(posted for Denise)
Languages are constantly in exchange throughout the world. The reading gave examples of different kinds of contact that result in a language influencing another. In settled societies, a form of language exchange occurs in situations, such as marriage, where a man is required to marry a woman outside his community. Because the two come from different backgrounds, they most likely won't share the same language. The children of the two will ultimately learn two different languages and will most likely be influenced by the mother's language because of her role in child care.
Another example of language contact occurs through trade between coastal and inland communities. Because the coastal communities may possess some items not available in the inlands, such as fish, certain shore plants, etc., the inland communities are likely to adopt the words used by the coastal communities to define these items. The same concept applies to trade done on a larger scale, for example, between different islands. New ideas or concepts are introduced to both locations, which results in borrowing and copying of words.
The third example of language influence is through conquest, colonization, and conversion, which are often times less peaceful than the previous examples given. Situations such as these are evident, as given in the example of the Norman conquest of England, where the conquerors' language was forced upon the defeated people. In the Pacific, French and English are the dominant languages influenced among the islands. They are also "the major languages of government, education, and inter- and intraregional communication, and are looked on in many parts of the Pacific as the prestige languages" (Lynch 207).
With the influence of another language comes the linguistic effects. Because all languages copy or borrow words from other languages, lexical change is likely to occur. English was a given example, as many of the words in the language were taken from various languages.
Semantic change may also occur, which is when the meanings of existing words in a language change in meaning. For example, "dakai" (bow) and "kopwiel" (stone) in Fijian originally meant just that, however they have now added different meanings, such as "gun" and "rifle". The reverse too can happen, such as in Lenakel where "niko" meant both "canoe" and "moiety", but now "canoe" is defined as "kenu" and "niko" only defines "moiety".
When words are borrowed from other languages, the phonology of the language it is borrowed into is often adopted, which is defined as phonological change. Examples given were miracle, restaurant, and prince, which were from French, but they are not pronounced the same way because they were adapted to English phonological patterns. Lastly, grammatical change usually occurs during language contact because some languages use a verb-subject-object order, whereas others might use subject-verb-object order.
I thought this was a very interesting read because we can easily see the different people who were in contact with each other just by looking at language and how it evolved. Language is basically the history of a group of people. You could also see what a community originally had with them just by looking at the words that were introduced, which implies that they didn't originally have the item. The book also asked "how can Language A be influenced by Language B and still remain Language A?" Although I have no solid answer, that question just kept me thinking. I think Language A is still an original and unique language, just that it has a hint of some other languages.
Works Cited:
Lynch, John. Pacific Languages: An Introduction. The Pacific Islands: an Encyclopedia. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998. Print.
Additional Resources:
European language influence on the Pacific:
Tadmor, Uri. "Borrowing: A Pacific Perspective." The Contemporary Pacific 19(2007): 640-643. Print.
French influence on Pacific language and culture:
Lal, Brij V., and Kate Fortune. The Pacific Islands: an Encyclopedia. 19. Honolulu: Hawaii Press, 2000. Print.
Asia's influence in the Pacific:
Crocombe, Ron. Asia in the Pacific Islands. Suva: University of the South Pacific, 2007. Print.
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2 comments:
Good summary, you brought up a lot of the main points in the reading that we also discussed today.
The question of how can language A be influenced by language B and still remain language A, is indeed an interesting one. In class I mentioned that it's basically like the question of when does a dialect become a language, in which both seem unanswerable in a definite manner. The decision has to be subjective in some way since there is no actual classification of what makes a language separate from another when it is influenced by outside forces.
Interesting blog post Denise! I like how you mention the language & influence question- it's true that it doesn't seem like there's a clear-cut line between when a language is still A and when it becomes a whole different language after contact with B... It reminds me of something I read about the difference between Old English and Shakespearean English: English, like the kind used in Shakespeare's plays, is kind of strange but still pretty understandable if you were to read it today. But if you try to read something in Old English, like Beowulf, it's almost impossible to recognize any of the words, and it seems like the two shouldn't be called the same language, even though they are both "English".
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