" (1989:87) a written language as opposed simply reducing the language to writing. Here, Henri Berthoud, relying on a variety of an existing lingua franca spoken in the area, particularity as it was used by his evangelical assistants whose first language was Sotho, published numerous religious texts and manuals during the 1880s in the language that came to be known as Thonga and is now recognized as a natural language in its own right.5

These two events, the crystallization of Shona and the invention of Thonga further

underscore the point that the languages-dialects distinction is a social construction and not a

natural phenomenon. They also underscore the incredible role of colonial power in designing

and reconstructing social institutions in Africa.

2.4. The Political distinction between language and dialect.

When confronted with the reality that the linguistic definition is flawed, many linguists, half seriously, have proposed that a language is a dialect with an army and a navy, i.e., a government. After all, Norway and Sweden have different governments today, as do Spain and Italy and the Netherlands and Germany. In fact, this distinction could be used to exclude Catalan, a Romance “language” spoken in the Barcelona area of Spain because it is not backed up by a government.

This political characterization of language and dialect flatly ignores the linguistic criterion of mutual intelligibility, and although it does not consider dialects to be grammatically inferior to languages, it does acknowledge the privilege given to the (national) language. It also seems to fit general usage quite well. While we tend to think of Chinese as a single idiom accessible to all Chinese people, many of the so-called dialects of Chinese are not even close to being mutually intelligible. Igbo is spoken by over 3 million people in eastern Nigeria. Yet, here too, not all dialects of Igbo are mutually intelligible. Some people claim that not all dialects of English are mutually intelligible. When National Public Television presented a 15 part series

5 However, this new language posed a challenge for other Swiss missionaries working in the neighboring area because Gwamba appeared more foreign than the language used by the encroaching Wesleyan missionaries. In order to compete, Henri Junod, another Swiss missionary, constructed another literary variant of the same lingua franca used by Berthoud which he called Ronga, which established itself as an independent entity in the eastern areas.

The Political Characterization of Dialect1. Everyone speaks a variety.2. The variety chosen by the government as its

means of communication is a language, sometimes called the standard language.

3. Other varieties spoken in the country are termed dialects of the national language.


on The Story of English many of the English "dialects" presented were subtitled because they were not clearly mutually intelligible to all viewers.

Even though the dialects of Chinese are not mutually intelligible, they are under one government, at least according to the Peoples Republic of China. The same could be said for Igbo, which was the language of Biafra when it attempted to secede from Nigeria during the Nigerian civil war though in reality the characterization of Igbo as a single language is a colonial formation. In addition, the rather arbitrary division between Dutch and German is explained by the presence of a political border. Those in the Netherlands speak Dutch, and those in Germany speak German.2.5 Problems with the Political Definition.

While the political distinction has the advantage of overcoming the problems of mutual intelligibility and arbitrariness encountered by the linguistic distinction, yet this distinction too is flawed. We note that China has two governments (Mainland China and Taiwan), German has three (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) and English has at least six (the U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. Finally, Arabic is the official language of over 15 countries. There are also a number of governments that recognize the legitimacy of more than one language within its borders: Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and a good number of African countries. But we also encounter languages without any governmental connection.

A Mende-speaking friend of mine in Sierra Leone asked me about my field research, which was to compare the historical development of the Southwestern Mande languages of Sierra Leone and Liberia. These languages include, in addition to Mende and Loko of Sierra Leone, Bandi, Lorma and Kpelle of Liberia and are about as closely related as the Romance languages, which include: French; Spanish; Italian among others. My friend informed me that he could understand the news broadcasts from Liberia that were in Bandi.

By the linguistic definition, Mende and Bandi would be dialects; by the political definition, they are anomalous for neither has a government. The official language of Sierra Leone and Liberia is English. Throughout the world, minority (and sometimes majority) languages exist without formal recognition, and would be considered dialects by the political distinction because they lack this governmental connection,2.6 Language and Identity.

To explain the meaning of identity, simply ask someone, “who are you?” With the exception of “well, I’m... me.” most statements will link the individual with an institution, whether by profession, race (considered here to be a social category), ethnicity gender, nationality, religion, political party or language. Until recently, most of these groups were relatively fixed and that one stayed with the same identities through out life. Some scholars (Anthony Giddens) marks a new area, called the post-modern area, beginning shortly after WWII


in which these previously permanent identities became more fluid and more salient. Of course, identities have always been multifaceted; one can be a friend, a colleague, a fellow Buddhist, and fellow American at the same time, meaning that it is often necessary to negotiate during a particular encounter. Glidden’s point about the post-modern era is that this is even more so.

Identity is established through the use of identity markers. These markers of identity vary in the degree to which they can be controlled and used. One can adopt any political point of view by saying so or dress according to the institutional role of his or her wishes, given, of course, that the dress is available for use. Prohibitions by specific institutions or cost often limit our identity markers in this area. At the other end, one has less control over physical features (skin color, nose, hair, height) so that it is more difficult to manipulate these markers of identity. Even a nose job or a breast implant has a permanence. Language use falls somewhere in between these two extremes. While it is relatively to acquire a new language, it is relatively difficult, some say impossible, to acquire a new language without traces of an accent. Nevertheless, language serves as an identity marker.Ethnic Distribution in Senegal. Fiona McGloghlin 6 of the University of Kansas provides an insightful case study of the role language plays in identity construction. The three major ethnic groups in Senegal, West Africa are the Wolof, The Fula and the Sereer. Each of these groups has different characteristics.

