Language Contact
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Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more
languages Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
or varieties interact and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to influence each other. Language contact can occur at
language border A language border or language boundary is the line separating two language areas. The term is generally meant to imply a lack of mutual intelligibility between the two languages. If two adjacent languages or dialects are mutually intelligible, no ...
s, between adstratum languages, or as the result of migration, with an intrusive language acting as either a superstratum or a
substratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
. Language contact occurs in a variety of phenomena, including language convergence, borrowing and relexification. The common products include pidgins, creoles,
code-switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingual ...
, and
mixed language A mixed language is a language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole language, creole or pidgin, pidgin language in that ...
s. In many other cases, contact between speakers occurs but the lasting effects on the language are less visible; they may, however, include loan words,
calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...
s or other types of borrowed material. Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of
human history Human history, also called world history, is the narrative of humanity's past. It is understood and studied through anthropology, archaeology, genetics, and linguistics. Since the invention of writing, human history has been studied t ...
, and today most people in the world are multilingual. Methods from
sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of l ...
(the study of language use in society), from corpus linguistics and from formal linguistics are used in the study of language contact.


Locus of diffusion

It is easy to see how a word can diffuse from one language to another, as borrowing a vocabulary item from one language to introduce into another language is a straightforward way to fill a lexical gap. The borrowing of vocabulary items is called lexical diffusion. This reflects the fact that the entire vocabulary of a language constitutes a lexicon, with individual vocabulary items or words constituting being lexical item. In addition to lexical diffusion, other features can diffuse as well, for example diffusion of phonological, morphological, syntactic, syntactic, or event pragmatic features is possible.


Lexical diffusion: borrowing of vocabulary items

The most common way that languages influence each other is the exchange of words. Much is made about the contemporary borrowing of English words into other languages, but this phenomenon is not new, and it is not very large by historical standards. The large-scale importation of words from
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...
,
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
and other languages into English in the 16th and the 17th centuries was more significant. Some languages have borrowed so much that they have become scarcely recognisable. Armenian borrowed so many words from Iranian languages, for example, that it was at first considered a divergent branch of the Indo-Iranian languages and was not recognised as an independent branch of the
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, ...
for many decades.


Diffusion of other language features

The influence can go deeper, extending to the exchange of even basic characteristics of a language such as morphology and
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
.
Newar Newar (; new, नेवार, endonym: Newa; new, नेवा, Pracalit script:) or Nepami, are the historical inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley and its surrounding areas in Nepal and the creators of its historic heritage and civilisatio ...
, for example, spoken in Nepal, is a Sino-Tibetan language distantly related to Chinese but has had so many centuries of contact with neighbouring Indo-Iranian languages that it has even developed noun inflection, a trait that is typical of the Indo-European family but rare in Sino-Tibetan. Newar has also absorbed grammatical features like
verb tenses In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns. The main tenses found in many languages include the past, present, ...
. Also, Romanian was influenced by the
Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto ...
that were spoken by neighbouring tribes in the centuries after the fall of the
Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Medite ...
not only in vocabulary but also
phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
. English has a few phrases, adapted from French, in which the adjective follows the noun: court-martial, attorney-general, Lake Superior.


Direction of influence


Linguistic hegemony

A language's influence widens as its speakers grow in power. Chinese, Greek, Latin, Portuguese, French, Spanish,
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...
, Persian,
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominalization, nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cul ...
, Russian, German and English have each seen periods of widespread importance and have had varying degrees of influence on the native languages spoken in the areas over which they have held sway. Especially during and since the 1990s, the internet, along with previous influences such as radio and television, telephone communication and printed materials, has expanded and changed the many ways in which languages can be influenced by each other and by technology.


Non-mutual influence

Change as a result of contact is often one-sided. Chinese, for instance, has had a profound effect on the development of Japanese, but Chinese remains relatively free of Japanese influence other than some modern terms that were reborrowed after they were coined in Japan and based on Chinese forms and using Chinese characters. In
India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
,
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of North India, northern, Central India, centr ...
and other native languages have been influenced by English, and loanwords from English are part of everyday vocabulary.


Mutual influence

In some cases, language contact may lead to mutual exchange, but that may be confined to a particular geographic region. For example, in
Switzerland ; rm, citad federala, links=no). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzon ...
, the local French has been influenced by German and vice versa. In Scotland,
Scots Scots usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: * Scots language, a language of the West Germanic language family native to Scotland * Scots people, a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland * Scoti, a Latin na ...
has been heavily influenced by English, and many Scots terms have been adopted into the regional English dialect.


Outcomes of language contact


Language shift

The result of the contact of two languages can be the replacement of one by the other. This is most common when one language has a higher social position ( prestige). This sometimes leads to language endangerment or
extinction Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds ( taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed ...
.


Stratal influence

When language shift occurs, the language that is replaced (known as the
substratum In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...
) can leave a profound impression on the replacing language (known as the superstratum) when people retain features of the substratum as they learn the new language and pass these features on to their children, which leads to the development of a new variety. For example, the Latin that came to replace local languages in present-day
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
during
Ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–50 ...
times was influenced by Gaulish and Germanic. The distinct pronunciation of the
Hiberno-English Hiberno-English (from Latin ''Hibernia'': "Ireland"), and in ga, Béarla na hÉireann. or Irish English, also formerly Anglo-Irish, is the set of English dialects native to the island of Ireland (including both the Republic of Ireland a ...
dialect, spoken in
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
, comes partially from the influence of the substratum of Irish. Outside the Indo-European family, Coptic, the last stage of ancient Egyptian, is a substratum of Egyptian Arabic.


