Language Contact - Linguistics @ HKU

Transcription

LING6029 Current Issues in Linguistics:
Topic 2: Language Contact, Creolization,
Competition and Death
Lecturer: Dr. Tao GONG
Office: 923, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus,
Phone: 3917 8603
Email: [email protected]
Department of Linguistics
The University of Hong Kong
Outline

World languages;

Language Contact;

Pidgins and Creoles;
 Examples of Pidgins and Creoles;
 Daohua: Admixture of language and culture;
 Creolization patterns;

Language Competition and Death;
Languages families (“similar” communal languages)
Sinitic languages: DeneCaucasion;
Koren/Japanese: Eurasiatic;
Cavalli-Sforza & Feldman (2003). Nature
Genetics, 33s: 266–75.Department
Classification
by
of Linguistics
Joseph Greenberg. The University of Hong Kong
Languages in China: Dene-Caucasian
Dene-Caucasian family
Yeniseian
Berling land bridge
Na-Dene
Postponement of glottal stop also occurs in
the words for stone, utensil, bow, and foot.
Ruhlen, M. 1998. The origin of the Na-Dene.
PNAS, 95: 13994-13996.
Diamond, J. 2011. Deep relationships between languages. Nature 476.291-292
Basic words
Basic words: stable, hard to borrow (Sawdesh 1971)
1. Objects:
ashes smoke stone tree bark root leaf seed sand fire salt mountain
cloud rain wind water sun moon star
person man woman
2. Body parts:
belly blood bone breast ear egg eye foot hair hand head heart knee liver meat
mouth neck nose skin tongue tooth
3. Animals:
bird feather dog claw horn fish tail louse
4. Verbs:
come bite burn die drink eat fly give hear kill know lie say see sit sleep stand
swim walk
5. Adjectives:
all big black cold dry fat full good green long many new red round small warm
white yellow
6. Pronouns and others:
I we what who one two this that thou road earth not night name year
Swadesh, Morris. (1971). The origin and diversification of language. Edited post mortem
by Joel Sherzer. Chicago: Aldine. ISBN 202-01001-5. Contains p 283 The
finalUniversity
100-word
of list!
Hong Kong
Language trees
Branch lengths are estimated by the similarity of linguistic components,
e.g., similarity among the basic words (written forms / sounds, etc.)
Examples:
Wang, William S-Y. 1998. Three windows on the past. p.530 in The Bronze Age and Early
Iron Age Peoples of Eastern Central Asia. U.Pennsylvania Museum Publications.
Language trees
Branch lengths also indicate estimates of time depth, allowing
approximate dates of the most recent common ancestors (MRCA) of
related sub-families to be determined.
Over 6,000 languages (communal languages) in the world
These three regions host over
90% of the world languages
Language contact

Language contact: prolonged association between the speakers of
different languages within and among different social communities
(Thomason & Kaufman, 1988; Thomason, 2001);
 Contact is via idiolects;
 Outcomes shown in communal language;
 Contact is achieved in a mesohistory timescale:

Mesohistory timescale: centuries or millennia (glossogeny) (Wang,
1991);
 Synchronic change (within one or a few generations);
 Diachronic change (within centuries or millennia);
Thomason, S. G. & Kaufman, T. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic
Linguistics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Thomason, S. G. 2001. Language Contact: An Introduction. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh
University Press.
Wang, W. S-Y. 1991. The three scales of diachrony. In Explorations in Language,
edited
by
Department
of Linguistics
William S-Y. Wang, 60-71. Taipei: Pyramid Press.
Processes of language contact


Variance diffusion: shift in proportions of different variants used by a
population of individuals over time (Nakamura et al., 2007):
Contact induced variances:
 Phonological variance:
 e.g., invasion of clicks from Khoisan languages of southern
Africa into some neighboring Bantu languages (e.g., Zulu) in
middle Africa;
 e.g., elimination of checked tones in Chinese, due to invasion of
northeastern dialects;
 Grammatical variance:
 e.g., word order, morphological markers, etc., as in Daohua;
 Lexical variance:
 e.g., borrowed words, etc.;
Nakamura, M., Hashimoto, T., & Tojo, S. (2007). Language change among ‘memoryless
learners’ simulated in language dynamics equations. In: Lyon, C., Nehaniv, C. L., Cangelosi, A.
(eds.), Emergence of communication and language. London: Springer. pp.
237–252.
Lexical borrowing

