Language contact studies - how languages mix due to contact

historical-comparative linguistics (genetic linguistics) studies language divergence over time

National (or Official) Language - official state language

    Ex.:  English, French in Africa, Russian, Chinese

Lingua franca - language used for general communication between several groups.  Example:  English in India.   

Effects of language contact on the history of languages

A. Contact-induced divergence (rare)

B. Contact-induced convergence (almost universal).  

Three types of convergence direction:

adstrate influence - between sociolinguistically equal groups

    Ex.:  words borrowed between distant languages

superstrate influence - from dominant group to subject groups

    Ex.: English throughout world, Russian in N. Asia, Chinese in SE Asia

substrate influence - from a language that disappears. 

    Ex: Aborigine in Welsh, Clicks in Southern Bantu

Several degrees of convergence intensity:

1. Contact but little bilingualism -> borrowing of cultural terms only.  

2. High degree of bilingualism -> some grammar and words shared

    Sprachbund - unrelated languages that share structural features due to long-term multilingualism between neighboring speech communities.

    Ex.:  Caucasus, North Pacific Coast, Balkans

3. High degree of intermarriage, mixing on a family level -> major grammatical, phonological and lexical changes Ex.: Bantu, Afrikaans in S. Africa

4. Abrupt language shift - entire adult community learns a new language rapidly and imperfectly creating an abrupt creole.  Ex.: Norman French

5. Pidgin (makeshift language spoken natively by no one) becomes a native language, called a creole (or pidginized creole)

Ex.: 17th c. Black English, modern Gullah in Georgia, Tok Pisin in New Guinea.

Decreolization - more and more words of one parent language added - Black English in much of US, Haitian Creole (French)

6. Language intertwining - words of one language, grammar of another deliberately mixed to form a new language form (rare)

    a. Grammar of general society, but words of in-group language (like Jabberwoky poem) - goal is to seem like part of the general community but not to be understood by outsiders

    Example:  mixed Romani (Gypsy) English.

    b. Grammar of mother's language, words of father's language Goal: to form a new linguistic identity for a new ethnic group

Ex:  Michif -mixed Cree-French language spoken by Métis in Western Canada