Multilingualism

• Language as Thing

Multilingualism:Language as Thing

•What are Multilingual Commuinities

–What leads to Multilingual Communities;

– Are multilingual communities stable?

•Question of what is a language? –What is the difference between a language and a dialect?

•What are standard languages?

•Language Access as a resource:

–The use of Wolof in Senegal Bilingualism

•Lingua Francas and Pidgin-Creole Languages

–What are they? How did they develop?

•National Language Policy

Who Speaks What

• Mandarin 17.3%• English 08.4%• Hindi 07.3%• Spanish 06.9%• Russian 04.9%• Bengali 03.5%• Arabic 03.4%• Portuguese 03.2%• Malay-Indonesian 02.8%• Japanese 02.2%• French 02.2%• German 02.1%

Map of Sierra Leone

• With the exception of English all these function as community languages

• Other Community Vai, Kuranko, Krim, Bullom, Susu, Yalunka, Temne, Fulfulde, Kono, Loko

• Note that most usages can be clearly associated with specific institutions.

Language Use in Sierra Leone

English National Lg, Education, Christian Churches, Government, Western Educated

Krio Trading of goods, National Lingua Franca

Mende Regional Lingua Franca South, Produce Trading-Market

Limba Palm wine tappers

Temne Northern Lingua Franca

Arabic Koranic Education, Mosques,Imams

Mandingo Gara Dyers

What leads to Multilingual Communities; Are multilingual communities stable?

Question of what is a language? What is the difference between a language and a dialect?

• The Problem Language v dialect: • Popular definition.

– Dialects are structurally inferior to languages, lacking formal grammatical rules and standards of speaking;

– Dialects are communicatively inferior to languages, lacking the full range of expressibility found in a formal language;

– Dialects are orthographically inferior to languages, lacking their own system of writing;

– In short, dialects are inferior to languages.

The linguistic view of languages and dialects.

• Dialect: A dialect represents a commonly held way of speaking for a community, admitting to only minor variations in structure. (Mutual Intelligibility)

• Language: A language consists of a cluster dialects that are found to be mutually intelligible.

• two dialects are held to be mutually intelligible when a speaker of one dialect finds that he can understand, without too much difficulty the speech of a person speaking another dialect and vice versa.– British and American English, are mutually intelligible– prior to the Norman invasion of 1066, when English and Norwegian were

mutually intelligible, that they were dialects of the same language.– The Dutch/German interface (Indeterminate results)

The Political definition.

• A language is a dialect with an army and a navy, (i.e., a government).

• Examples Norway and Sweden, Spain and Italy, Netherlands and Germany.

• This definition seems to work better than the formal linguistic one.

• But not perfect• Other Examples:

Tests of the Political Definition• Definition could be used to exclude Catalan, a Romance "language" spoken in the

Barcelona area of Spain because it is not backed up by an army and navy. • Chinese. While we may be popularly aware that people in China speak Chinese we

may not be as aware that many of the so called "dialects" of Chinese are not mutually intelligible.

• Igbo. Igbo is spoken by over 3 million people in eastern Nigeria. Yet, here, too, not all dialects of Igbo are mutually intelligible.

• English. The claim has been made, that not all dialects of English are mutually intelligible. When National Public Television presented a 15 part series on The Story of English many of the "dialects" represented had to have subtitles because they were not at least clearly mutually intelligible.

• My Mende speaking friend informed me that he could understand the news broadcasts from Liberia which were in Bandi.– Neither Mende nor Bandi has an army or a navy.

Definition: literary dialect

A language is a collection of varieties which all use the same (set) writing system (orthography)

• Complexity of a writing system• Advantage of the linguistic view of the language/dialect

distinction:• Also undercuts the claim that Western languages are largely

superior to Nonwestern ones. • But what do you call a “language” without a literary tradition?

Is this not ethnocentric?

Commentary.

• All definitions faulty

• The popular definition fails empirically and in its Eurocentricity;

• The linguistic definition fails empirically and

• The army/navy definition, while appealing fails empirically as well.

The Problem

• Perhaps there is something wrong with the dichotomy between language and dialect.

• Not all languages draw the distinction between language and dialect. In Bamanankan: no distinction between language and dialect.

• The suffix -kan which means something like `manner of speaking of'.– Bamanan-kan means `the manner of speaking of the Bambara – Hausakan would translate as `the Hausa language.'– Bamakokan `the manner of speaking in Bamako, the capital of

Mali'.– In this case we would translate the word as `the dialect of Bambara

spoken in Bamako.'

