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Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties
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Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties

A special issue of Languages (ISSN 2226-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 April 2022) | Viewed by 43237

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Angela Ralli

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Philology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Patras, 26504 Rio-Patras, Greece
Interests: morphology; modern Greek dialectal variation; language contact; Greek; romance; morphological change
Dr. Metin Bagriacik

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Linguistics, Boğaziçi University, 34342 Bebek/İstanbul, Turkey
Interests: morpho-syntactic micro-variation, diachronic morpho-syntax, language-contact at the morpho-syntactic level, cartographic syntax, word structure, Modern Greek dialects, Turkish

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are currently inviting submissions for a Special Issue of Languages entitled “Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties”.

Language contact is at a stage where it is accepted as a proper scientific and multi-disciplinary area of study. As Hickey (2010a: 1) asserts, it becomes evident by a wealth of recent literature, most notable of which are handbooks that take on different aspects of contact studies in scrutiny (Hickey 2010b, Grant 2020, Adamou and Matras 2021). Although occasional criticisms exist on scholars’ failure to achieve consensus on the classification of contact phenomena as well as on the processes underlying different types of contact-induced change (e.g., Winford 2020: 55), many scholars since Weinreich’s (1953) groundwork have proposed sound and refined interdisciplinary frameworks for the study of contact-induced change (among others, Thomason and Kaufman 1988; van Coetsem 1988; Johanson 2002; Thomason 2001, 2003; Matras 2009) and/or have passed another milestone towards understanding how contact-induced change is actuated at the psycholinguistic level (De Bot 2001; Paradis 2004; Kroll and De Groot 2005; Aboh 2006, 2015), how it is propagated within the society (among others, Mufwene 2001, Ansaldo 2009, Trudgill 2010), what possible linguistic outcomes it yields in different historical settings and how much predictability force we can derive from these studies (Gardani et al. 2015, Ralli 2019, to appear, Gardani 2020). These studies have also shown that there is a plethora of types of contact varieties, ranging from (subtypes of bilingual) mixed languages to ethnolects or indigenized L2 varieties, from creoles to interlanguages. Our understanding of the dynamics and results of language contact grows exponentially with each study unraveling a new contact variety or specific aspects of contact-induced phenomena in lesser-known contact varieties. As O’Shannessy (2021: 343) righteously states for mixed languages, we do not know “whether there are significantly more Mixed Languages spoken than those currently documented, and whether the types of Mixed Language attested so far exhaust the types that are possible.” The same, we claim, is valid for the totality of the contact varieties. We subscribe to the widely held claim that contact is what happens between the coexisting/competing linguistic systems in the mind of the same speaker, let these be languages, dialects, or idiolects. Against this background, we expect that language contact is more pervasive than we conceive of, although the field has to date focused on varieties that could somehow constitute “prototypical cases” of contact.

In this Special Issue, we intend to bring together work that contributes to the field of contact linguistics with empirical coverage of new contact varieties. We mean by new varieties both contact varieties that are today emerging as conventionalized varieties (as defined in Kerswill 2010) and contact varieties that are un(der)represented in the literature on language contact.

Areas of investigation include, but are not limited to:

  1. empirical coverage on newly emerging contact varieties, such as different ethnolects/indigenized varieties, interlanguages, mixed languages;
  2. testing theoretical proposals against data from such newly emerging varieties;
  3. specific contact-phenomena in understudied language systems.

We welcome contributions from approaches ranging from fully descriptive to formal and experimental paradigms.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400–600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please, send it to the guest editors, Angela Ralli ([email protected]) and Metin Bağrıaçık ([email protected]) as well as to Languages editorial office ([email protected]). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Tentative completion schedule:

Abstract submission deadline: 30 April 2021

Notification of abstract acceptance: 1 May 2021

Full manuscript deadline: 15 April 2022

References

Aboh, Enoch O. 2006. The role of the syntax-semantics interface in language transfer. In L2 acquisition and creole genesis: Dialogues, ed. by Claire Lefebvre, Lydia White and Christine Jourdan, 221–252. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Aboh, Enoch O. 2015. The emergence of hybrid grammars. Language contact and change. Cambridge: CUP.

Adamou, Evangelia and Yaron Matras (eds.). 2021. The Routledge handbook of language contact. London and NY: Routledge.

