Language and Contact

English as a lingua franca

u English is used as a lingua franca in Europe, if a Dutch person and a Swede

want to talk to one another, it is spoken with a great deal of fluency and
expertise, usually as a result of many years of tuition.
u It is unusual to find a non-native speaker who uses English as a lingua franca
who can speak English as well as a native English speaker.
u When a language is used as a lingua franca it undergoes a certain amount of
simplification and reduction - as well as being subject to the introduction of
errors through interference from the native language.
Simplification- Reduction

u Simplification refers to the getting rid of irregularities, such as irregular verb

forms, and redundancies, such as grammatical gender, in the lingua franca.

u Reduction refers to that lingua franca speakers may use the language for
doing business, compared to the usage of a native speaker, parts of the
language are missing: vocabulary, grammatical structures, stylistic devices.
Pidginization - Swahili as a Lingua Franca

u The technical term for the process by which languages may be subject to
simplification, reduction and interference is pidginization.
u On parts of the coast of East Africa, Swahili is the native language of many of the
population, who use it for all purposes and speak it fluently. Inland in Tanzania it
is not spoken natively, but it is used as a lingua franca.
u Compared to the coastal Swahili, this inland lingua-franca variety demonstrates
some features of simplification and it is subject to reduction, as it is used in a
more restricted set of circumstances than on the coast.
Pidgin language

u In another part of Congo a lingua-franca form of Swahili occurs. This variety

again is reduced and simplified, relative to coastal Swahili. Verb structures
are radically simplified, there are no noun classes, and a limited number of
sentences are employed. The result of this degree of reduction and
simplification is that mutual intelligibility with coastal Swahili is minimal.
u When pidginization has taken place on this scale, and when the result is a
stabilized form of language consistently employed as a lingua franca, the
resulting variety is called a pidgin language (in this case we call it Congo
Pidgin Swahili).
What is Pidgin Language?

u A pidgin language is a lingua franca which has no native speakers.

u It is derived from a 'normal' language through simplification,
reduction and interference, from the native language or languages
of those who use it, especially so far as pronunciation is
concerned. Normally, in the first stages of its development at least,
in which we can refer to it as a pre-pidgin, it is used only in trading
or other limited-contact situations.
British Solomon Islands Pidgin

u It is known as Neo-Solomonic, which is widely used as a lingua franca in the

Solomon Islands. For example: ‘Mif3lə i-go go lCŋ sClwater’
u English: ‘We kept going on the sea’
u It is difficult if not impossible for an English speaker to understand and the
translation is necessary.
u The grammar and vocabulary of Neo-Solomonic, although similar to English,
is nonetheless quite distinct. The language has grammatical rules and words
of its own. For example, kaikai, Neo-Solomonic for 'food, eat', is not an
English word.
Pidgin languages resulted from:

u Most of the better-known pidgin languages in the world are the result of
travel on the part of European traders and colonizers. They are based on
languages like English, French and Portuguese, and are located on the main
shipping and trading routes.
u English-based pidgins were found in North America, at both ends of the slave
trade in Africa and the Caribbean, in New Zealand and in China.
u They are still found in Australia, West Africa, the Solomon Islands and in New
Guinea, where Pidgin English is often referred to by linguists as Tok Pisin.
Tok Pisin

u Tok Pisin is the most widely spoken pidgin derived from English. It has official
status in Papua New Guinea, and is used there on the radio, in newspapers, and
in schools. At present, it is undergoing considerable creolization.
u Creole languages are pidgins that have acquired native speakers. In linguistically
mixed communities where a pidgin is used as the lingua franca, children may
acquire it as their native language if their parents communicate in the pidgin.
u As spoken by adult native speakers, the language will have an expanded
vocabulary, a wider range of syntactic possibilities, and an increased stylistic
repertoire. It will be used for all purposes in wide range of social situations.
Jamaican English

u Some linguists refer to it as Jamaican English while others prefer to give it

the status of a separate language, call it Jamaican Creole.
u Standard English is the official language and is spoken by educated
Jamaicans and people of British origin.
u At the other end of the social scale, the language used is an English-based
creole which is not in itself mutually intelligible with Standard English.
Creole languages similarities

u One of the most interesting features of creole languages generally -at least in
the case of those related historically to European languages- is the number of
similarities they share with one another, regardless of geographical location.
Consider the following verb forms:
u Jamaican Creole:'What's going to happen now?
u Sranan:' 'I'm coming.’
u Gullah:'they were eating fodder.'
u Krio:'I'm going to work’.
Three similarities

u The above sentences demonstrate progressive aspect: they concern not single short-
lived actions, but actions taking place over a longer period of time. The similarities to
note are as follows:
u 1. All these creoles are able to mark continuous aspect without marking tense. (The
Gullah example has been translated as past, but in other contexts it could be present.)
u 2. All the creoles show continuous aspect, not by an inflection of the verb, as in
English, but by a particle - an independent word standing before the verb.
u 3. The actual form of this particle is almost identical in each case: de, de, da, de.
Why are Creoles similar?

u One explanation that has been put forward stresses the similarity of
those situations which led to the growth of pidgins (and hence of
creoles) .
1. These languages were generally the joint creation of sailors, traders
and indigenous peoples in trading or other similar con texts, it is
pointed out, and it is therefore not surprising that these languages are
similar.
2. Relexification Theory

u This theory claims that the first wide spread European-based pidgin was
Portuguese Pidgin, which grew up during the fifteenth century along the
West African coast. The Portuguese then spread it to other trading posts and
colonies in Africa and Asia, and traders from other countries began to learn it.
u However, when French and English traders entered the trade in large
numbers, relexification of this Portuguese pidgin took place. The grammar of
the language remained the same, but the words were changed.
3. Innate Knowledge

u If all creoles are the result of expansion, by children, of a pidgin

language; and if the children of these different communities all had
to draw on their innate knowledge of what human language is like;
and if the human language faculty is something which all human
beings share ; then it is not surprising that creoles around the world
have similar structures.