Reconstructing sociolinguistic situations: Test case East Africa

Maarten MousLeiden University, RCLT, La Trobe

Credo: historical linguistics

• contact linguistics presumes the comparative method and does not aim at questioning it

• contact linguistics adds to a fuller understanding of the linguistics history; comparative method shows only part of the story and may give wrong impression of neat split

• scientific robustness of regular sound change in comparative method is absent in contact linguistics

Situations of language contact

• mixed population and bilingualism• migration:• expansion in small jumps• expulsion (ostracism as punishment) • economic links (group and individual)• client groups• growing up in other area (Cameroon)• generational language (Bonek)

Situations of language contact

• mixed marriage (Gorwaa)• marriage pattern (e.g. women from outside),• temporary emigration• refugees • trade• captives of war• charismatic founder of group (Saygilo doo

Magena)

Situations of language contact

• registers and special languages– register of respect, – initiation language– argot of hippo-hunters– spirit-possession language– taboo

Situations of language contact

• re-settlements

• multilingualism in the city

• seasonal work

• education

• radio

Patterns (stable?) of language policy

• mono-lingualism (Maasai)

• interpreters

• dominant language

• neutral lingua franca

• maximal multilingualism

• shift

contact <> change testcases

• comparable sociolinguistic

• linguistically comparable

• economically comparable

• culturally comparable

• different results

East Africa

• 4/5 language families. A lot of contact is across language family.

• extreme geographical differences

• language density/diversity is not extremely high; enough to have plenty of contact, not so much that it becomes unmanagable

• economic differences

Test cases

• Ma’á <> Taita

• Aasáx <> Akiek

• Iraqw <> Alagwa

• Datooga <> Maasai

Southern Cushitic

Southern Nilotic

Eastern Bantu

Northern Tanzania

Ma’á <> Taita

• Usambara and Taita mountains: Two mountain areas not far from each other.

• Once a Cushitic language was spoken.

• In Taita, now only Bantu;

• in Usambara a mixed language Ma’á.

Taita

• Two Bantu languages Saghala, Davida• Two former occupants: W-asi, Bisha• several hunter-gatherer groups around:

Degere, Vuna, (A)Laa, (A)Langulu, Waata.• Bisha agriculturalists; burial sites• Massive sets of Cushitic loans• some common with Cushitic lexemes in Ma’a• Saghala had a lateral fricative

Lateral fricative

• Wray (1894) used a trigraph tly in Sagala • now it is an implosive (palatalised?) voiced

velar stop written as g (Philippson)• Harris (1978) about Mbale-Davida: voiced

lateral fricative in positions where other dialects have a voiced alveolar fricative

• Williamson (1943) writes • Philippson: lateral realisation of r• some correspond with ɬ in Ma’a

Ma’á

• Mbugu or Ma’á in the Usambara mountains• they speak two languages. • these two languages share one grammar the

vocabulary is parallel. • “normal” Mbugu language is very similar to the Bantu

language Pare both in grammar and in lexicon. • “inner” Mbugu language (or Ma’á) has a lot of deviant

lexical material which is partly Southern Cushitic in origin

• it does not differ in grammar from “normal” Mbugu; • it is a parasite of Normal Mbugu (Mixed Language)

History scenario

• Pare mountains there was once an (Old Kenyan) Cushitic speaking group

• shifted to Pare (Chasu)• some left the Pare mountains for the Maasai

plains.• other remained and completed the shift fully• some went to the Usambara mountains later

History scenario

• Mbugu formed a servant group among the Maasai

• expansion of the parallel lexicon of language death situation

• considerable influx of Gorwaa people• fled to Usambara mountains• reconstitution of one single ethnic group with

(other) Mbugu• norm: cattle culture• initiation language in Vudee "Maasai"-Mbugu

Differences Taita/Pare - Ma’á

• two groups fused into one

• extra (Maasai, Gorwaa) foreign input

• influx from deviant culture, looks

Aasáx <> Akiek

• Two “dorobo” groups, i.e. subservient hunter-gatherer or people without cattle among the Maasai.

