Wendy Kempsell 2-10-2009

Superstrate Substrate German Tok Pisin English Melanesian languages (Kuanua)

 All speakers are fluent in Tok Pisin and most speak Standard German or English.

 Developed at the Vunapope Catholic Mission, a boarding school run by German missionaries.

  1884: Germany ruled Kaiser Wilhelms Land and Bismarck Archipelego; based administration out of Rabaul. No great effort was made to stop the use of Tok Pisin as lingua franca.

  Heterogeneous population: German, English, Filipino, Chinese, Australian, Tolai, Guamese, Malay

  Migrant workers and colonists married local women.   1897: Catholic missionaries established a school at

Vunapope for the children of nonindigenous fathers: children were only allowed occasional visits to their mothers’ families.

  Children had limited exposure to either their mothers’ or their fathers’ languages.

  First language was most likely Tok Pisin.   1900: German colonial government attempted

(unsuccessfully) to replace Pidgin English with German.   School was taught in German: Tok Pisin was not allowed.

 Students used Tok Pisin with each other, and began replacing TP words with German ones

 Unserdeutsch stabilized quickly.  1914: Australian rule of New Guinea.  Fathers left New Guinea, and very few took

their family.  1914-1945: school had 100-200 students at

any time.  Instruction was changed to English.  The first students tended to marry other

students; home language was Unserdeutsch.

  After World War II the school was taught with the Australian syllabus, and German was prohibited

  American and Australian teachers

  Less students had knowledge of Standard German: some teachers even learned Unserdeutsch.

  The community dispersed, more married outside of Vunapope and some became Australian citizens.

  1975: independence from Australia. Instead of becoming Papua New Guinean citizens, most Unserdeutsch speakers moved to Australia.

  1980: estimates that only around 100 fluent speakers.

  Very few speakers today. The community is still strong, but only older members use Unserdeutsch.

 Great variation within the community •  Generational: Older speakers were taught in

German, while younger speakers were taught in English.

•  Possible variation due to discomfort in speaking with outsiders.

 Due to formal schooling, it is almost impossible to find a basilectal level of Unserdeutsch.

 26 phonemes  9 vowels: / i, ɪ, e, ɛ, a, ɔ, o, ʊ, u/  Simplification of some consonant clusters SG /Ix/ is /I/ in UD. /nIxt/ realized as /nI/ or /nIxt/ .

 Great variation in phonology.  As in southern dialects of German,

contains /w/ and apical /r/.

  Word Order: SVO (no changes after auxiliaries or for questions) UD I wird bleib zwei Woche in Lae

I will stay two week in Lae

SD Ich werde zwei Wochen in Lae bleiben. I will two weeks in Lae stay

  Serial verbs: UD Du holen diese Eimer komm! you:SNG fetch this bucket come TP Yu kisim dispela bucket i kam. you:SNG fetch this bucket PM come

Bring this bucket.

UD Du laufen geht wo? you:SNG run go where TP Yu ran i go we?

you:SNG run PM go where Where are you running to?

  ‘Fi’ complementizer UD I bin am denken fi kaufen ein Ferd.

I am PPT think for buy a horse I’m thinking of buying a horse.

  Plural marker ‘alle’ (TP ol)

  Definite and indefinite articles, but not inflected for case or gender •  Definite ‘de’ Indefinite ‘ein’

  Inclusive pronoun ‘uns’ and exclusive pronoun ‘wir’

  Copula •  Not only is there a copula, but it is inflected for person and

tense. •  The only verb that is always conjugated for person and

number.

  Tense •  Tense does not need to be specified if a previous sentence already set the

action in the past. •  A sentence not marked for tense can be set in the present or the future or have

no time reference. •  No difference between imperfect and perfect past. Past tense is formed with

past participle or the copula.   3 modal verbs:

UD will kann muss SG wollen koennen muessen want to can must

  Durative form similar to English continuous UD Der Mensch, wo is am bauen de Haus, hat gehauen sein Finger. the person who is PPT build the house has hit his finger

The person who’s building the house has hit his finger.

  Passive constructions UD De Chicken war gestohlen bei alle Raskol

the chicken was stolen by PL thieves The chicken was stolen by the thieves.

 http://www.uni-koeln.de/gbs/unserdeutsch/rumpelstiltskin.html

 Story told in Unserdeutsch and transcribed.

  Fits the description of a Creole: •  Arose out of a pidgin which existed for less than a generation •  No more than 20% of population were speakers of the dominant

language   Interesting Exception: the speakers already had Tok

Pisin as a common language.   No one outside the community learned the language.

  Secret Language?

  Unserdeutsch “must be regarded as a creole which became a postcreole continuum before stable creole norms could establish themselves.” Muehlaeusler (1984)

Arends, J., Muysken, P. , and Smith, N. (1995) Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction. Creole language library, v. 15. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins.

Klein, T.B. (2004): Creole phonology typology: Phoneme inventory size, vowel quality distinctions and stop consonant series in Bhatt, P. & Plag, I. (eds.): The structure of Creole words: Segmental, syllabic and morphological aspects. (pp. 3-21. ) Tuebingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag,.

Muhlhausler, P. (1984). Tracing the roots of Pidgin German. Language and Communication, 4(1), 27-57.

Unserdeutsch (Rabaul Creole German). (n.d.). Retrieved February 9, 2009 from Gesellschaft fuer Bedrohte Sprachen e.V.: http://www.uni-koeln.de/gbs/unserdeutsch/index.html

Volker, C. (1989): Rabaul Creole German Syntax in: Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 21 / 1", University of Hawai'i: Department of Linguistics (p. 153 – 189)

Volker, C. (1991). The birth and decline of Rabaul Creole German. Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, 22(1-2), 143-156.