Ansaldo, Umberto. 2009. Contact languages: ecology and evolution in Asia. Cambridge: CUP.

de Bot, Kees. 2001. A bilingual production model: Levelt’s ‘SPEAKING’ model adapted. In The bilingualism reader, ed. by Li Wei, 420–441. London and NY: Rourledge.

van Coetsem, Frans. 1988. Loan phonology and the two transfer types in language contact. Dordrecht: Foris.

Gardani, Francesco. 2020. Morphology and contact-induced language change. In Grant 2020, 96-127.

Gardani, Francesco, Peter Arkadiev and Nino Amiridge (eds.). 2015. Borrowed morphology. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Hickey, Raymond. 2010a. Language contact: reconsideration and reassessment. In Hickey 2010b, 1–28.

Hickey, Raymond (ed.). 2010b. The handbook of language contact. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Grant, Anthony P (ed.). 2020. The Oxford handbook of language contact. Oxford, UK: OUP.

Johanson, Lars. 2002. Contact-induced change in a code-copying framework. In Language change, ed. by Mari C. Jones and Edith Esch, 285–314. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Kerswill, Paul. 2010. Contact and new varieties. In Hickey 2010, 230–251.

Kroll, Judith F. and de Groot, Annette M. B. (eds.). 2005. Handbook of bilingualism: psycholinguistic approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Matras, Yaron. 2009. Language contact. Cambridge: CUP.

Mufwene, Salikoko S. 2001. The ecology of language evolution. Cambridge: CUP.

O’Shannessy, Carmel. 2021. Mixed languages. In Adamou and Matras 2021, 325–348.

Paradis, Michel. 2004. A neurolinguistics theory in bilingualism. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Ralli, Angela. 2019. Greek in contact with Romance. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia in Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ralli, Angela. To appear. Contrasting Romance and Turkish as source languages: evidence from borrowing verbs in Modern Greek Dialects. Journal of Language Contact.

Thomason, Sarah G. 2001. Language contact. An introduction. Edinburgh: EUP.

Thomason, Sarah G. 2003. Contact as a source of language change. In The handbook of historical linguistics, ed. by Brian D. Joseph and Richard D. Janda, 687–712. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Thomason, Sarah G. and Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Trudgill, Peter. 2010. Contact and sociolinguistic typology. In Hickey 2010, 299–319.

Weinreich, Uriel. 1953. Languages in contact: findings and problems. NY: Linguistic Circle of New York (ninth edition, reprinted in 1979; The Hague: Mouton).

Winford, Donald. 2020. Theories of language contact. In Grant 2020, 51–75.

Prof. Angela Ralli
Dr. Metin Bagriacik
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • language contact
  • new contact varieties
  • mixed languages
  • new-dialect formation
  • creoles
  • immigrant languages

Published Papers (15 papers)