• One lost their language (Aasáx)

• the other retained their language (Akiek).

Akiek • In the middle of the Maasai plains • about 50? • honey specialists• beehives are made by the Cushitic Burunge• a Southern Nilotic language • very close/identical to the Okiek in Kenya • a bee hunting dorobo group. • no knowledge about their “brothers”. • contact with the Maasai in Maasai• no language death• homogeneous

Aasáx (Winter 1979)

Hunter-gatherers; dorobo among Maasai Story of the loss of their language: • Rinderpest • Maasai join Aasax as survival option• Maasai daytime village language• Aasáx acquired cattle• dominant language in settlement had changed• cultural identity had changed• when Maasai left the village; so did the others.

dorobo

• such groups attract drop-outs, adventurers and criminals

• can be ethnically very heterogeneous

Difference

• Shift cultural goal and economy

Alagwa <> Iraqw

• 10-20.000 vs >500.000

• Iraqw come from Alagwa area

• no dramatic linguistic changes

• recent bilingualism in Swahili

Alagwa

• widespread bilingualism in Bantu Rangi but not in interior

• Rangi neighbours

• once dominant political power (really?)

• slowly decreasing

• influx of Burunge women few centuries ago

• some admixture of Datooga

Lexical influence

• Burunge > Alagwa (double reflexes)

• Rangi > Alagwa

• Alagwa > Rangi

• Alagwa > Sandawe (economic influence)

• pre-Alagwa <> pre-Sandawe

Structural transfer

• word order influence: Rangi > Alagwa

• no pronunciation influence on Alagwa

• morphology: loss of final suffixes (Burunge)

Iraqw

• from 3 to 27 clans: immigrant society• linguistically and culturally: history of Iraqw-Datooga

contact• several Bantu clans > Iraqw, • Alagwa > Iraqw• Sandawe > Iraqw, • + Suule: What did the Suule speak? No recollection• shift without trace

history of Iraqw-Datooga contact

• highland plains were once Datooga

• but Iraqw before Datooga

• Iraqw-Datooga conflicts

• Hegemony: Iraqw, Datooga, Iraqw

• Iraqw bilingualism in Datooga in certain area

• More Datooga bilingualism in Iraqw now

• Datooga become farmers and Iraqw

Iraqw

• little dialect differentiation, no central organisation, migration within

• no neighbours

• some non-recent Bantu borrowings

• chupa > tupa > chupa

Datooga > Iraqw

• cultural vocabulary

• sentence connector

• indirectly, shape of “selectors”

• prepositions of space

• structural conditions > morphophonological reductions

Pre-Datooga > Pre-Iraqw lexicon

• warfare <cry to gather people to fight>, • leather work ‘leather bag for meat or honey’, • metal work ‘pair of metal spiral earrings’, • cow colours ‘brownish’, • cattle disabilities, ‘barren cow’, ‘cow without a womb’, • flora ‘acacia sp.’, ‘Acacia nilotica’, ‘tree sp.’, • fauna ‘tape worm’, ‘mythical giant snake’, ‘ostrich’, • body parts ‘beard’, ‘vagina’, ‘mane of lion’.

Datooga > Iraqw• warship and acquisition of glory: ‘sing songs to

acquire glory’, leather garments and decoration• metal and iron work: ‘neck ring of brass’• cattle colours and cattle terminology: of shining

colour’, ‘multicoloured cow with white sides’, ‘cow with a head of a different colour than the rest of the body’, ‘cow with huge black and white spots’

• cattle diseases: ‘cattle disease that involves immobility’, ‘rinderpest’

• cattle names: ‘cow acquired by ivory’, ‘cow acquired by a donkey’, ‘cow acquired during war’, ‘cow found on the road’, ‘cow with white tail’, ‘cow acquired to settle a debt’

• flora, fauna • body parts: ‘front of upper leg’, ‘collarbone’• culture: ‘dance in a circle’

Iraqw > Datooga

• cultural vocabulary

• reinterpretation of vowels and vowel harmony

• phonological contrast of two voiceless dorsal obstruents as reanalysis of ATR vowel harmony