The term Wolof designates both a language and an ethnic group. As a language, Wolof is a rapidly growing lingua franca spoken by about 80% of all Senegalese, and is spreading down the coast of West Africa and is becoming a first language among some ethnic Fula and Sereer. As an ethnic group, the Wolof represent about 44% of the population. Like many lingua franca (e.g. Lingala and Swahili), the form of Urban Wolof, as it is called is somewhat more regular and admits to a lot of borrowing from French, the colonial and official language of Senegal. The term Urban Wolof distinguishes the lingua franca from the ethnic language known as Rural Wolof.

The Sereer were assumed by the French colonial administrators to represent a single ethnic group, even though they speak a number of varieties that

6 McGloghlin, F. Haalpulaar Identity as a response to Wolofization.Ms. 19xx

Ethnicity SpeakWolofFulaSereer

43.7%23.214.8%

80%< 23.2%< 14.8%

Pull-oFul-ePul-aar Pul-aar-'en

Haal-pulaar-'en

Tukuloor

Fulfule

Peul person (-o is a human class singular marker)Peul people (-e is a human class plural marker)Peul-language (-aar is a suffix meaning language)People of the Pulaar language (-en is another human class plural marker)People who speak Pulaar (haal is a prefix meaning to speak.)Older name for Haalpulaar'en (French spelling Toucouleur)The language of the Fule (-e is another suffix meaning language.)


are not only not mutually intelligible, but not even particularly closely related from a historical perspective. Today the Sereer represent about 15% of the Senegalese population, but not all Sereer speak their own language, as many have adopted Wolof, the lingua franca that is, as a first language.

The term Fula7 is a European invention to cover both the language and the people who speak it, and is used today in census taking. I use it here as a neutral term, to avoid privileging one usage over another. To understand the complexity of the composition of the group we begin with the following vocabulary.

The terms Fule and Haalpulaar’en all appear to have the same referent, but the implications are different. Fule refers to the ethnicity while Pulaar’en and Haalpulaar’en refer to those who speak the language. The distinction here is important for they are used to represent two different groups who, traditionally at least, practice different economic traditions. The implication behind these two terms is that while the Haalpulaar’en speak Pulaar, they are not ethnically Fule. The oral histories of these groups suggest as much, that the Haalpulaar’en acquired the language.

Ethnic Group Usages

Name for the we have termedHaalpulaar’en

Name for the group we have termed Fule

Haalpulaar’enFuleWolof

Haalpulaar’enHaalpulaar’enTukuloor

Haalpulaar’enFulePeul (Pël)

But this is a distinction maintained by the Fule (and Wolof) but not the Haalpulaar’en. That is, the Fule continue to say that the Haalpulaar’en are different from them, even though they speak the same language. This situation tends to blur the distinction between language and ethnicity. McGloghlin reported one interviewee saying, “My parents are Fule, but because I speak Wolof, I guess I am Wolof. ...(later)... I am Pullo; I would like to learn Pulaar. The Haalpulaar’en’s use for the both groups reflects a desire to consider the two groups one. Tukuloor, but not the Fule, have a joking/teasing relationship (ndend'iraagu) with the Sereer.Attitudes of Haalpulaar’en towards Wolof. Many Haalpulaar’en have expressed a negative attitude toward the Wolof because they object to the expansion of Wolof and the fact that the

7 The forms pul and ful are variants of the same root, reflecting a very rich morphological process known as consonant mutation. While the phonological relationships are complicated they are very regular. The words gorko ‘man’ and debbo ‘woman’ have the regular plurals of wore and rewe.

Ethnic Name Economic PracticeHaalpulaar'enFuleLaweGuinean Fule

Sedentary agriculturalistsSemi-nomadic pastoralistsWoodworkers and carversPastoralists


Wolof do not want to learn Pulaar. This is partly due to seeing Wolof as an ethnic language as opposed to a lingua franca.

Despite the lack of linguistic homogeneity, the Sereer consider themselves to be a single ethnic group, and some hold some negative attitudes towards Urban Wolof, they “do not feel threatened by the expansion of Urban Wolof. The Sereer do not associate ethnicity with language first because the Sereer language, because of its lack of mutual intelligibility, does not serve as a marker of identity and second, because many Sereer speak rural Wolof fluently and claim to be (deeper) (i.e., better) Wolof than many urban Wolof speakers. In contrast, the Fula, both groups, use language as an identity marker define them selves and object to the expanding (urban) Wolof. As a result, in current usage, they have abandoned the Fule - Haalpulaar’en distinction and redefined themselves using the term Haalpulaar’en to represent a common identity, which includes the Haalpulaar’en, Fule, Lawe and the Fule of Guinea in opposition to Wolof (either type). At the same time, Wolof is also being redefined, not as the language of an ethnic group, but a national language of Senegal, only loosely associated with an ethnic group of the same name.

This process of lingua francas that have derived from ethnic languages is a frequent event (e.g., Swahili and Indonesian) and reflects the interaction of language and identity.2.6 A literary dimension to the distinction between language and dialect.While the political definition could be amended to include more than one national language, its major flaw is to overlook the literary dimension of the language-dialect distinction. As noted above, linguists have not found the distinction between literate and non-literate languages at all useful for this distinction has no influence on the complexity of the structure or on the communicability of the language variety. However, this is not to say that the development of writing is without influence. Beginning with the work of Goody (1968, 1987) and followed by others including (Goody and Watt 1979) and Street (1984, 1993) the existence of a literary tradition has consequences for the society that adopts it.

Inherent in many of the usages of the language/dialect distinction, both linguistic and popular there is a whole/part component such that the language is the whole and of which dialects are part. When a writing system developed, it tended to be associated with a particular variety, and became the literary dialect. This dialect was typically that of the elite, either economic or social. Rather than develop a new writing system, speakers of closely related varieties adopted the writing system of the literary dialect. These came to be known simply as

The Literary Characterization(does not apply to varieties without a written form)1. Everyone speaks a variety.1. Any variety for which there is a written form is

a language.2. Other spoken varieties that use the same written

form are termed dialects of that language.3. A government may select one or more

languages as its national language(s)


dialects. Varieties varied with respect to their similarity to the literary dialect, and those recognizably different came to be identified as inferior by those using the literary form.