Lexical borrowing (loanwords): adoption of individual words or even large
sets of vocabulary items from another language or dialect;

Loanwords in English:

Music, ballet, champagne from French;

arsenal, balcony, casino, gondola, torso, studio, violin from Italian;

armada, adobe, coyote, tornado from Spanish;

czar, icon, vodka from Russian;
“Skol” (Skull) beer

noodle, hamburger, U-boat from German;

jazz, zebra, woodoo from African languages;

avatar from Sanskrit;

pajamas from Hindi;

chop suey, tea, ginseng, kowtow, lychee from Chinese;

geisha, kamikaze, karaoke, kimono, samurai, sushi, tsunami from Japanese;

Loanwords in Mandarin or Cantonese:

写真, 电话, 民主, 科学, 逻辑, 经济, 主义 from Japanese;

巴士, 士多啤梨, 沙发, 维他命, 的士, 摩托, 卡通 from English;
Outcomes of language contact

Competition and endangerment: due to competing for speakers, one
or more contacting languages may fall out of use (Crystal, 2000):
 e.g., minority languages in Southwest China (e.g., Zhuang, Yi, or
Naxi) are endangered due to competition with Putonghua;

Bilingualism, multilingualism, and code-switching: all are common in a
society with two or more frequently used languages (Appel &
Muysken, 2005):
 e.g., Cantonese-English bilinguals in Hong Kong;

Language convergence: merging of lexical, morphological, or
syntactic features of contacting languages (Matras & Bakker, 2003).
Crystal, D. (2000). Language Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
APPEL, R. & Muysken, P. (2005). Language Contact and Bilingualism. London: Edward Arnold.
MATRAS, Y. & Bakker, P. (eds.) 2003. The Mixed Language Debate: Theoretical and Empirical
Advances. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Outcomes of language contact

Outcomes of language convergence:
 Lexical or grammatical borrowing: e.g., borrowed English words in
Chinese and vice versa (Cheng 1987);
 Pidgin/creoles: creation of varieties to serve a general
communicative need between groups having no common
languages (Mufwene 2001): e.g., Daohua in Sichuan, China, due
to contact between Chinese and Tibetan (Atshogs 2004);
 Admixture (mixed language): e.g. Wutun language in Qinghai,
China, as a Chinese-Tibetan-Mongolian mixed language (LeeSmith & Wurm, 1996).
Cheng, R. L. (1987). Borrowing and internal development in lexical change. Journal of Chinese
Linguistics, 15: 105-131.
Mufwene, S. S. (2001). The Ecology of Language Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Atshogs, Y. V. (2004). Research on Daohua. Beijing: Ethnic Publishing House.
Lee-Smith, M. W. & Wurm, S. A. (1996). The Wutun language. In: S. A. Wurm, P. Mühlhäusler,
and D. T. Tyron (Eds.), Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia,
and the Americas (pp. 883-898). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Factors affecting contact

Speakers’ attitudes towards languages may cause one or more
languages to lose its or their speakers:
 e.g., competition between Mandarin and minority languages in
China.
 Linguistic, as well as social, economic or political reasons can
lead to these attitudes.

Communicative pressures cause bilingualism and other
convergence cases;
 e.g., Daohua;

Salience/preferences of forms:
 e.g., in lexical borrowing, borrowed forms are preferred by
speakers;
Pidgins and creoles




Pidgin: a ‘language’ has little syntax or no syntax, just ‘stringing
words together’.
A Pidgin is nobody’s native language;
Creole: is a language with developed syntax created from a Pidgin.
Creoles have native speakers;

Creolization: a process that can happen in a single generation, by a
generation of children brought up in a Pidgin-speaking community;

Creolization is a process of language origin;
Example of Pidgin

Chinese Pidgin English (CPE):
 Developed as a trade language
between Western and Chinese
traders in the Pearl River delta
starting from the 18th century.
 Existed in a written form in
booklets circulated in the 19th
century among the Chinese.