• development of preverbal clitic cluster: transfer of structure, not of form

pre-Iraqw > pre-Datooga lexicon

• agriculture ‘beans’, ‘sweet potatoes’; ‘flower on the top of the maize plant’, ‘pestle’

• furniture and utensils in the house, ‘mat’; ‘bed’; ‘beer filter’

• cultural practices such as seclusion

• psychological concepts: ‘intelligence, soul’, ‘worry, grieve’

• communication: ‘greet’

Datooga and Maasai

In common

• two cattle complex people

• transhumance

• age sets

• Profound influence of Datooga on farming communities without economic shift: Iraqw, Nyaturu cattle acquired from Datooga

• Maasai no influence on farming communities

• Maasai: war, hatred, fear, disrespect

• Maasai more radical cattle people

• Southern Nilotes cattle+farming

• Prehistory: Sirikwa, Engaruka

Sprachbund Abflussloses Gebiet

Proto-West-Rift

Proto-Iraqwoid

Iraqw Gorwaa

Proto-South-West-Rift

Alagwa

Pre-Alagwa

Burunge

Pre-Burunge

Pre-West-Rift

PSN/POD: lexicon, suffixes of nominal derivation

Proto-East-African Khoisan: lexicon

Proto-East-African Bantu: lexicon, suffixes of nominal derivation, morphemes of verbal inflection

Datooga: lexicon, morphophonology

Proto-East-African Bantu: lexicon, nominal and verbal inflectional morphemes

Sandawe: lexicon

Langi: lexicon

Proto-North-West-Rift

Xatsoo-Alagwa?

convergence:

lexicon,

phonology,

verbal inflectional morphology,

syntax, semantics

convergence:

lexicon

(AL doublets?)

Proto-East-African Bantu: lexicon, syntax, morphosemanticsPre-Datooga: lexicon

Pre-Datooga: lexicon,

morphophonology,

syntax, semantics

heterogeneous groups of Pre-Datooga

morphological reduction and fusion

and Bantu: phonology,

Swahili: lexicon

Swahili: lexicon

Period Contact phenomena

contact with whom and in which domain

linguistic scenario relations of power and prestige

pwr > pswr

loans from Bantu;syntax, and morpho-semantics from Bantu

Bantu: marriages

language shift Bantu > pswr

pswr > Bantu

pwr > pnwr

few loans from Pre-Datooga

Pre-Datooga: trade

Some multi-lingualism pnwr and Pre-Datooga

Pre-Datooga > pnwr

pnwr > pal loans from pswr into pal;pal phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics from pswr

pswr-women: marriages with pal men

language shift of pswr-women to pal

pal > pswr

pnwr > pre-iraqw

Loans from Pre-DatoogaReduction and fusion in morphophonology (Datooga restrictions)Semantics and syntax of spatial preposition from Pre-Datooga

Pre-irq as lingua franca in mixed marriages with pre-Datooga

Incomplete language shift Bantu and Pre-Datooga to pirq

pirq > Pre-Datooga > Bantu

Pre-Barabaiga > pirq

Pre-irqaqw > iraqw

loans from Datooga, Swahili

Datooga: marriages with Iraqw

language shift Datooga to Iraqw multi-lingualism Iraqw and Swahili; as well as Datooga

Swahili > Iraqw > Datooga

pal > al loans from Langi and Swahili

Langi:trade, religion (Islam), marriages

Swahili: administration, education

multi-lingualism al‑lan‑swa

language shift al to lan

Swahili > Langi > Alagwa

pswr > pbu nominal and verbal inflectional morphology from Bantu

Bantu: marriages with Pre-Burunge

incomplete language shift Bantu to pbu

pbu > Bantu

pbu > bu loans from Langi, Swahili and Sandawe

Langi: trade, marriages.