The process of obtaining a writing system for a variety was more often imposed than selected. Varieties falling within a political domain would normally be assigned the literary dialect of the domain. However, were the variety too different structurally, it might be ignored and either assigned a different writing system or none at all. The degree to which a variety can be accommodated depends on the phonetic faithfulness of the system. This is the degree to which the writing system reflects actual pronunciation. This means that logographic writing systems can accommodate a more diverse group of varieties than can an alphabetic system, for they are not dependent on the sound of words for their spelling. Thus, Chinese, which has a logographic writing system, accommodates several varieties that are very far from mutual intelligibility. Some alphabetic systems are less faithful than others. English, with its alternative spellings for the same sound, is less faithful than French, which is less faithful than Spanish. Accordingly, English can more easily accommodate a wider range of varieties than can Spanish. And given the diverse nature of these English varieties, it is unlikely English writing will be revised (reformed) to a more phonetically faithful system, because of the possibility of alienating diverse varieties.

As can be seen, this definition is a rephrasing of point two in section one above. In this rephrasing, however, I have avoided the claim of intellectual superiority for dialects with writing systems without denying the benefits of writing.This definition applies to all the situations the political definition does. In addition, allows several languages to exist within a given country and not be national nations. It also explains the unity of Chinese, but not because of the domain in which it is spoken, but because of the writing system used. Swedish, Danish and Norwegian also stand because of their unique writing system or systems as Norwegian has two, and Japanese for that matter has four.

As is a social construct and not a universal characterization, this definition only applies in situations where a literary tradition is operative. It cannot be applied to situations where such a tradition has not taken root. In addition, the definition makes no claims to the superiority of the written tradition, but only that when such a tradition exists, the language/dialect distinction will conform to the definition.

It should also be clear, that while the literary dialect is in many ways the most visible aspect of a language, the language also includes all the participating dialects. Thus, the variety of English that I speak is a dialect, but the variety that I write is a language. With this distinction we begin to see monolinguali nations as consisting of a literate dialect (language) along with any number of spoken dialects. Furthermore, this definition resolves the paradoxes encountered by the other definitions.


2. Languages in ContactWesterners are accustomed to thinking that most countries are monolingual and that

everyone in the country speaks the national language. Ironically, this is not true of even in most western countries. In the United States, Spanish is becoming so widely spoken that some consider it to be a second national language. This is evidenced by such phenomenon as national (global) Spanish language TV networks, the option of transacting business at an ATM in Spanish, and the availability of Spanish language phone books in Washington DC. These practices do not represent a national policy to promote Spanish, but the reality that Spanish is widely spoken in the US. But Spanish is not alone, as there are sizable groups of speakers of other languages found especially in the large cities of the US in which many of the world’s languages (Amharic, Loma, Thai, Serbian, Korean, Arabic, Chinese, Mayan, Swahili, Kashmiri) not only exist and thrive, not just as vernaculars but as community languages. The existence of such communities has changed our thinking about second language offerings in high schools and universities. Whereas previously the offerings consisted of French, German and Spanish (and before that Greek, Latin and Hebrew), our students are asking for the teaching of a wide range of heritage languages, those spoken by the parents and grandparents.

Also, still spoken in the US are a large number of Native American languages that have survived despite the efforts of the US government (through the Bureau of Indian Affairs) to exterminate these languages. But currently, in many of these communities, younger people are growing up without a full command of the languages and efforts are being made to revitalize these languages so that they are used on a daily basis.

Most European countries also have populations who speak something other than the national language, despite efforts of the national government to push for a national language. In France for example, many of the former Gaelic communities, like the Breton, are attempting to restore their heritage language, in much the same way as Native Americans are doing in the US. In Switzerland, one finds three different languages, French, German and Italian, coexisting as official languages and without much fuss. Canada and Cameroon have two official languages and of course a whole lot more. In Cameroon there are at least seventy other African languages spoken, some with as few as 20,000 speakers. It is not too unusual to find some areas, where each town boasts its own language. Such situations too call for lingua francas.2.1. Sierra Leone as a case study of multilingualism.

The domains of a language are often associated with a social institution, be it political (the city, the state), a social (an ethnic group, social class, gender) or economic (trade). Because institutions often overlap and interconnected, we also expect to find languages overlapping as well. This is also why the complexity of multilingual situations is very difficult to portray on a two dimensional map.


In the country of Sierra Leone, for example, there are ten indigenous languages: Mende, Temne, Susu, Limba, Loko, Yalunka, Bulom, Kissi, Kono, Kuranko as well as English and Krio, and a variety of languages spoken by immigrants, mainly from neighboring countries (Fulfulde, Mandingo, Hausa).8 Each language spoken in Sierra Leone can be is associated with a distinct social institution sometimes called an ethnic group, which shares a number of other institutions including (extended) family organization, and marriage, decision-making, and economic practices. In each of these ethnic groups, the language is spoken in most households as a vernacular, or home language.

The language, known as Krio, is spoken in Freetown and adjacent areas on the Sierra Leone peninsula by people who are descendants of Jamaicans who, during the infamous period of slavery, rebelled against their captors and were able to return to Africa. Although they or their fore bearers had been kidnapped from Africa, they did not return to their homeland, which could have been anywhere on the western side of the African continent. The Krio community was also joined by people known as recaptives, those who were rescued from slave ships on their way to the new world.