Chinese characters are used phonetically to render the syllables of
CPE, often accompanied by a Chinese and an English translation
(Ansaldo et al. 2010).
e.g., 《鬼話連篇》: 蝦子本 (husband); 旺德福 (wonderful); 肥佬 (fail);
Used over a vast area, covering coastal towns of Southern and
Eastern China, and many inland cities and trading posts.
Ansaldo, U., Matthews, S. & Smith, G. (2010). China Coast Pidgin: Texts and contexts.
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 25 (1): 64-94.
Russian
Example of Pidgin

Chinese Pidgin Russian (CPR):
Mongolian

Developed no later than the early
18th century along the eastern
fringes of the Chinese-Mongolian
border as a medium of interethnic
communication among Chinese,
Russian and Altaic traders.

Widely used despite the fact that Chinese-Russian bilinguals were
not uncommon, as both languages were actually taught in the
region.
Russian influence is in lexicon and, to a degree, morphology.
Chinese influence is in syntax.


Example of Pidgin





Chinese Pidgin Russian (CPR):
黑列巴 (хлеб) (black bread); 喂得罗 (ведро) (water bucket); 嘎斯 (газ) (gas);
孬木儿 (Домик) (small house); 八杂市 (базар) (market);
布拉吉 (платье) (skirt); 骚达子 (солдат) (solider); 沃特卡 (водка) (vodka);
笆篱子 (полиция) (policeman -> prison); 拦巴 (лампа) (bulb); 哈拉少
(хорошо) (good/ok);
里道斯 (Harbin sausage); 格瓦斯 (Ge Васи) (non-alcohol sparkling drink); 馬
神儿 (машина) ((sewing) machine); 馬達姆 (мадам) (old fat women); 木都克
(Вудг) (pipe);
Example of Pidgin

Loanwords in Northeastern China:
 Han, Mongolian (蒙), Manchu (满), Korean (朝鲜), Kilen (赫哲), Oroqen (鄂
伦春), Ewenke (鄂温克), Daur (达尔罕), Jurchens (女真) …
 From Mongolian:

衚衕 (胡同) (lane);
 From Manchu:

萨琪玛; 饽饽; 噶拉哈 (“galeha”)

哈喇 ((nuts) lose favor);

迷了嗎了 (unconscious);

膊勒蓋兒 (knee); 葛就 (armpit);

倒腾 (“taodem”); 哏的 (to scold);
 From Jurchens 女真:

靰鞡 (a kind of shoes); 松花 (white);
 From Kilen 赫哲:

塔拉哈 (grilled fish); 大馬哈魚 (one type of river fish);
Example of Pidgin

Mongolian Pidgin Chinese (CPR):
 Dates back to the Yuan dynasty;
 A Northern Han Chinese lexical base;
 Grammatical influences from both Chinese and Mongolian;
 Originated in the intense Han-Mongolian contacts of the period,
including some degree of intermarriage (Zu, 2007);

General feature of pidgins (X pidgin Y):
 Lexical items and phonetics are primarily influenced or directly
borrowed from Y (superstrate language);
 Morphological or grammatical features are largely influenced by X
(and Y, to some degree) (substrate language);
Zu, S-L. (2007). On the Mongolian Pidgin Chinese of Yuan Dynasty with special reference
to its tense and aspect category. Contemporary Linguistics 9(1):1-13.The University of Hong Kong
Example of Creole


Creoles in China:
Wutun:
 A hybrid of Chinese,
Tibetan and Mongolian
spoken in Tongren,
Qinghai;




Developed in a community of Chinese Muslims that migrated from
the area of Nanjing as early as the 16th century. A Northern Han
Chinese lexical base;
Chinese influence is mostly lexical (but without tones);
Grammatically it is mostly Altaic with some Tibetan influences.
Tibetan and Mongolic influences are found in morphology;
Example of Creole