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20 pages, 473 KiB  
Article
Recycling a Mixed Language: Posha in Turkey
by Melike Uzum, Nurettin Demir and Metin Bagriacik
Languages 2023, 8(1), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010052 - 9 Feb 2023
Viewed by 2341
Abstract
We provide a sketch grammar of a new bilingual mixed language based on data gathered through interaction with its last native speakers. The language, which we call Posha of Çankırı, is spoken in central Turkey. The source languages are Turkish and Lomavren, another [...] Read more.
We provide a sketch grammar of a new bilingual mixed language based on data gathered through interaction with its last native speakers. The language, which we call Posha of Çankırı, is spoken in central Turkey. The source languages are Turkish and Lomavren, another bilingual mixed language for which the source languages are Armenian and some Central Indo-Aryan varieties. In Posha of Çankırı, the mixing happens in the nominal morphology and in the lexicon while the verbal roots and verbal morphology are entirely from the ancestral language, Lomavren, albeit with certain minor changes. The Indo-Aryan layer of vocabulary is rather thin and the Indo-Aryan retentions in grammar can only be speculated. We show that the emergence of Posha of Çankırı has been initiated by language shift, but that its ultimate defining characteristic is L2 insertions into (some distorted version of) the L1. The study contributes to the documentation of lesser known new varieties and touches upon topics such as the mechanism involved in the emergence of bilingual mixed languages. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
19 pages, 1727 KiB  
Article
An Albanian Ethnolect of Modern Greek? Testing the Waters Perceptually
by Rexhina Ndoci
Languages 2023, 8(1), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010020 - 9 Jan 2023
Viewed by 2689
Abstract
Ethnolects have been defined as varieties linked to particular ethnic minorities by the minorities themselves or by other ethnic communities. The present paper investigates this association between ethnic groups and language varieties in the Greek context. I seek to answer whether there is [...] Read more.
Ethnolects have been defined as varieties linked to particular ethnic minorities by the minorities themselves or by other ethnic communities. The present paper investigates this association between ethnic groups and language varieties in the Greek context. I seek to answer whether there is an association made (by Albanians or Greeks) between Albanian migrants in Greece and a particular variety that is not their L1, i.e., Albanian, and if so, whether this is an Albanian ethnolect of Greek. I show experimentally that, in fact, there is a variety of Greek that is linked with listeners’ perceptions of Albanian migrants. However, that criterion is not enough in itself to designate the variety as an ethnolect as the acquisition of this variety by the second or subsequent generations of migrants is not evidenced. Rather, those generations are undergoing language shift from Albanian to Greek. Therefore, the classification of Albanian Greek as an Albanian ethnolect of Greek is not possible despite the association between the variety and the particular minority in Greece. Classification as an L2 Greek variety or a Mock Albanian Greek (MAG) variety is instead argued. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
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16 pages, 2468 KiB  
Article
Contact-Induced Change in an Endangered Language: The Case of Cypriot Arabic
by Spyros Armostis and Marilena Karyolemou
Languages 2023, 8(1), 10; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8010010 - 26 Dec 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2616
Abstract
Cypriot Arabic (CyAr) is a severely endangered Semitic variety spoken by Cypriot Maronites. It belongs to the group of “peripheral varieties” of Arabic that were separated from the core Arabic-speaking area and came into contact with non-Semitic languages. Although there has been a [...] Read more.
Cypriot Arabic (CyAr) is a severely endangered Semitic variety spoken by Cypriot Maronites. It belongs to the group of “peripheral varieties” of Arabic that were separated from the core Arabic-speaking area and came into contact with non-Semitic languages. Although there has been a renewed interest since the turn of the century for the study of CyAr, some aspects of its structure are still not well known. In this paper, we present and analyze a number of developments in CyAr induced by contact with Cypriot Greek. Our methodology for investigating such phenomena makes a novel contribution to the description of this underrepresented variety, as it was based not only on existing linguistic descriptions and text corpora in the literature, but mainly on a vast corpus of naturalistic oral speech data from the Archive of Oral Tradition of CyAr. Our analysis revealed the complexity of investigated contact phenomena and the differing degrees of integration of borrowings into the lexico-grammatical system of CyAr. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
18 pages, 670 KiB  
Article
Language Attrition and Lived Experiences of Attrition among Greek Speakers in London
by Dimitra Lazaridou-Chatzigoga and Petros Karatsareas
Languages 2022, 7(4), 307; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040307 - 5 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2299
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate attrition effects in a group of L1-Greek–L2-English speakers and to explore their views on attrition and their feelings about their own use of both languages. The first part (n = 32) was a psycholinguistic [...] Read more.