Many of the early Krio began trading manufactured good for agricultural goods in the rest of the Sierra Leone Protectorate, as it was then called. This introduced Krio as a lingua franca9 to the area. A lingua franca is defined as a language used for communication among speakers of diverse linguistic backgrounds. And while Krio may be spoken with anyone else who speaks it, because it is associated with the trade of manufactured goods, it is most commonly spoken in the market places of urban communities.

Mende (south) and Temne (north), in addition to being vernacular (house hold) languages, are also lingua francas associated with the marketing of agricultural produce. As this is usually the responsibility of women, more women than men use these two languages as lingua francas. In addition, because of the importance of Mende, and the intermarriage of Mende and Vai people, we find that Mende is spreading to the point that some Vai communities have lost the use of the Vai language as a vernacular.

8 Mandingo or Bamana ( as it is more broadly known) is associated with the tie-dying industry, Hausa with trading and Fulfulde with commerce (small kiosks, taxi driving).9 The term lingua franca is Latin, meaning language of the Francs, a European tribe living in what is now France. The Latin plural is linguae franca, but many writers use the English plural.


The English language is closely associated with the institutions of government, formal education and finance being conducted in this lingua franca. Of course the choice of language is one that speakers have to negotiate, given of course, that a choice is available to the conversants, but it would be common to find in southern Sierra Leone someone speaking to a kinsman in the vernacular, purchasing a manufactured good in Krio, obtaining food for dinner in Mende, and banking in English. Thus, it is quite common to find the average Sierra Leonean speaking three to four languages. And while English and Krio may be relatively recent additions to the Sierra Leonean’s repertoire, this cosmopolitan situation has been going on for centuries.2.2 Multilingualism.

As noted above, languages tend to be associated with institutions, such that the domain of the institution (geographic, social, economic) will correspond to the distribution of the language. Thus, it is possible for some languages to have few speakers (Loko has xxx) and others to be massive. The religious institution of Islam has spread the Arabic language to Northern Africa, the Middle East and to parts of southern Asia. The political institution of the French, German, British, Spanish and Portuguese empires were responsible for the spread of their national languages into African and the New World. The institution of capitalism is responsible for the dominance of English as a world language.

We recognize multilingualism as the overlapping of different languages in the same community. This usually means that each language is associated with specific institutions, as in the Sierra Leone case. If the institutions are not exclusive (castes, racial apartheid, and the like), members of the community will be multilingual. This situation is far more common than most westerners are aware, and increasingly so as the world becomes increasingly intertwined.3. Lingua Francas.

With increasing contact, many languages become, as noted above, lingua francas. These are languages that are used by non-native speakers as a means of communication. Lingua francas may have, but do not have to have, first language speakers. Lingua francas vary in size. Mende is the lingua franca of southern Sierra Leone; English is a global lingua franca.

Any language can function as a lingua franca. Some of the more widely spoken lingua francas are natural languages are given in the adjacent sidebar. In addition, Esperanto and Interlingua are artificial languages constructed for the purpose of serving as lingua franca. Esperanto drew most of its vocabulary from European languages, while Interlingua was more global in its sources. But despite tremendous efforts by its supporters, neither Esperanto nor Interlingua has caught on in the way its developers had hoped. This no doubt has to do with the

Religion: Arabic; Sanskrit; Latin;Nations: Russian; Hausa, Fulfulde, Bambara; MandarinEmpires: Greek (Koiné); Latin; English; French; Spanish; Commerce: Swahili; English


fact that these artificial languages are not associated with a specific institution. Pidgin is a third type of lingua franca, which arises in language contact situations, deserves a good deal more attention.4. Pidgins/Creoles Languages

Like the distinction between language and dialect, popular usage of the terms pidgin and creole does not fit the formal definition offered by creolists.10 For example, Cameroon Pidgin English is, historically at least, a creole. For this reason, I like to refer to the group of languages that includes both pidgins and creoles as pidgin/creole languages. Simply put, a creole language is a pidgin language that has stabilized and acquired native speakers. This definition makes it clear that in order to understand fully what a creole is; it is necessary to understand pidgins. 4.1. Pidgins.

Pidgin languages evolve in multilingual situations where there is a need for people of different linguistic backgrounds to communicate, and where usually there is no convenient existing lingua franca available. In such a situation, one solution is to invent a language, based on available resources. Such languages are termed pidgins and because they are invented, they have no native speakers. As soon as a pidgin acquires native speakers, it is termed a creole. A pidgin language is often seen by a speaker as the other speaker’s language, and not one’s own. This may explain why the names given to these languages often carry a negative sense, e.g., Bamboo English (developed by Korean citizens and American soldiers during the Korean War, Broken English (used to refer to a variety of Pidgin Englishes).

Typical spawning grounds for pidgins are wars, trade and migration.11 As mentioned above, Korean Pidgin English arose during a wartime situation. Trade, as we shall see, played an important role in the developing of the development of Sabir, Pidgin/Creole English, French and Portuguese. Migrations such as the flow of Italian workers into Argentina led to the development of Cocoliche in the 1920s, which was used for communication between these immigrant workers and the Spanish-speaking Argentine employers. Generally, such invented languages will disappear, as did Korean Pidgin English, when the need for communication ends. Only rarely does a pidgin survive. In the case of Cocoliche, the pidgin was fueled by a continuing influx of new Italian immigrants to Argentina. In the case of the pidgin/creole English, French and Portuguese, the continuation of the pidgin was due in part to the persistence of the slave trade. Pidgins can either remain as pidgins as was the case for Cocoliche or evolve into creoles. Communicatively pidgins tend to focus on the needs of institutions in which they developed (e.g., trade, domestic service) such that the languages are less effective in other areas of discourse.

10 A creolist is the name given to those who study pidgin/creole languages.11 Thus these ways of speaking can be associated with specific institutions.