Creoles in China:
Hezhou:
 A lingua franca in the Linxia
autonomous region of Gansu.
 A hybrid of Chinese, Tibetan
and Mongolian spoken in
Tongren, Qinghai;




Developed as a result of Turkic traders acquiring Chinese words
but retaining a Turkic grammatical structure;
It is lexically Chinese;
Its grammar derives mostly from Turkic;
Tones seem to be disappearing;
Example of Creole


Creoles in China:
Makista (or Macanese):
 Spoken in Macau and
around the Pearl River delta
before CPE replaced it as a
lingua franca.


Malay influence is noticeable both in lexicon and grammar,
especially in the rich reduplication patterns.
Cantonese influence is clear at the lexical level even though a
majority of the lexicon is clearly of Portuguese origins (see Ansaldo
2009).
Ansaldo, U. (2009). Contact languages. Ecology and evolution in Asia. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Example of creole

Creoles outside China with influence of
Chinese

Singlish (Bao, 2001):
 Spoken in Singapore;
 Lexically English but
grammatically Sinitic;

Baba Malay (Lim, 1988):
 Spoken in some Peranakan communities of Southeast Asia;
 Malay and Hokkien lexicon (particularly in kinship terms and the
pronominal system);
 Malay phonology;
 Mixed Malay-Chinese grammar;
Lim, S. (1988). Baba Malay: the language of the ‘Straits-born’ Chinese. In Hans Steinhauer (ed.),
Papers in Western Austronesian linguistics. N. 3. Canberra. Pacific Linguistics A-78, 1-61.
Bao, Z. (2001). The origins of empty categories in Singapore English. Journal of Pidgin and
Creole Languages 16: 275-319.
Example of Creole
Dao Hua 倒话
Sichuan Prov., China, creole with
Southwest Mandarin and Tibetan




馬騎人一個來了。“A man riding a
horse comes.”
飯吃人个有哩。“There is a man eating
rice.”
我疼-di-jiu3 。 “I am being sick.”
他疼-di-jiu3-li。“He is being sick.”
Dao Hua’s area
ACuo 阿错
Emerged 300 years ago during the invasion of Qing troops into Tibetan to
suppress the minority riot.
Influenced a lot by Southwest Mandarin (e.g., Lexicons) and Tibetan (e.g.,
Grammar).
cc. A-Tshogs, Y. V. 2003. Research on Mixing of Tibetan and Chinese in Daohua & Relative
Languages Deep-contact Study. Nankai University.
Daohua: admixture of culture and language

Cultural admixture:
Han cultural: Pictures on the door
(門神), Chinese couplet (對聯/揮春),
Diao qian(吊錢儿)。
Tibetan cultural: flag, couplet is written in
Tibetan, the pattern in the Diaoqian (吊錢儿);
Han cultural: packing the
girder with red cloth.
Tibetan cultural: also flag, couplet is written
in Tibetan, the pattern in the Diaoqian;
Tibetan cultural: cloths &
ornaments on the motor
(originally on horse);

Language admixture:
Lexicon in Daohua
No. words
Source
Han (Southwest
Mandarin)
Tibetan
Daohua own
words
No.
Ratio
No.
Ratio
No.
Ratio
100\200
Swadesh’s
lists
100/
200
100％
0
0.00％
0
0.00％
1000
藏語簡志詞
表 920
910
98.91％
1
0.11％
9
0.98％
2000
Field work
2240
1984
88.57％
115
5.13％
141
6.30％
1. Basic words largely come from Mandarin;
2. Cultural words largely come from Tiebtan

Language admixture:

Semantics of some Mandarin words bias towards that of Tibetan
words:
e.g., Nouns:

Mandarin: “衣服”
Tibetan“gos”：
Mostly referred to
cloths / furs on body;
also referring to quilts
or other stuff on beds