Conclusion.• The formal linguistic distinction between language and dialect is unworkable: • There is no way to group the dialects of the world into languages in such a

way that the dialects within are mutually intelligible and such that they are not mutually unintelligible with dialects without.

• The distinction arose in association with the development of writing and in that context served a useful purpose, namely to distinguish between the written form and those oral varieties which subscribe to it. This distinction, however, is not absolute, but relevant only to situations where a writing system has been instituted. Consequently when it is applied to areas where no written system has been instituted, problems develop.

• Are we to call languages where no written system has been installed dialects? The problem with this is that such a term will never be purged of the notions of illegitimacy and deviance which arose with the language/dialect distinction.

What are standard languages?

• Standard languages associated with literacy.• Accorded a prestige at the expense of other varieties

considered as part of the language system.• In this sense it is ideological – privilege.• Often speakers who don’t have access to this variety

feel inferior.• Refusal to speak the standard variety may be an act of

resistance.

The Redesign of Shona

• Shona area reasonably linguistically coherent.

• Differences exagurated by different Christian missions developing their own writing systems.

• Doke comission unified the language but favored the most powerful missions.

• Kalanga was reassigned to Ndebele, a related but quite different variety.

The invention of Tsonga

• Area in western transvaal was a refugee area

• Henri Berthoud was assigned as a Swiss missionary to the area.

• While many “Bantu varieties were spoken, no lingua franca had emerged.

• Henri Berthoud went about inventing one called Tsonga.

• Later went on to develop a culture with folklore to go along with it.

Language Access as a resource:

The use of Wolof in Senegal

Bilingualism

Fulfulde versus Wolof verses Serer

• Wolof – two types– Ethnic Wolof– Wolof Popular (80% of senegal

• Fula Communities: Ful’be and Halpularen

• Serer– Several different languages (not mutually

intelligible – Defined by the French)

• Different Attitudes toward Wolof

Lingua Francas and Pidgin-Creole LanguagesWhat are they? How did they develop?

• Lingua franca versus Pidgin and Creole

• Lingua Franca

• Pidgin

• Creole

Stages of Pidgin/Creole Development (Todd)

• Phase I: Pidgin– Arise from multilingual

contact situations – Nobody's first language– Minimal level of

communication.– Lexical Base– Lexical Reduction– Incipient Pidgins tend to die

out.– Cocoliche

•Phase II: Creole

–Arises from a pidgin

–Acquires first language speakers

–Increase in Lexicon

–Grammaticalization

Phase III: Influence from the dominant base1. Phonology: Cameroon Pidgin English

1. tri trit story street2. sikin silak siton

skin slack stone 3. studi skul studyschool2. Lexical

1. dress kombi manhan wandaful move friend right amazing3. Syntactical influence 1. use of dominate base grammatical devices 2. concordial agreement 3. affixes -ing, -s pl 4. tense markers

Phase IV: Post Creole continuum

Phase VI: Total Absorption (Dwyer)

Samples of English-Based Pidgin/Creoles Pidgin (Cameroun, West Africa)

• Mek a tel wuna ha we masa Trki bin brok i bak. I gt wan de wn Masa Trki and Masa Pik bin bi kombi. Wan de masa Pik bin de gif mni f masa Trki, fseka se masa Trki n gt mni f bay chp. Masa Trki bin de tl masa Pik se wn i gt mni i go de bakam. I dn te soteee bt Masa Trki n de gif Masa Pik i m ni...

• Mek a tel wuna ha we masa Tr]ki ben brok i bak. I get wan de wen Masa Tr]ki and Masa Pik bin bi kom]bi. Wan de masa Pik bin de gif m]ni f] masa Tr]ki, f]seka se masa Tr]ki n] g,t m]ni f] bay ch]p. Masa Tr]ki bin de t,l masa Pik se w,n i g,t m]ni i go de bakam. I d]n te soteee b]t Masa Tr]ki n] de gif Masa Pik i m]ni...

Krio (Sierra Leone, West Africa)

• Wi stil de tk bt rilign an politiks, w, na di kayn of gd w motal man de gri tu an w i gt f du witi di kntri i bizns. We de tl tenki f de wantm welh i n st dm mt but gt smting f se bt di ting w we de tk. I de sho se wi n de tk f nting. We bin dn gri se rilign an politiks nto wan.

• We are still talking about religon and politics, about the kind of God which humans believe in and what he has to do with the country's business. We offer thanks for the one time he didn't shut their mouths but had something to say about what we are discussing. We agreed that religion and politics are not one.