Structural properties of pidgins. Because pidgins are so unstable and fluid, meaning that their grammars vary considerably among their non-native speakers, it is difficult to make generalizations about the grammar of a pidgin. This task is further complicated by the fact that scholars have little evidence of the manner of speech of pidgin languages. Consequently, much of what we say about pidgins is based on what we can learn from them after they evolve into creoles.

Typically, a pidgin will have a clearly identifiable lexical (vocabulary) base and a syntax that is not as clearly identifiable. Thus, when we talk about Pidgin English, we are speaking of a language with a vocabulary derived from English. One of the first things that happens to a vocabulary is the elimination of affixes and their replacement, if necessary by separate words.12 For example, in Cameroon Pidgin English, plurals and past tenses (both suffixes in English) are marked by separate words. This process eliminates any irregularity, making the language easier to learn.

Another common process is to decompose words semantically (e.g., a rooster is an adult, male foul) and then reconstruct the meaning with words that already exist in the vocabulary. This too facilitates the learning process meaning that it is far easier to acquire a basic skill using a pidgin language than a natural language. These processes can also be found in lingua francas. There is clear evidence that Mende (see above), which did serve as a lingua franca during the Mane invasions, has undergone the same sort of processes described for pidgins, but of course not to the same extent. The same can be said for English and French.

The question of where the syntax comes from has been answered in a variety of ways by different writers. The first explanation was that the grammar of pidgins, at least those that differed from the language of the lexical base came from African languages. This argument, also called the substratum theory stated that since The problem with this explanation is that the grammar of African languages varies so much that if you looked hard enough you could find something in some African language that would resemble the grammatical feature in the pidgin. Others looked for the same sort of things in non-literary dialects of the language of the lexical base. Another explanation offered by Derek Bickerton called attention to the faculty of language and universal grammar. He argued that much of the unity of the various pidgins/creoles around was due to the imposition of universals on PC, once they had become creolized.4.2. Creoles.

12 An affix is the general name given to prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes precede the root (pre-fix, un-likely, omni-present) suffixes follow the root (walk-ed, dog-s, think-ing).

English: I have some book -s.WAPE: A get book dem.English: He walk-ed to the store.WAPE: I bin waka f sit.(dem = ‘plural’; bin = ‘past’

English WAPE glossescow kaw ‘cow, bovine’bull mankaw man- ‘male, man’calf kawpikin ‘child’heifer woman-kaw-pikin female, woman


Creoles are pidgins that have acquired native speakers. This means that the language must function for all communicative needs and not just those conditions of contact in which it was developed. The process of creolization, as it is sometimes termed, involves an explanation of the lexicon and a stabilization of the syntax.

The process of lexical expansion includes both the enlargement of the size of the vocabulary, but the process known as grammaticalization (Heine and xx), in which functions which were formerly syntactic, such as the plural and past tense markers for CP described above, are made into affixes.13 Grammaticalization is a very natural process in all languages and if it continues long enough it is possible to disguise the pidgin past of a creole .4.3 Post Creoles.

Many pidgin-creoles are spoken in communities where the dominant language (sometimes called the acrolect) is that of the creole’s lexical base (sometimes called the basolect). In these communities, a sharp boundary between these two varieties is not always maintained and one finds as DeCamp (19xx) did in Jamaica, a continuum. This was of course facilitated by the similarity of the two lexicons. In such situation, speakers would often have one style of speech that was closer to the acrolect for formal occasions and one closer to the basolect for more ordinary conversation. Kripper (1971) shows a similar situation for Ghana.

Language Answer to the question: Didn’t you go home last Christmas?

Sample Text

StandardBritishEnglish

No, I didn't. He said you might come and not find him. But he's not sure whether you'll come at all. So he has gone on and when you come I am supposed to tell you that he and your teacher have gone ahead to your mother's house.

StandardGhanaianEnglish

No, I didn't go. He said you may come and may meet his absence. But he is not sure whether you'll come at all. So he is taking the lead, and when you come, I must inform you that he and your teacher have gone ahead to your mother's house.

LessStandardGhanaianEnglish

Yes, I didn't go. He said that may be you will come and not see him. But he doesn't know whether you will come. So he is taking the lead. So when you come, I must tell you that he and your teacher have gone to your mother's place.

GhanianEnglishPidgin

Yes, I no go. He say sometime you go come and you no go see am. But he never know [se] you go come or you no go come. So he go front. So like you come, make me tell you se he and your teacher they go fo your mother place.

In contrast to the continuum reported by Kripper and DeCamp, several authors have reported a situation known as diglossia (Ferguson 1959) found in Haiti, for example, in which the acrolect, Prestige French and the basolect, Haitian Creole are maintained as distinct varieties

13 Examples of this process found in English are -ton, as in Kingston, Boston (from town) and -ly as in likely and mostly (from like).

i In section 6, many apparently monolingual countries are shown to be multilingual.


without an intervening continuum. Diglossia is not restricted to creole situations, but is found between different varieties of the same language such as between Classical Arabic and the colloquial varieties found Arabic-speaking countries. In diglossic situations, there appears to be a social reason for the two varieties remaining separate, such as a caste-like separation between the elite and peasants in Haiti, and the high prestige accorded Classical Arabic.

Several creolists (John Dillard 1972 and John Stewart 19xx) have opined that this kind of situation existed in the southeastern part of the US before the civil war with the acrolect resembling the speech of the southern whites and the basolect resembling that of the plantation slaves. Stewart further contends that over time and with the breaking down of the barriers of slavery and segregation that the range in the continuum is narrowing with the effect that the creole basolect has all but disappeared with the exception of a few isolated areas (Sea Islands Creole) and that the acrolect has acquired components of the basolect. (Words like OK, tote, .... are attributed to this process.4.4. The distribution of pidgin-creole languages.