Language admixture:
SOV word order
Some grammatical features of Daohua
Agglutinative;
Ergative;
1. 我疼-di-jiu3。(“I am feeling sick.”: ongoing, subjective modal);
2. 他疼-di-jiu3-li。(“He is feeling sick.”: ongoing, objective modal);
3. 他-ki 茶喝-di-jiu3-li。(“He is drinking tea.”: SOV, ergative, agglutinative)
3. Grammatical features are consistent with those in Tibetan;

Origin of Daohua: socio-cultural factors;
Qing troops were sent to guard the
roads/bridges near the country border.
Chinese
Daohua
Tibetan


Degree of Communicative Pressure (DCP): the ratio of the
communications which are performed by communicators using a foreign
language:

5 values (4-0) of DCP:





Value 4: use the foreign language to perform all communicative activities
Value 3: use the foreign language for major daily activities (e.g., within
family), but freely use the native language for other activities (e.g., outside
family);
Value 2: use the foreign language for other activities (e.g., outside family),
but freely use the native language for major daily activities (e.g., within
family);
Value 1: use either the foreign or the native language to communicate;
Value 0: fully use the native language to communicate;



To Tibetan women:
DCP = 4;
To Han soldiers:
DCP = 3;
Han soldiers
Tibetan people
Normal connection


Marriage
High DCP makes start to learn Han words (more salient than
grammatical features) in order to communicate with their husbands;
Once Tibetan women starts to use Han words, Han soldiers can
notice Tibetan grammar used by their wives;

Language admixture:
Tibetan
Lexicon
Phonetics
Chinese
Grammar
Phonology
Lexicon
Phonetics
Grammar
Phonology
Daohua
Universal admixture patterns (Mandarin itself might be treated as a
lingua franca):
… Altaic
Chinese
…
Lexicon Grammar Lexicon Grammar Lexicon
Tibetan-Burman
Dongtai
Creolization

Feature pool (gene pool):
 Each contacting language provides the feature pool its own
features, and creole/pidgin will select among these features.
Contacting language X
Contacting language Y
PhonetixX
LexX
MorphologyX
GrammarX
Creole/Pidgin A
PhonetixY
MorphologyY
LexY
GrammarY
Creole/Pidgin B
Mufwene, S. S. (2001). The Ecology of Language Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Creolization

Two types of creolization patterns (Mufwene, 2001):
 Settlement/plantation colony: children acquire a form of the
colonists’ language as first language;
Colonists
Indigenous
Population
Creole replaces indigenous languages
University Press.
Creolization

Two types of creolization patterns
(Mufwene, 2001):
 Exploitation colony: some adults
acquire a form of the colonists’
language as a lingua franca
Colonists
Indigenous
Intermediaries
Indigenous
Population
Creole emerges among intermediaries;
indigenous languages remain the vernacular
University Press.
“Real” language origin:

Nicaraguan Sign Language (ASL):
 Originated during the 1970s and 1980s;
 Deaf children from the central school gradually created their
communication system;
 Features:
 Signs iconic, not yet arbitrary;
 Child’s signs are structured and segmented, unlike “input” from
hearing parents;
 Have consistent ordering: patient-action & action-agent;
“Real” language origin

Influence of cospeech Spanish gestures (Senghas et al., 2004):






30 deaf Nicaraguans who used NSL at the age of 6 or younger, from three
cohorts;
Describe the meaning “the cat rolled down the hill” (including a manner
(rolling) and a path of movement):
73% of the first-cohort NSL singers express manner and path
simultaneously (“ROLL + DOWN”), as in Spanish cospeech gesture;
70% of the second and third-cohorts NSL signers express manner and
path separately (“ROLL” than “DOWN”, or “ROLL-DOWN-ROLL” “X-Y-X”
construction), not as in Spanish cospeech gesture;
NSL is not a copying of Spanish cospeech gestures but here
exhibits a novel conventionalization.
NSL has many novel features not presented in Spanish;
Senghas, A., Kita, S., & Özyϋrek, A. 2004. Children creating core properties of language:
Evidence from an emerging sign language in Nicaragua. Science, 305:
1779-1782.
Research questions on creolization

Whether creoles originate from pidgins.