Sea Islands Krio <Gullah>• How Bra Hawn Got His Long

Mawth. Bra rabit bin in i rays fiel to habs i rays an di san gt bri hat an bra rabit lef i fil an gn p on di flat bank w som bush de an i sedn anda de bush in de shed an bigin f wisel. Dem dez bra rabit an bra hawn bin gud frenz. Bra hawn kam long an hiri bra de wisel. I se bra rabit, a wish a kuda wisel laka yu na. Bra rabit tl-am se i mawt i stan for wistel. Rawn mawt ain for wistl. If yu had lg mawt laka mayn yu kuda whisel....

• How brother dog got his muzzle. Brother rabit was in his rice field to harvest his rice and the sun was very hot so brother rabit left his field and went up on the flat bank where a tree was and sat under the tree in the shade and started to whistle. Those days brother rabit and brother dog were good friends. Brother dog came along and heard his friend whistling.. He said to brother rabit, I wish I could whistle like you. Brother rabit told him that his mouth was made for whistling. A round mouth is not for whistling. If you had a long mouth like mine, you could whistle.

Sranan (Surinam, South America)

• Wan konde (kingdom) ben de, an wan foru (bird) ben de bari (screech). Ef a bar so, na her kondre e trubu. Konu pot taki, wan suma kir na foru, a sa tro wan uman pikin fo eng.

• There once was a kingdom, and there was a bird that screeched. When it screetched, the whole kingdom was disturbed. The king announced that the person who killed the bird would marry a daughter of his.

Belizian Creole

• A wan tak bout sohn a di tapik dehn weh mi kohn op da nite. Shore lat a pipl shif bak an foat fran Inglish to Krio wen den di taak... if you de taak bout science, wy you mos expek fi taak eena Krio, if da eena Inglish yu laan bout ahn. Afta aal, lat a di wod dehn yu yuse eena science da English wod... like wen you di taak bout kompyuta ting.

• I want to talk about some of the topicks which I raised last night. There are a lot of people who shift back and forth from English to Krio when they talk…. If you talk about science then you expect to talk in Krio…

Neo-Solomonic (Solomon Islands)

• Orayt, mifla i go go lng slwater, lukawtim fish, naw win i kem, naw mifla i go lebawt long kinu, naw bigfla win i kem naw, mifla go, no kachim ni ples i kwaytfla.

• Very well. We kept going on the sea, hunting fish, and a wind arose; now we were going in canoes, and an immense wind arose, and we were thrown around and ran very fast (before the wind).

History of Pidgin/Creoles: Working Backwards:

• Camerounian Pidgin– Example– Influences clearly tracable to S.L. Krio– reasons

• Sierra Leone Krio– present form took shape in 19th century– pre 18th century S.L. pidgin closer to modern Camerounian

pidgin than 18th century nigerian/cameroun pidgin– British used as a base to wage an Anti-slavery mission.– Used Freetowner's to missionize.

• Recaptives (39% of population) largely southern nigerian (Yoruba and Igbo)

• Jamaican maroons arrived in Freetown in 1800• Also west Indian regiments 1819 - 1896

Sierra Leone Krio

• Jamaican creole• Plantation society• Definition of creole• Slave revolt - not generally

discussed• Most slaves came from surinam

1667• Surinam

• Three dialects of pidgin• Sranan Tongo, Saramakan, and

Jukan• Occupied by british 1625-1675• Swap with dutch for new york• Slaves came from barbados

• Barbados

• staging point from Africa

• also went to N. America

• Gullah

• Example

• Evidence of Mende influence

• Post-Creole Continuum• DeCamp's work in Jamaica

• Bill Stewart's and Dillard's suggestion that all of N. America was at first Creole and then decreolized.

Is there more?

• Connection to French-Based Creoles– Morris Goodman's comparative work.

• Sabir Hypothesis– The three major Pidgin-Creoles (English, French and

Portuguese) are related to an earlier lingua-franca (Sabir) through a process called relexification

National Language Policy

• US – Virtually no language policy– Work of the National Foreign Language Center

• African Languages– The work of Ngugi wa Thi’ongo– The need to have and use African languages.

• National African Language Policy

• The work of Tollefson

Final Paper Question

• Traditional approaches to language and culture have operated from a structurally oriented perspective. In class we have examined several post-structural, discourse oriented approaches. Select five such authors that you consider post-structural and indicate a) their area of work and b) how this contributes to the study of language and culture and discourse.

• You may find the following terms useful in your discussion: self, praxis, power, frame, face, illocution, institution, the cooperative principle

• Two double-spaced pages should do it, but take more if you need to.

The End