Zones of intense linguistic contact and the situation of the Southern Caribbean
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/sss.v15i2.152276Keywords:
Relexification, Southern Caribbean, Dutch-based creoles, Core-Periphery division, historical documentationAbstract
A number of areas on the world linguistic map show accretions of linguistic systems which have undergone intense exchange of features, including high degrees of (perforce) partial relexification, or extreme borrowing, in which preexisting features of a language are replaced by forms originating in other linguistic systems. These constitute a special kind of linguistic process, related to other language contact phenomena such as syntactic and semantic metatypy, cultural borrowing and unnecessary borrowing. Parts of the Southern Caribbean, specifically the former Netherlands Antilles, Suriname, French Guiana and Guyana, constitute area where such phenomena are common (McWhorter & Good 2012; Jacobs 2012; Parkvall & Jacobs 2023). This is a region in which contact-induced change has resulted in patterns of borrowing, some of which are quite rare, such as a form of the Core-Periphery division with a very slender core of inherited morphs (Grant 2019), and others which are simply very rarely attested elsewhere in the world. The interaction of these rare patterns of borrowing is also most unusual. Historical documentation and evidence from related languages enable us to see much of how this cluster of borrowing patterns, and the creation of this zone of intense linguistic contact, came about. Focus is on three creoles within the domain of the Dutch sphere of influence in the region: Saramaccan, Papiamentu, and Berbice Dutch, which are placed in a broader regional and global context.
References
Arends, Jacques. 2017. Language and slavery: A social and linguistic history of the Suriname Creoles [Creole Language Library 52]. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Bakker, Peter. 2004. Låneord fra dansk i vestafrikanske og vestindiske sprog [Loanwords from Danish in West African and West Indian languages]. Mål & Mæle 27(3): 28–32.
Bakker, Peter. 2009. The Saramaccan lexicon: Verbs. In Rachel Selbach, Hugo C. Cardoso & Margot van den Berg (eds.), Gradual Creolization. Studies Celebrating Jacques Arends, pp. 155–72. [Creole Language Library (CLL), 34]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI: 10.1075/cll.34.13bak.
Benítez-Torres, Carlos M. & Anthony P. Grant. 2017. On the origin of some Northern Songhay mixed languages. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 32(2): 263–303. DOI: 10.1075/jpcl.32.2.03ben.
Bhatia, Tej Krishan. 1993. Punjabi: A cognitive-descriptive grammar [Descriptive Grammars]. London: Routledge. Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. London: George Allan & Unwin.
Bøegh, Kristoffer Friis, Peter Bakker, Cefas van Rossem & Rasmus Christensen. 2022. Seven newly discovered 18th and 19th century Virgin Islands Dutch Creole texts. In Nicholas Faraclas, Ronald Severing, Sally J. Delgado, Elisabeth Echteld & Wim Rutgers (eds.), Caribbean convivialities and Caribbean sciences: Inclusive approaches to the study of the languages, literatures and cultures of the Dutch Caribbean and beyond, pp. 93–116. Willemstad: University of Curaçao.
Boretzky, Norbert. 1992. Zum Erbwortschatz des Romani. Zeitschrift fur Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationforschung 45: 227–51.
Borin, Lars, Comrie, Bernard & Saxena, Anju. 2013. The Intercontinental Dictionary Series – a rich and principled database for language comparison. In Lars Borin & Anju Saxena (eds.), Approaches to measuring linguistic differences, pp. 285–302. De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110305258.285.
Bunis, David M. 2018. Judezmo (Ladino/Judeo-Spanish): A historical and sociolinguistic portrait. In Benjamin Hary & Sarah Bunin Benor (eds.), Languages in Jewish communities, past and present, pp. 185–238. De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9781501504631-008.
Casper, Berard & Salvator Schlaefer. 1944. A grammar of the Miskito language. Marathon, WI: Divina Pastora Society.
Chaudenson, Robert & Salikoko S. Mufwene. 2001. Creolization of language and culture. London; New York: Routledge.
Clark, Ross. 1982. ‘Necessary’ and ‘unnecessary’ borrowing. In Amram Halim, Lois Carrington & S. A. Wurm (eds.), Papers from the Third International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, vol. 3: Accent on variety, pp. 137–43. Canberra, A.C.T: Pacific Linguistics.