Many of the world’s pidgins have lived and died with virtually no notice, but even so, a large number of these languages exist and have been documented. Introduce Robert Hall’s Pidgin Book Here and list a few.

By far, the most common group of languages is termed Black Atlantic because a good number of them are found on one side or the other of the Atlantic Ocean, and because they are largely spoken by black people. The three major subgroups of Black Atlantic are: Portuguese Black Atlantic, (spoken in the Cape Verde Islands and the islands of Principe

and Saõ Tomé, all of the western coast of Africa; French Black Atlantic, spoken in the Caribbean on the islands of Barbados, x and z, and in

the Indian Ocean on the islands of Mauritius and Réunion;14

English Black Atlantic, spoken in West Africa: The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon. The Caribbean: Surinam (3 varieties), Jamaica, Belieze, St. Kits, .... North America: North Carolina (thought to be more widespread before 1850. (In addition, there are English-based PCs spoken in Northern Australia, New Guinea,

China and Hawaii)

14 The term creole was originally used to describe an individual of European background, but born overseas. Later the meaning shifted to refer to people of African descent, and from there to the language many of them spoke. The creole of New Orleans refers to the earlier usage.


More about English Black Atlantic. My first experience with these languages was in the 1960s as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon, where because of the linguistic diversity of the area and the development of banana plantations, what is called Cameroon Pidgin English flourished. I found the language to be a wonderful medium of communication, permitting me to express my thoughts easily. For most Cameroonians, this was not their first language either, but it did allow them to express their thoughts using many of the rhetorical devices that they learned in their first

language. This is where I learned about how to use proverbs, as opposed to direct speech, to present my point of view in a more elegant way, and no doubt vice versa. At any rate, I fell in love with language and began collecting stories, local histories and vocabulary in the language.

One of my favorite memories was on the porch of the house I had rented some of us playing draughts15, others talking about the events of the day, and I, when not playing, asking about the meaning of CPE words and proverbs.

I was surprised to learn that people in neighboring Nigeria also spoke this language as a lingua franca, though with a number of regional differences. But it was not until I went to Sierra Leone a number of years later that these similarities really struck me, because I could speak and understand a language called Krio. How is it, I asked myself that these two varieties exist more than two thousand miles apart? To this, we could add to this question, the similarity to Sea Islands Creole, Jamaican English, and Sranan Tongo spoken in Surinam.

15 Cameroon draughts is a game like checkers, but played on a ten by ten square board, and much, much faster.


Samples of English-Based Creoles and Pidgin

Pidgin (Cameroun, West Africa) Mek a tl wuna ha we masa Trki bin brok i bak. I gt wan de wn Masa Trki and Masa Pik bin bi kombi. Wan de masa Pik bin de gif mni f masa Trki, fseka se masa Trki n gt mni f bay chp. Masa Trki bin de tl masa Pik se wn i gt mni i go de bakam. I dn te soteee bt Masa Trki n de gif Masa Pik i mni...

Let me tell you how Turtle got his segmented back. Once upon a time Turtle and Pig were friends. Then Turtle loaned money to Pig, because Pig did not have enough money to buy food. Pig told Turtle that he would pay him back as soon as he could. A long time passed, but Pig did not give Turtle his money....

Krio (Sierra Leone, West Africa)Wi stil de tk bt rilign an politiks, w na di kayn of god w mOtal man de gri tu an w i get f du witi di kntri is bizns. We de tl tenki f de wantm w i n t dem mt but gt smting f se bt di ting w we de tk. I de sho se we n de tk f nting. We bin dn gri se rilign an politiks nto wan.

We are still talking about religon and politics, about the kind of God which humans believe in and what he has to do with the country's business. We offer thanks for the one time he didn't shut their mouths but had something to say about what we are discussing. We agreed that religion and politics are not one.

Sea Islands Krio <Gullah> (South Carolina) How Bra Hawn Got His Long Mawth. Bra rabit bin in i rays fiel to habs i rays an di san get bri hat an bra rabit lef i fil an gn p on di flat bank w som bush de an i sedn anda de bush in de shed an bigin f wisel. Dem dez bra rabit an bra hawn bin gud frenz. Bra hawn kam long an hiri bra de wisel. I se bra rabit, a wish a kuda wisel laka yu na. Bra rabit tl-am se i mawt i stan for wistel. Rawn mawt ain for wistl. If yu had lng mawt laka mayn yu kuda whisel....

How brother dog got his muzzle. Brother rabit was in his rice field to harvest his rice and the sun was very hot so brother rabit left his field and went up on the flat bank where a tree was and sat under the tree in the shade and started to whistle. Those days brother rabit and brother dog were good friends. Brother dog came along and heard his friend whistling.. He said to brother rabit, I wish I could whistle like you. Brother rabit told him that his mouth was made for whistling. A round mouth is not for whistling. If you had a long mouth like mine, you could whistle.

Sranan (Surinam, South America) Wan konde (kingdom) ben de, an wan foru (bird) ben de bari (screech). Ef a bar so, na her kondre e trubu. Konu pot taki, wan suma kir na foru, a sa tro wan uman pikin fo eng.

There once was a kingdom, and there was a bird that screeched. When it screetched, the whole kingdom was disturbed. The king announced that the person who killed the bird would marry a daughter of his.

Neo_Solomonic (Solomon Islands)Orayt, mifla i go go lng slwater, lukawtim fish, naw win i kem, naw mifla i go lebawt long kinu, naw bigfla win i kem naw, mifla go, no kachim ni ples i kwaytfla.

Very well. We kept going on the sea, hunting fish, and a wind arose; now we were going in canoes, and an immense wind arose, and we were thrown around and ran very fast (before the wind).