Creation of new languages: creolization and mixed languages

Language contact can also lead to the development of new languages when people without a common language interact closely. Resulting from this contact a
pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...
may develop, which may eventually become a full-fledged creole language through the process of creolization (though some linguists assert that a creole need not emerge from a pidgin). Prime examples of this are Aukan and Saramaccan, spoken in
Suriname Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north ...
, which have vocabulary mainly from Portuguese, English and Dutch. A much rarer but still observed process, according to some linguists, is the formation of
mixed language A mixed language is a language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole language, creole or pidgin, pidgin language in that ...
s. Whereas creoles are formed by communities lacking a common language, mixed languages are formed by communities fluent in both languages. They tend to inherit much more of the complexity (grammatical, phonological, etc.) of their parent languages, whereas creoles begin as simple languages and then develop in complexity more independently. It is sometimes explained as bilingual communities that no longer identify with the cultures of either of the languages they speak, and seek to develop their own language as an expression of their own cultural uniqueness.


Dialectal and sub-cultural change

Some forms of language contact affect only a particular segment of a speech community. Consequently, change may be manifested only in particular dialects,
jargon Jargon is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular communicative context and may not be well understood outside that context. The context is usually a partic ...
s, or registers.
South African English South African English (SAfrE, SAfrEng, SAE, en-ZA) is the List of dialects of the English language, set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British Empire, British settlers first arrived in the South African re ...
, for example, has been significantly affected by
Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans g ...
in terms of
lexis Lexis may refer to: * Lexis (linguistics), the total bank of words and phrases of a particular language, the artifact of which is known as a lexicon *Lexis (Aristotle), a complete group of words in a language *LexisNexis, part of the LexisNexis onl ...
and pronunciation, but the other dialects of English have remained almost totally unaffected by Afrikaans other than a few loanwords. In some cases, a language develops an acrolect that contains elements of a more prestigious language. For example, in
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
during a large part of the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...
, upper-class speech was dramatically influenced by French to the point that it often resembled a French dialect. The broader study of contact varieties within a society is called
linguistic ecology Linguistic ecology or language ecology is the study of how languages interact with each other and the places they are spoken in, and frequently argues for the preservation of endangered languages as an analogy of the preservation of biological sp ...
.See, for example, Mufwene, Salikoko S. The ecology of language evolution. Cambridge University Press, 2001.


Sign languages


Contact between sign languages

Language contact can take place between two or more sign languages, and the expected contact phenomena occur: lexical borrowing, foreign "accent", interference, code switching, pidgins, creoles, and mixed systems.


Contact between sign languages and oral languages

Language contact is extremely common in most deaf communities, which are almost always located within a dominant oral language culture. However, between a sign language and an oral language, even if lexical borrowing and code switching also occur, the interface between the oral and signed modes produces unique phenomena: fingerspelling, fingerspelling/sign combination, initialisation, CODA talk, TDD conversation, mouthing and contact signing.


See also

*
Areal feature In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, or, common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted ...
* Language transfer *
Code-switching In linguistics, code-switching or language alternation occurs when a speaker alternates between two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation or situation. Code-switching is different from plurilingual ...
*
Pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...
* Creole language *
Lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, vehicular language, or link language, is a language systematically used to make communication possible between groups ...
*
Mixed language A mixed language is a language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole language, creole or pidgin, pidgin language in that ...
*
Calque In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language ...
*
Loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because t ...
*
Metatypy Metatypy is a type of morphosyntactic and semantic language change brought about by language contact involving multilingual speakers. The term was coined by linguist Malcolm Ross. Description Ross (1999: 7, 1) gives the following definition: e ...
* Nahuatl-Spanish Contact * Phono-semantic matching * Post-creole speech continuum *
Sprachbund A sprachbund (, lit. "language federation"), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The lang ...
* Language island * Lexical gap *
Diffusion Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical p ...
* Linguistic anthropology


References


Notes


General references

* Hickey, Raymond (ed.), ''The Handbook of Language Contact'' (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell 2010) * Sarah Thomason and Terrence Kaufman, ''Language Contact, Creolization and Genetic Linguistics'' (University of California Press 1988). * Sarah Thomason, ''Language Contact - An Introduction'' (Edinburgh University Press 2001). *Uriel Weinreich, ''Languages in Contact'' (Mouton 1963). *Donald Winford, ''An Introduction to Contact Linguistics'' (Blackwell 2002) . *
Ghil'ad Zuckermann Ghil'ad Zuckermann ( he, גלעד צוקרמן, ; ) is an Israeli-born language revivalist and linguist who works in contact linguistics, lexicology and the study of language, culture and identity. Zuckermann is Professor of Linguistics and Ch ...

''Language Contact and Lexical Enrichment in Israeli Hebrew''
(Palgrave Macmillan 2003) . {{DEFAULTSORT:Language Contact