Clark, Ross. 2004. “Necessary” and “unnecessary” borrowing. In Jan Tent & Paul Geraghty (eds.), Borrowing: A Pacific perspective, pp. 33–39. Canberra, A.C.T: Pacific Linguistics. Available online: http://sealang.net/archives/pl/pdf/PL-548.33.pdf (accessed 9 October 2024).
Coleman, Robert. 1990. The assessment of lexical mortality and replacement between old and modern English. In Sylvia M. Adamson, Vivien A. Law, Nigel Vincent & Susan Wright (eds.), Papers from the 5th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 65], pp. 69–88. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI: 10.1075/cilt.65.08col.
Comrie, Bernard. 2000. Language contact, lexical borrowing and semantic fields. In D. Gilbers, J. Nerbonne & J. Schaeken (eds.), Languages in contact, pp. 73–86. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
DeGraff, Michel. 2002. Relexification: A reevaluation. Anthropological Linguistics 44(4): 321–414.
Elsie, Robert W. 1983. Lexicostatistics and its application to Brittonic Celtic. Studia Celtica 18–19: 110–127.
Elšík, Viktor. 2009. Loanwords in Selice Romani, an Indo-Aryan language of Slovakia. In Martin Haspelmath & Uri Tadmor (eds.), Loanwords in the world’s languages, pp. 260–303. Walter de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110218442.260.
Embleton, Sheila M. 1986. Statistics in historical linguistics [Quantitative Linguistics 30]. Bochum: Studienverlag Brockmeyer.
Farfán, J. M. 1954. Cronología Quechua-Aymara según el cálculo léxico estadístico. Revista del Museo Nacional (Lima) 23: 52–57.
Good, Jeff. 2009a. A twice-mixed creole?: Tracing the history of a prosodic split in the Saramaccan lexicon. Studies in Language 33(2): 459–498. DOI: 10.1075/sl.33.2.09goo.
Good, Jeff. 2009b. Loanwords in Saramaccan, an English-based creole of Suriname. In Martin Haspelmath & Uri Tadmor (eds.), Loanwords in the world’s languages, pp. 918–943. Walter de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110218442.918.
Grant, Anthony (ed.). 2019. The Oxford handbook of language contact. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Grant, Anthony P. 2008a. A constructivist approach to the early history of Papiamentu. In Nicholas Faraclas, Ronald Severing & Christa Weijer (eds.), Linguistic studies in Papiamentu, pp. 73–116. Willemstad, Curaçao: Fundashon pa Planifikashion di Idioma.
Grant, Anthony P. 2008b. The Portuguese elements in Papiamentu. In Nicholas Faraclas, Ronald Severing & Christa Weijer (eds.), Linguistic studies in Papiamentu, pp. 47–71. Willemstad, Curaçao: Fundashon pa Planifikashion di Idioma.
Grant, Anthony P. 2012. Mindanao Chabacano and other “mixed creoles”: Sourcing the morphemic components. In Hugo C. Cardoso, Alan N. Baxter & Mário Pinharanda Nunes (eds.), Ibero-Asian creoles: Comparative perspectives [Creole Language Library, 46], pp. 327–364. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI: 10.1075/cll.46.12gra.
Hall Jr., Robert A. 1966. Pidgin and creole languages. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Haspelmath, Martin & Tadmor, Uri (eds.). 2009. Loanwords in the world’s languages: A comparative handbook. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Mouton.
Haurholm-Larsen, Steffen. 2016. A grammar of Garifuna. Bern: University of Bern.
Heath, Jeffrey. 1981. A case of intensive lexical diffusion: Arnhem Land, Australia. Language 57(2): 335–367. DOI: 10.2307/413694.
Hurren, H. 1971. A linguistic description of Istro-Rumanian. PhD thesis, University of Oxford.
Huttar, George L. & Velantie, Frank J. 1997. Ndyuka-Trio pidgin. In Sarah G. Thomason (ed.), Contact languages: A wider perspective [Creole Language Library (CLL), 17], pp. 99–124. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI: 10.1075/cll.17.07hut.
Jacobs, Bart. 2012. Origins of a creole: The history of Papiamentu and its African ties [Language Contact and Bilingualism 3]. Boston: De Gruyter Mouton.