Whether creoles are created mainly by children.

Whether creolization provides a window of language origin in
mankind.

Whether creoles can result from contact of more than two languages.
Ansaldo, U. (2010). Contact Languages: Ecology and Evolution in Asia, Cambridge
University Press.
Bickerton, D. (1990). Language and species. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Givón, T. (1998). On the co-evolution of language, mind, and brain. Evolution of
communication 2.45-116.
Mufwene, S. S. (2008). What do creoles and pidgins tell us about the evolution of languages?
In: B. Laks, S. Cleuziou, J-P. Demoule, & P. Encreve (eds.), Origin and Evolution of
Languages: Approaches, Models, Paradigms. London: Equinox Publishing.

mankind.

Yes! (Bickerton, 1990; Givόn, 1998);
1) Ceoles have typically been developed by children from erstwhile
pidgins;
2) Creoles transform pidgins from proto-languages (with just
embryonic grammars) to full-fledged languages (endowed with
complex syntactic systems);



Assumptions:
 Systems evolve from simpler to more complex structures;
 Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny;

mankind.

No! (Mufwene, 2008);
Human infants today are born both with a brain infrastructure and in
language ecologies that already distinguish them from our hominid
ancestors;
Modern children are typically born to social environments in which fullfledged languages are being spoken;
Although language “acquisition” is a reconstruction process, modern
children cannot be credited with inventing a language in the same way
that our hominid ancestors gradually invented language.



Language Competition

When languages come into
contact, one or more of the
languages can be caused to
change or become extinct:

Examples:
–
Scottish Gaelic
–
Quechua
–
Welsh (Monmouthsire)
–
Welsh (all Wales)
What are the dynamics of such
competition?
Abrams, D. M. & Strogatz, S. H. 2003.
Modelling the dynamics of language death. Nature, 424:900.
Modeling language competition:


Monolingual model (AS model) (Abrams
& Strogatz 2003):
Structure of model:

Assumptions:
– Speakers acquire a language based
on its attractiveness (P)
– Attractiveness (P) is a monotonic
function of prestige (s) & number of
speakers (x)

Dynamics:
X
Proportion of Speakers of Y, y
– All speakers monolingual in either X or Y 1
– No language change
0.8
– Social structure and age distribution
assumed homogeneous
No stable
bilingual
state!
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
Proportion of Speakers of X, x
1
Y
Abrams, D. M. & Strogatz, S. H. 2003. Linguistics: Modeling the dynamics of language death. Nature, 424: 900.
Fishman, J. A. 1991. Reversing Language Shift. Philadelphia, NJ: Multilingual Matters.
Modeling language competition
AS model (Abrams & Strogatz, 2003):
 Prestige (s, socioeconomic status of the
speakers of a language) (Fishman, 1991)
determines the competition dynamics;

The value of prestige is obtain via curve fitting (a is fixed to 1.31±0.25);
Gaelic
Scotland
45/27
Quechua
Peru
Welsh
Monmouthshire,Wales
Welsh
Wales
Abrams, D. M. & Strogatz, S. H. 2003. Linguistics: Modeling the dynamics of language death. Nature, 424: 900.
Fishman, J. A. 1991. Reversing Language Shift. Philadelphia, NJ: Multilingual Matters.
Modeling language competition:

Bilingual model:

Structure of model:
– Speakers may be monolingual or bilingual
– No language change
– Social structure can be heterogeneous

Assumptions:
– Speakers acquire a language based on its attractiveness;
– Attractiveness is a monotonic function of status & number of
speakers;
Minett, J. W. & Wang, W. S-Y. (2008). Modeling endangered language: The effects of
bilingualism and social structure. Lingua, 118(1): 19-45.
Cultural transmission model

Vertical transmission (V-model):
 Children of monolinguals are themselves monolingual.
 Children of bilinguals may be either monolingual or bilingual.
BILINGUAL
X

