Cultural preferences in new vocabulary

As we have seen, a basic choice in adopting new concepts is whether the actual lexical item is borrowed from another language, or whether the concept is translated in some way in native morphemes. It has been claimed that the nature of the contact can affect the linguistic outcome. Cf. Dozier (1956):

“...the contact situation, whether forced or permissive, tends to produce a situation which is correspondingly resistive or accepting of introduced cultural elements.”

Dozier suggests that the Yaqui of Arizona borrowed many Spanish words because their relations with the Spanish were relatively positive, but that the Pueblo peoples, who revolted against the Spanish in 1680, were more hostile to the Spanish and were more likely to coin new terms.

Whatever the causes, we can see both sorts of strategies in Tewa, a Pueblo language of New Mexico. Dozier is not clear about which of the five Tewa villages (with somewhat different dialects) his words come from, although a footnote does mention the Santa Clara Pueblo.

Another variety of Tewa is spoken in Arizona, on First Mesa in the Hopi Reservation. These Tewa speakers left New Mexico after the Pueblo Revolt, to move further from the Spanish, and have even fewer direct borrowings from Spanish than do the Tewa discussed in Dozier's article — 1 percent as opposed to 5 percent of the vocabulary (Kroskrity 1978).

Tewa loans from Spanish

Spanish loanwords in Tewa are mainly nouns for borrowed cultural items.

Tewa extensions of meaning

More typical in Tewa is the use of existing morphemes. This can be simply an extension of meaning, without creating a new word.

The older meaning in many cases is still available, but may require an extra modifier; e.g. the old word for native tobacco now ordinarily means purchased tobacco; to refer to the native type, the expression "people's tobacco" is used.

Tewa new formations

But it is most common for existing morphemes to be used to create new vocabulary items.

This strategy is also common, for example, in German, which has words such as Krankenhaus (sick-house) for "hospital" and Fahrrad (travel-wheel) for "bicycle".

Mitchif – a mixed language

A more unusual linguistic phenomenon that can arise in situations of intense language contact is a mixed language, where elements from two languages are fused into one. There are several examples in the Americas.

A famous mixed language is Mitchif, which combines almost exclusively French noun phrases with Cree verbs. It arose among the Métis, descendants of French Canadian fur traders and Cree Indians in western Canada. The Selkirk's Grant shown on the map is an area in the Red River Valley established for colonization by Lord Selkirk in the early 19th century, where the Métis originated.

Currently Mitchif is spoken mainly in north-central North Dakota, on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation. Métis in Canada primarily speak a variety of French today.

Mitchif phrases

The basic nouns, adjectives, and articles are normally French (with a few Cree nouns also); but the noun phrase can be followed by a Cree demonstrative or (optional) obviative suffix. Otherwise the morphologies are distinct and independent, e.g. French has no influence on the verbs.

‘that box over there’

‘that brown dog’

‘the woman is holding the child’

Mitchif text

This extended text illustrates the mix of languages. Here the French (and English) elements receive standard spellings, but the actual pronunciation of French words is based on Canadian French, such as boîte as /bwet/ rather than Parisian /bwat/.

Mitchif text

(continued)

While this phenomenon resembles code-switching, the Mitchif pattern does not have the flexibility of bilinguals who choose at various points to move from one language to another; the nouns are necessarily in French (and now, in English), while the verbs are necessarily in Cree.

Further, while many Métis were historically trilingual (Mitchif, Cree, French), many today do not speak Cree or French, as English becomes more important. Such a speaker of Mitchif is not switching among languages that are known independently, but rather using a mixed language.

Mednyj Aleut

Mednyj Aleut is a mixed Aleut–Russian language spoken on the Commander Islands (Bering Island and Copper Island) off the Kamchatka Peninsula. Mednyj is the Russian adjective based on med’ "copper".

The islands were first settled by Aleuts in 1826; Russians soon followed but were much fewer in number.

In the map, the Russian labels include Командорские острова "Commander Islands", о[стров] Беринга "Bering Island", о[стров] Медный "Copper Island", Берингово море "Bering Sea", Камчатский полуостров "Kamchatka Peninsula", and Тихий океан "Pacific Ocean".

Mednyj Aleut person and number conjugation

The language that developed under these conditions has Aleut roots, with verb endings replaced by simpler Russian forms. (The native Bering Aleut conjugation has over 400 forms.) It is therefore similar to Mitchif, since there was extensive borrowing of just one subsystem; but here it is only grammatical items that are borrowed, not roots.

The Aleut dual-plural distinction is not represented in the suffixes (since it is absent from Russian), but rather by the free-standing word allax, which is used only in the first person in Bering Aleut but has been extended to wider use in the mixed language.

Mednyj Aleut tense and mood

Other verb inflections such as the imperative and past tense are also marked with Russian morphology.

Mednyj Aleut sentences

There is more flexibility in the use of Russian in noun phrases. Either Aleut or Russian elements can be used, but they match within the phrase (i.e., the determiner and noun are from the same source.

There is some simplificaiton of the Russian grammar; thus masculine moy is used rather than feminine moyá in the second sentence. There is also redundancy, since the Aleut suffix for "my" is simultaneously present.

Media Lengua

Another example of a mixed language is Media Lengua, a mix of Spanish and Quechua (Quichua) spoken in the town of Salcedo in Ecuador. It seems to have developed in the 1920's, when local Quechua speakers went to Quito (the capital) for work, and integrated Spanish vocabulary into their language.

Spanish roots and Quechua grammar

Similar to Mednyj Aleut, in Media Lengua we find roots from one language combined with affixes from another. However, here the roots are from the European language and the grammatical elements are from the Native American language. These sentences are presented in both Media Lengua and Quechua below it; the only difference is the use of Spanish roots in the latter (adapted to Quechua phonology, which for example most often lacks mid vowels).

‘I’ve come to ask a favor.’

‘There turns out to be no grass for the guinea pigs.’

‘I’ve come here after falling in the water.’

Although Spanish does not treat the notion "for there not to be any" as a single morpheme, comparable to Quecha illa-, nevertheless the two elements no haber are treated in Media Lengua as a simple verb root, nuwabi-, parallel to Quechua.