Jacobs, Bart & Parkvall, Mikael. 2020. Skepi Dutch Creole: The Youd papers. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 35(2): 360–380. DOI: 10.1075/jpcl.00064.jac.
Jacobs, Bart & Parkvall, Mikael. 2023. Skepi Creole Dutch: The Rodschied papers. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages. DOI: 10.1075/jpcl.00116.jac.
Kessler, Brett. 2001. The significance of word lists [Dissertations in Linguistics]. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
Key, Mary Ritchie & Comrie, Bernard. 2023. The Intercontinental Dictionary Series. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Available online: https://ids.clld.org (accessed 8 November 2024).
Koefoed, Geert & Jacqueline Tarenskeen. 1996. The making of a language from a lexical point of view. In Herman Wekker (ed.), Creole languages and language acquisition, pp. 119–138. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI: 10.1515/9783110811049.119.
Kouwenberg, Silvia. 1992. Cliticization of pronouns in Berbice Dutch and Eastern Ijo. In Francis Byrne & John Holm (eds.), Atlantic meets Pacific: A global view of pidginization and creolization [Creole Language Library, 11]: 119–132. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI: 10.1075/cll.11.13kou.
Kouwenberg, Silvia. 1994. A grammar of Berbice Dutch Creole [Mouton Grammar Library 12]. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Kouwenberg, Silvia. 2012. The Ijo-derived lexicon of Berbice Dutch Creole: An a-typical case of African lexical influence. In Angela Bartens & Philip Baker (eds.), Black through white: African words and calques which survived slavery in creoles and transplanted European languages, pp. 135–154. London: Battlebridge Publications.
Ladhams, John. 1999. The Pernambuco connection? An examination of the nature and origin of the Portuguese elements in the Surinam Creoles. In Magnus Huber & Mikael Parkvall (eds.), Spreading the word: The issue of diffusion among the Atlantic creoles, pp. 209–240. London, UK: University of Westminster Press.
Lefebvre, Claire. 1986. Relexification in creole genesis revisited: The case of Haitian Creole. In Pieter Muysken & Norval Smith (eds.), Relexification in creole genesis revisited [Creole Language Library, 1], pp. 279–300. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI: 10.1075/cll.1.13lef.
Lefebvre, Claire. 2015. Relabeling in language genesis. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Lenz, Rodolfo. 1928. El Papiamento, la lengua criolla de Curazao. Santiago de Chile: Balcells.
Lipski, John M. 2020. Reconstructing the life-cycle of a mixed language: An exploration of Ecuadoran Media Lengua. International Journal of Bilingualism 24(2): 410–436. DOI: 10.1177/1367006919842668.
Ludolf, Hiob. 1702. Dissertatio de Harmonia Linguae Aethiopicae Cum Ceteris Orientalibus. Frankfurt am Main: Johannis David Zunner and Nicolas Wilhelm Helvig.
McWhorter, John & Good, Jeff. 2012. A grammar of Saramaccan Creole. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110278262.
Meira, Sergio & Muysken, Pieter. 2017. Cariban in contact: New perspectives on Trio-Ndyuka pidgin. In Kofi Yakpo & Pieter C. Muysken (eds.), Boundaries and bridges, pp. 197–228. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9781614514886-008.
Mufwene, Salikoko S. 2001. The ecology of language evolution. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511612862.
Muysken, Pieter. 1997. Media Lengua. In Sarah G. Thomason (ed.), pp. 365–426. DOI: 10.1075/cll.17.13muy.
Nater, Hank F. 2013. How Salish is Bella Coola?. In Joel Sherzer, Parick Littell & John Lyon (eds.), Papers for the 48th International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages, pp. 92–143. Vancouver B.C.: University of British Columbia.
Nater, Hank F. 2014. The position of Bella Coola within Salish: bound morphemes. In Natalie Weber, Emily Sadlier-Brown & Erin Guntly (eds.), Papers for the International Conference on Salish and Neighbouring Languages [University of British Columbia Working Papers in Linguistics 37 49].
Nater, Hank F. 2022. The Nuxalk language: lexicon, narratives, grammar. DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-.PPC20XL.v1.