Swahili: education and administration

multi-lingualism bu‑lan‑swa

language shift bu to lan

swa > lan > bu

Tanzanian Rift Valley Sprachbund

Bantu Southern Cushitic

Southern Nilotic Sandawe / Hadza

P1 lateral fricative

- *PWR *PSN > /ʃ/ SandaweHadza

P2 ejective obstruents

- *PWR - SandaweHadza

P3 contrast of /k/ vs. /q/

> Nyaturu (<Pre-Datooga)

*PWR < WR Sandawe Hadza

P4 no voiced fricatives

- *PWR Pre-Datooga Sandawe Hadza

(P5 7-vowel system

Bantu (F zone) - > Datooga -)

Tanzanian Rift Valley Sprachbund

G1 preverbal clitic complex

> Nyaturu

*PWR > Datooga Hadza

G2 verbal plurality

? > *PWR > Datooga Sandawe

G3 applicative *EAB > *PWR Pre-Datooga ?

G4 ventive *EAB > *PWR Pre-Datooga Sandawe

G5 ≥ 2 past tense

*EAB > *PWR > *PNWR

> Datooga ?

G6 ≥ 1 future *EAB > Pre-Burunge

> Pre-Datooga ?

Tanzanian Rift Valley Sprachbund

G7 subjunctive ‑ee *EAB > *PWR - Sandawe

G8 laa for irrealis *EAB (future)

*PSWR (optative)

- ?

G9 infinitive + auxiliary order

> Rangi, Mbugwe

*PWR - ?

G10 head initial NPs *EAB > *PWR Pre-Datooga Hadza

G11 prepositions *EAB > *PIRQ < Pre-Datooga

Pre-Datooga ?

Tanzanian Rift Valley Sprachbund

G12 SVO *EAB > *PSWR - Hadza

G13 body part nouns > prepositions

? > *PIRQ Pre-Datooga ?

G14 polysemy ‘in’ and ‘under’

? < PIRQ Pre-Datooga ?

G15 “belly” in emo tional concepts

? < PIRQ Pre-Datooga ?

Linguistic manipulation in the area

• respect registers: Datooga, Nyakyusa

• other taboo: limited

• initiation/secret society languages: unknown

reconstructing past contact situations

• Assumption: contact situations in the past are not different from those now

• If all things equal the simplest wins

• Propose scenario to explain present outcome

problems with the scenario game

• limits of imagination

• never are all other things equal

Language contact change

• transfer without shift (borrowing)

• transfer with shift (imposition)

(bilingualism)

• code-switching

• language manipulation (emblematic/respect)

• lexicon transfer

Examples of contact

• Borrowing: Datooga > Iraqw

• Shift: Iraqw > Datooga

• Code-Switching: Sheng

• Identity: Ma’a

• Respect: Khoi-San > Nguni

Contact no change

• shift without change

• borrowing undone

• code-switching with no lasting effect

• argot disappears

• taboo recycles

End result Contact change

Sociolinguistic event

Historical event

Mixed language Ma’a

“Replacive” borrowing in core vocab

Creation of ethnic identity

Growth of Iraqw

- Complete shift

migration

Contact change in lexicon

• “Additive” borrowing: Taita Bantu, Iraqw, Datooga, Algawa: Complete shift

• “Replacive” borrowing in core vocabulary: Ma’a (Khoisan>Nguni): lexical manipulation for identity / respect (possibly distinguishable)

Contact change in phonology

• lateral fricative in Taita (but disappeared): carry over of pronunciation in transferred lexicon: stage in shift

• lateral fricative in Ma’a: replacement as manipulation: identity formation

• split in Datooga k/q and vowel reduction: reinterpretation of phonetic differences/adaptation to old language habits: shift with trace

• Morphophonological reductions in Iraqw: restrictions of old language: shift with trace

Structural changes

spatial preposition in Iraqw: carry over of concept and structure from old language (D): shift with trace

etc

structural changes in shift

• Bilingualism of e.g. Datooga in Iraqw.