Z
Y
Horizontal transmission (H-model):
 Monolingual adults may remain monolingual or become bilingual.
 Bilingual adults remain bilingual.
BILINGUAL
X
Z
Y
Mortality

Individuals survive with probability 1– m; obey H-model.
Individuals die with probability m; obey V-model.
BILINGUAL
X
Z
Y
1
Proportion of Speakers of Y, y

0.8
s0 = 0.4
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
Proportion of Speakers of X, x
1
Limitations in available models of language competition

Extensions of the AS model:



MP model (Mira & Paredes, 2005): incorporate bilinguals;
SS model (Stauffer & Schulze, 2005): adopt network structures;
MW model (Minett & Wang, 2008): language preservation by enhancing prestige;

All these extensions keep adopting the parameter of prestige;

Problems for the parameter of prestige:
 Lack explicit sociocultural meanings;
 Fail to address numerous factors affecting language competition: e.g.,
population sizes of competing languages, geographical distances between
the population centers and competing region, and population distributions
in the competing region.
 Have to be estimated via curve fitting, thus making the model useless in
cases lacking sufficient empirical data;
Mira, J. & Paredes, A. 2005. Interlinguistic similarity and language death dynamics. European Physical Letters, 69(6): 1031-1034.
Stauffer, D. & Schulze, C. 2005. Microscopic and macroscopic simulation of competition between languages. Physics of Life
Reviews, 2(2): 89-116.
Minett, J. M. & Wang, W. S-Y. 2008. Modeling endangered languages: The effects of bilingualism and social structure. Lingua,
118(1): 19-45.
* Zhang, M. & Gong, T. 2013. Principles of parametric estimation in modeling language competition.
PNAS,
110(24):of9698-9703.
The University
Hong Kong
Language death — prognosis

Language death: A language dies when an entire generation of
speakers fails to transmit the language to the next generation (if any).
90%
50%
At least 50% of the world’s 6,000 or so languages are predicted to die within the
next 100 years — the actual number may be as great as 90%.
About 140,000 languages are estimated to have ever existed; so the vast majority
of the world’s languages are already dead.
Pagel, M. (1995). Contribution to the Conservation of Endangered Languages seminar,
University of Bristol, 21 April 1995. Iatiku 1, 6.
Language death — why we should care

Maybe we shouldn’t — fewer languages  easier communication?

Cultural identity: languages encode much of the cultural knowledge of
a population: history/legend, philosophical systems, political systems,
technology, foods, art, …
— once the language is lost, the culture may be threatened (Wang,
2003).

Cultural diversity: alternative perspectives provide greater possibility
for innovation.

But we should remember that language proficiency is closely tied to
economic gain.
Wang, W. S-Y. (2003). Yunnan and her cultural treasures. International Association of
Chinese Linguistics Newsletter, 11.2: 3-5.
To revitalize or not?




Mufwene, 2001:
“… speakers shift languages as part of their adaptive responses to
changing socioeconomic conditions.”
“Advocates of revitalization of endangered languages must tell us
whether [this] is possible without restoring the previous
socioeconomic ecologies that sustained them.”
“Linguists concerned with the rights of languages must ask
themselves whether these rights prevail over the rights of speakers to
adapt competitively to their new socioeconomic ecologies.”
Summary

Language contact is common among languages;

Different outcomes of language contact and factors that can
affect language contact;

Two types of creolization patterns;

How to study language competition, e.g., modeling language
competition;

Reasons for language competition, e.g., socio-economic
reasons;
Essay topic





1. Describe one discipline that can help us understand language evolution,
including its research topics, basic assumptions, and major approaches, and
briefly review at least two studies (backgrounds, procedures and major
findings) in it.
2. Describe the two theories about creolization, with some examples.
Select one of these two topics as the essay topic (1000 words
minimum, excluding references), and at least 10 references (not citing
my lecture notes, citing actual references listed).
Submission: email to [email protected], titled “LING6029 assign1 – your
name student ID”, attach the assignment.
Deadline: Nov. 15, 2013, Friday, 5pm!

Language Contact - Linguistics @ HKU

Transcription

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