Belizian Creole A wan tak bout sohn a di tapik dehn weh mi kohn op da nite. Shore lat a pipl shif bak an foat fran Inglish to Krio wen den di taak... if you de taak bout science, wy you mos expek fi taak eena Krio, if da eena Inglish yu laan bout ahn. Afta aal, lat a di wod dehn yu yuse eena science da English wod... like wen you di taak bout kompyuta ting.

I want to talk about some of the topics which came up that night. A lot of people switched back and forth from English to Krio when they were talking… if you are talking about science, you must expect to talk in Krio, if it was in English that you learned about it. After all, a lot of the words that you use in science are English words. . . for example, when you talk about computer things.

1.3. The Genesis of Pidgins .Polygenesis. Linguists are divided about the origins of pidgin-creoles. One view, called polygenesis holds pidgin/creole languages arise and stabilize frequently in contact situations. The common features found in the wide distribution of PC languages variety is due to three


factors. First, if there are the similarities due to the contributions of the donor language (in this case English). Certainly, this explains the large amount of common vocabulary. Second, are the similarities due to the speaker’s first language. It is argued that because of the common features of African languages, the grammars of the newly developed pidgin languages will also have similar properties. This explanation is sometimes called the substrate theory. It is true that native speakers often carry their first language habits into their second language, in this case the pidgin. This is after all, why we can identify accents as German, French or Arabic. The third explanation of similarities is based on the influence of the faculty of language and linguistic universals. Derick Bickerton, in his Roots of Language, argues that when newly formed pidgins acquire first language speakers and become creoles, they fall back on the linguistic universals, because they lack the modifications that natural languages often impose on them over the years, and thus the pidgin-creole acquires an innate pattern. (This theory is contested and many solid papers written against this position. Cf. Singler.Problems with Polygenesis. Monogenesis holds that pidgin-creoles rarely stabilize and survive. Consequently, the few that do can often be traced back to a common ancestor, very much like the protolanguage reconstruction described in chapter xx. When applied to Black Atlantic-English, a monogenetic view would hold that the remarkable similarity in structure between Cameroonian Pidgin and Sierra Leonean Creole exists because there is a historical link between these two languages and not because they have a common donor language or substratum language as the polygenesis theory would claim and not because of linguistic universals at work.

The historical connections between Krio and other varieties along the coast of West Africa are well documented. People from Sierra Leone were often recruited by Europeans for commercial ventures, such as the banana plantations of Cameroon set up by the Germans or the missionary work by the British during the 18th but particularly the 19th century. It is quite likely that these Krio speakers carried their language with them and encouraged its use as a lingua franca.

Scholars believe that the present form of Krio took shape during the 19th century with the arrival of the Jamaicans in Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1800. The Jamaican population was substantially augmented by recaptives mainly from southern Nigeria. The term recaptives, refers to people who had been kidnapped by slavers and were destined for forced servitude in the New World, but were rescued by the British navy and put ashore in Freetown. It is estimated that these recaptives represented nearly 40% of the Freetown population during this period and helps to explain why Yoruba, a language of Nigeria has made significant contributions to Krio. For example, the standard greeting in Krio is Kushe-o, which is a greeting, still used by Yoruba speakers. In addition, a large number of Krio personal names, like Adi, can be traced to Yoruba.


It is important to note that Krio is not the same as the West African Pidgin lingua francas spoken in Ghana, Nigeria and Cameroon. For example, as a first language, Krio has developed a far richer vocabulary and literature, reflecting its development during the 19th and 20th century. Outside the Freetown area, where Krio is spoken as a first language, I found that the language resembles the other West African somewhat more closely.

Scholars (Eldred Jones) have also found evidence of a pre-18th century Sierra Leonean pidgin much different from the Krio and the WAPEs spoken today. It is presumed that this variety served as a lingua franca during the 16th and 17th century. In addition, it is also assumed that a parallel French pidgin was also used.

As mentioned above, the Creole spoken in Jamaica is gradually being absorbed by the English of the island, but remnants are found in the literature and music of the island and there are people living in rural parts of the island who still use the language on a daily basis. Although Jamaican Creole shares enough structural features with Krio and WAPE to make it clear that they are related, it is nevertheless very different structurally, and probably not mutually intelligible with Krio. During the 17th century, Jamaica, like most of the islands in the Caribbean, was a plantation society, growing agricultural products like sugar cane for export using captive labor working in intolerable conditions. Through out the century, revolts were commonplace and despite almost insurmountable odds, some were successful. One such revolt was in Jamaica, were the self-liberated plantation workers were able to negotiate their return to Africa. These are the people who eventually arrived in Freetown in 1800, and it was the Jamaican Creole, which served as the basis upon which Krio was built.16

Most of the Jamaicans came from Surinam, South America in 1667 because of the British ceding their occupation of the area (1625-1675) to the Dutch who had acquired it in exchange for New York. As a result, the British plantation owners had to leave and this took them with their captives to Jamaica. In Surinam, three distinct varieties of Black Atlantic-English were and are still spoken (Sranan Tongo, Saramakan, and Jukan).17 Jamaican Creole shares a good number of linguistic features with the Surinam varieties and it is presumed that Sranan Tongo was taken to Jamaica.

An important new world port for the sale of African captives was the island of Barbados. Here, slave boats from a number of European nations sold their property and returned to Africa for more, while other entrepreneurs resold these people to other islands and to the United States. What is not clear is what language was spoken here. One guess is that the lingua franca used was like the pre-18th century pidgin reported in Sierra Leone. If so, this lingua franca may have

16 Due the British bureaucracy or indifference (or both) these Jamaicans spent many years in Nova Scotia where many of them, unfamiliar with the climate suffered and died. 17 I would not be surprised if the -kan suffix on Sramakkan and Jukan is the same suffix found in Bamana, as a good number of captives who arrived in the new world came from this area.


been the basis for the development and unity of the Black-Atlantic-Englishes in the new world and Africa. Furthermore, this can also explain the similarities of the English-based varieties in Southeast Asia (Northern Australia, Southern China, the Solomon Islands and elsewhere).