• Iraqw dominant language

1. Pronunciation habits and surface syntax of Datooga in Iraqw speech

2. Categorisation, meaning, structure of Datooga in Iraqw speech

3. Categorisation, meaning, structure of in Iraqw Datooga speech

Which changes materialize

• 3 often disappears because these speakers shift to Iraqw. But if they don’t and influence rest of Datooga or if their speech becomes a new language, it may look the opposite (shift Iraqw to Datooga) (Ma’a)

• 1,2 whether these changes spread to all speakers depends on linguistic and non-linguistic factors

Factors

• linguistic complications, simplifications, advantages in the receiving language

• prestige shifters

• number of shifters

• are they mothers

• do they remain an ethnic entity

Proposed correlations socio-history language change

• Guy-Ross based on Van Coetsem

borrowing imposition

dominant language of bilinguals

recipient language

source language

I II I II

Agents of change

native speakers

non-native

non-native native

Social motivation to adopt change

prestige emblema-ticity

communicative need

communicative simplicity

to resist change

emblema-ticity

... ... emblematicity

Structural domains

words, morphemes

words phonology syntax

borrowing

dominant language of bilinguals

recipient language

I II

Agents of change native non-native

Social motivation to adopt change

prestige emblematicity

to resist change emblematicity ...

Structural domains unstable first

words, morphemes words

imposition

source languageI II

non-native native

communicative need

communicative simplicity

... emblematicity

stable first

phonology syntax

dominant language of bilinguals

Agents of change

Social motivation to adopt change

to resist change

Structural domains

Van Coetsem framevan Coetsem 1988,2001, Winford 2003

• Differences in stability across language components (grammar more stable than lexicon)

• Recipient language agentivity (borrowing)

• Source language agentivity (imposition)

• Linguistic dominance (not social) in bilingualism

contact situations

1. Recipient L agentivity AB

2. Source L agentivity AB

Agents / Agentivity

imitation / adaptation

1: borrowing

2: imposition

processes in individual

Examples

• RecL activity, borrowing, extreme case Media Lengua Quechua with every lexeme borrowed from Spanish

• SourceL activity: structures of dominant language in recipient language. Dominant language can be the new language influencing the language which is in process of being abandoned in cognitive and grammatical structure. Asia Minor Greek (RL): Turkish (SL) dominant. (and RL activity when speaking T)

Additions by Reh

If only migration as cause for contact

Added factors

• Intensity of contact

• Linguistic heterogeneity of community

Other factors

• identifiable group after “migration”

• degree of bilingualism

• language attitude

• size of group

• prestige

Individual – Community

• Model refers to the mind of the individual

• Essential is language as social construct:

establishment of the norm

Shift

• complete shift (common ?)

• shift with effect of original language on recognizable community; with effect on language as a whole

• shift with carry over of vocabulary (e.g. pygmy technical vocabulary)

• arrested shift, u-turn when too late, re-borrowing of original vocabulary

How common is shift without a trace

• Nyaturu > Sandawe

• Many Iraqw clans

• Datooga among Alagwa

• Mbugu-Pare speakers

Shift with trace

• Bisha > Saghala

• X > Pare (Ma’á)

• Iraqw > Datooga

• Datooga > Iraqw

• Burunge > Alagwa

Other Comparable situations

• Northern Songhay

• Mozambican Swahili

• Pygmies

• Creole studies

• etc

languages of pygmiesDuke, Daniel 2001 Aka as a contact language: sociolinguistic and grammatical evidence. MA University of Texas at Arlington.

• speak different languages• which probably were once language of their

patron• also speak language of patron• pygmy special vocabulary• patrons and their language are link and

obstacle to outside world (forest pygmies have better knowledge of languages of wider communication)

Creole languages

• study link socio-history and outcome of language change

• similar sociolinguistic situations for a number of them

• similar outcome

• imcomplete second language acquisition

Mixed LanguagesBakker

• grammar and (basic) lexicon not from the same source

• originate in new communities of systematic mixed marriage: mother’s grammar with father’s lexicon

• originate as extended argot of itinerant and other groups who maintain identity under pressure: grammar of dominant language, deviant lexicon

• note the genetic difference for the two scenario’s

prospects of multidisciplinary

• need for chronology, time depth

• need for quantative approach

• indication for some factors from archeology, genetics, not for language attitude, communication policy