Oldendorp, Christian Georg Andreas. 2000. Historie der caribischen Inseln Sanct Thomas, Sanct Crux und Sanct Jan: insbesondere der dasigen Neger und der Mission der evangelischen Brüder unter denselben kommentierte Ausgabe des vollständigen Manuskriptes aus dem Archiv der evangelischen Brüder-Unität Herrnhut [Abhandlungen und Berichte des Staatlichen Museums für Völkerkunde Dresden, 9;1]. Berlin: Verl. für Wissenschaft und Bildung.
Ownby, Carolan Postma. 1985. Early Nguni history: the linguistic evidence and correlation with archeology and oral tradition. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCLA.
Parkvall, Mikael & Jacobs, Bart. 2023. Returning a maverick creole to the fold: the Berbice Dutch enigma revisited. Folia Linguistica 57(1): 177–203. DOI: 10.1515/flin-2022-2051.
Rivera Castillo, Yolanda. 2022. A description of Papiamentu: A creole language of the Caribbean area [Grammars and Sketches of the World’s Languages. Contact Languages, 1]. Leiden; Boston: Brill.
Robertson, Ian. 1994. Berbiciaansche Woorde. Amsterdam Creole Studies 11: 65–74.
Robertson, Ian E. 1989. Berbice and Skepi Dutch: A lexical comparison. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde 105: 3–21.
Ross, Malcolm. 2007. Calquing and metatypy. Journal of Language Contact 1(1): 116–143. DOI: 10.1163/000000007792548341.
Salahudeen, Naseer. 2013. English-Sinhalese, Sinhalese-English Dictionary [One-to-One Series]. Edition 2013. London: Star Foreign Language Books, a unit of ibs BOOKS (UK).
Seifart, Frank. 2015a. Does structural-typological similarity affect borrowability?: A quantitative study on affix borrowing. Language Dynamics and Change 5(1): 92–113. DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00501004.
Seifart, Frank. 2015b. Direct and indirect affix borrowing. Language 91(3): 511–532. DOI: 10.1353/lan.2015.0044.
Smith, Alexander D. 2022. Thurgood’s “Proto-Chamic words of uncertain origin” revisited: An analysis of borrowing and culture history in Chamic languages. Ms.
Smith, Norval. 1987. The genesis of the creole languages of Surinam. Ph.D. Thesis, Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.10158.20801.
Smith, Norval. 1999. Pernambuco to Surinam 1654–1665? In Magnus Huber & Mikael Parkvall (eds.), Spreading the word, pp. 251–298. London (UK): Battlebridge.
Smith, Norval. 2015. A preliminary list of probable Gbe lexical items in the Surinam Creole languages. In Pieter Muysken & Norval Smith (eds.), Surviving the Middle Passage, pp. 463–476. De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110343977.463.
Smith, Norval & Hugo Cardoso. 2004. A new look at the Portuguese element in Saramaccan. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 3(2): 115–147. DOI: 10.5334/jpl.14.
Stein, Peter. 2002. Spanisches und Portugiesisches im Wortschatz nichtromanischer Kreolsprachen: Negerhollands und Saramaccan. In Kerstin Störl & Johannes Klare (eds.), Romanische Sprachen in Amerika. FS für Hans-Dieter Paufler zum 65. Geburtstag, pp. 379–386. Frankfurt am Main; New York: P. Lang.
Stolz, Thomas. 1984. Two chapters in Negro-Dutch (ND) etymology. (1) The Danish share in the ND-lexicon (2) Which forms should ND verbs be derived from? Amsterdam Creole Studies VII, Publikaties van het Instituut voor Algemene Taalwetenschap(44): 35–52.
Stolz, Thomas. 1998. Die Hispanität des Chamorro als wissenschaftliches Problem. Iberoamericana 22(2): 5–38.
Thomason, Sarah Grey & Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Thurgood, Graham. 1999. From ancient Cham to modern dialects: Two thousand years of language contact and change. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Van Gijn, Rik & Max Wahlström. 2023. Linguistic areas. In E. van Gijn, Max Wahlström & Anja Hasse (eds.), Language contact. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/ZENODO.8269244.
Voorhoeve, Jan. 1973. Historical and linguistic evidence in favour of the relexification theory in the formation of creoles. Language in Society 2(1): 133–145. DOI: 10.1017/S0047404500000099.
Wichmann, Søren & Cecil H. Brown. 2003. Contact among some Mayan languages: inferences from loanwords. Anthropological Linguistics 45(1): 57–93.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Anthony Grant
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