Dillard believes the vehicle for this transmission, in addition to the captives were the sailors, who carried this language, which he calls maritime Pidgin English with them where ever they went. In support of this position, he notes that almost of these varieties are found very near the coast. In addition, the linguistic evidence includes not only the English-based vocabulary, which might be attributed to other sources, but to common features not found in English. Thus, both the historical and comparative linguistic evidence points to a single historical source for English Black Atlantic.French Black Atlantic. Varieties of French Black Atlantic, as mentioned are spoken in the islands of the Caribbean, West Africa and the Indian Ocean. Morris Goodman (19xx), of Northwestern University, demonstrated that they most likely were derived from a common proto-language. 4.4. Sabir Hypothesis.

The structural similarities of the Black Atlantic languages began to give rise to speculation about the possibility that these too languages may have been related as well. The argument goes like this: During the middle ages, a lingua franca known as Sabir was spoken by sailors in the Mediterranean Sea. From what little we know of it, Sabir had a very flexible vocabulary in that one could use it with French, Portuguese, or other vocabulary while maintaining the same syntax. This practice of relexification, may be far more common than supposed. For example, Gumperz reported a situation not all that different reported in South Asia. The Sabir hypothesis argues that it was this language that the Portuguese took with them as they went down the coast of West Africa in the 15th century. This explains the Portuguese Black Atlantic varieties in islands of Cape Verde and Sao Thome. Gradually, other European nations joined in the lucrative trade with West Africa, and the hypothesis argues that relexification of Sabir into French and English took place. As all these varieties settled on land under the control of a single European power, the need to relexify was lost and the three major strands of Black Atlantic arose, and the rest, as they say, is history.

The argument for this development is intriguing for it proposes to bring together and explain a wide range of language developments. However, the evidence in support of the Sabir Hypothesis is scant. The lexical similarities between the three strands of Black Atlantic are few, though two already mentioned, pikin and sabi, are of Portuguese origin. Other arguments

vocabulary not of English origin: pikin ‘child’ and sabi ‘to know’ thought to be from Portuguese;

tense/aspect markers used in much the same way: bin ‘past’ and dn ‘perfect’;

use of na for emphasis; use of a particle (often f or na) to introduce locative

phrases.


include the use of emphatics and the tense aspects.18 As a result, most linguists tend to suspend judgment on this hypothesis or reject it all together.4.5. Summary: Polygenesis and Monogenesis.

The debate between polygenesis and monogenesis is really one of how often do pidgins arise and stabilize as creoles?. At one end of this spectrum is the (polygenesis) position that they arise and stabilize whenever people of different language backgrounds have a need to communicate. At the other end is the Sabir hypothesis that claims that all of the Black Atlantic languages, as well as those of southeastern Asia have a common ancestor known as Sabir. In between these extremes are a number of views, such as one that accepts the unity of English (and French and Portuguese) Black Atlantic, but does not accept the Sabir Hypothesis. Each of these views relies on different theoretical assumptions to explain their conclusions. Bickerton, for example relies on the role of Universal Grammar to account for the unity of these languages. Consequently, the debate is not simply one of polygenesis versus monogenesis, but one about the nature of language and language development. Debates, if we can call them such, are a very healthy part of academic activity for they often lead to greater questioning of basic assumptions and to the quest for additional data, such as the nature of Sabir, or the type of pidgin English spoken in Sierra Leone before the arrival of the Krios.5. Ebonics: a language or a dialect.

We take up the question of Ebonics in chapter 14.5. Whole language.

6. The Globalization of English

Although English is not the most widely spoken language, it is truly a global language. This

is so because it is associated with a number of global institutions. It is, for example, the lingua

franca of airline pilots around the world. Academics, whose first language is other than English

often choose to publish in English because of the vast readership it will reach. This is true not

only of subnational or regional languages like Catalan, Mende and Marathi, but national

languages as well like Dutch, German, Japanese and Hindi. This strategy allows access to

academics in other countries as well as their own.

The popularity of English, originally spoken only on parts of an island in the North Sea can

be attributed to the institution of colonialism that spread English imperialism around the planet.

The same can be said for the other European language of French, Spanish and to some extent

German. However, to facilitate this discussion, I will stick to English. In many colonies where

18 Need a reference for Sabir.


English was imposed, it took hold for a variety of reasons. It served as a lingua franca in

countries that were linguistically diverse (cf. the description of Sierra Leone). And it served as

the language of the newly created elite who used the colonial language to maintain their power.

First, their command of English enabled them to staff the civil service. Second, it enabled this

class to serve as intermediaries between the British and the colonized people. This not only

permitted the elites to interpret the British point of view to their advantage, but to control access

of others to the British administrators.

As English ensconced itself, colonial writers, novelists (Achebe, Peters), political critics

(Kenyatta, Ezikewe, Mandela), scholars (Crowther, xx and yy, preferred to writing in English,

even though this practice excluded the vast majority of their countrymen. One notable

exception to this is Ngugi wa Thiango, a Kikuyu-speaking Kenyan who initially wrote in English

but finally declared that this was wrong.

Asmara declaration.

7. Endangered languages and revitalization1. Native American Languages2. African Languages

9. Summary

Questions for Study and Review

Suggested Readings

Documents

The Consequences of Language · Web viewThis means that multilingual communities are quite ordinary occurrences, even if they are not familiar to us. Mandarin English Hindi Spanish