The purpose of this study was to investigate attrition effects in a group of L1-Greek–L2-English speakers and to explore their views on attrition and their feelings about their own use of both languages. The first part (n = 32) was a psycholinguistic study measuring semantic and formal verbal fluency which was part of a broader project. The second part (n = 14) was a sociolinguistic study of semi-structured interviews aiming to gain insights into participants’ lived experiences of attrition. In verbal fluency, monolinguals outperformed bilinguals in the number of correct responses in both semantic and formal fluency. The analysis of the interview transcripts suggested that attriters experience attrition negatively, as a loss of a competence they once had, with two types of negative experiences emerging more prominently: (a) the realisation that they have difficulties with lexical retrieval and (b) stigmatising and judgemental comments by (non)-attriters. Combining quantitative and qualitative methods, this study on attriters can give us unique insights into their lived experience of attrition. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
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25 pages, 2838 KiB  
Article
Variation in R-Pronouns in Moroccan and Turkish Ethnolectal Dutch and What It Tells Us
by Frans Hinskens
Languages 2022, 7(4), 259; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040259 - 11 Oct 2022
Viewed by 1925
Abstract
R-pronouns are R-words which feature as pronouns in prepositional phrases (among other things). They are common in Dutch and German (e.g., D. daarmee, G. damit, lit. ‘therewith’, ‘with that’, D. erna, G. danach, lit. ‘hereafter’, ‘after this’). This contribution concerns a quantitative study [...] Read more.
R-pronouns are R-words which feature as pronouns in prepositional phrases (among other things). They are common in Dutch and German (e.g., D. daarmee, G. damit, lit. ‘therewith’, ‘with that’, D. erna, G. danach, lit. ‘hereafter’, ‘after this’). This contribution concerns a quantitative study of variation in R-pronouns in modern Moroccan and Turkish ethnolectal Dutch. In conversational speech of bilingual speakers of Moroccan Dutch, Turkish Dutch and two groups of monolingual ‘white’ Dutch (one of them being the control group), R-pronouns appear to vary in three dimensions: the R-pronoun can or cannot be realized (with the latter option violating the norms of Dutch); if it is realized, the R-pronoun and the preposition can or cannot be split (both options conform the norms of Standard Dutch), if the R-pronoun is not realized, then either another pronoun is used instead or there is no substitute (both variants violate the norms of Dutch). For all three dimensions of variation, statistical analyses were carried out, starting from a total of 1160 realizations by 52 representatives of the four groups. The analyses involved three internal parameters and four social ones. The results serve to answer research questions concerning the origin of the variation, its place in the verbal repertoires and the social spread of the variation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
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14 pages, 631 KiB  
Article
Language Contact and Borders among Pontic Greek and Cypriot Greek in Karpasia, Cyprus: Yours Don’t Match with Ours
by Elena Ioannidou
Languages 2022, 7(4), 253; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040253 - 29 Sep 2022
Viewed by 3351
Abstract
The current paper explores language contact between two Greek varieties, Pontic Greek and Cypriot Greek, in the northern part of Cyprus. After the de facto partition of Cyprus in 1974, several Pontic Greek-speaking communities were transplanted from their homeland in Trabzon to the [...] Read more.
The current paper explores language contact between two Greek varieties, Pontic Greek and Cypriot Greek, in the northern part of Cyprus. After the de facto partition of Cyprus in 1974, several Pontic Greek-speaking communities were transplanted from their homeland in Trabzon to the peninsula of Karpasia in northern Cyprus. These “newcomers” or “immigrants” or “settlers” were brought from Turkey after the displacement of the Greek Cypriot population living in the north. Hence, from 1976 another Greek linguistic variety emerged in the area, Pontic Greek or Romeyka or Rumca, which was the home variety of the newcomers. Although Greek Cypriots were forced to leave the area, Cypriot Greek retained a strong presence in Karpasia, spoken by Turkish Cypriot Romeika speakers and by Greek Cypriots who remained “enclaved” in some villages of the peninsula. Hence, a dynamic and multifacet sociolinguistic context has been created where two main non-standard varieties of the Greek language, Cypriot Greek and Pontic Greek, are in contact and are spoken by different groups of speakers and where Turkish remains the dominant and official language. Within this context, the current paper explores instances of language contact between Pontic Greek and Cypriot Greek, focusing on the narratives produced by Pontic Greek speakers. The paper employs ethnographic methods for approaching these communities and for understanding issues of language use and language values within a heavily politicized context. The theoretical constructs of space and border are used to interpret the data and provide a deeper understanding of language contact, daily practices, and wider ideologies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
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15 pages, 1240 KiB  
Article
Can We Witness the (Re)making of a Pidgin in Real Time? Contact in the Russian–Chinese Border Area
by Kapitolina Fedorova
Languages 2022, 7(4), 248; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7040248 - 26 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2212
Abstract
The empirical focus of this paper is on the interethnic communication along the Russian–Chinese border. Language contact in this area has a long history; in the 18th century, it resulted in a contact variety, the so-called Kyakhta language, or Russian–Chinese pidgin, which fell [...] Read more.
The empirical focus of this paper is on the interethnic communication along the Russian–Chinese border. Language contact in this area has a long history; in the 18th century, it resulted in a contact variety, the so-called Kyakhta language, or Russian–Chinese pidgin, which fell into disuse after a century. The contact has resumed recently, and we are currently witnessing the emergence of new contact varieties in real time in the area. The reported research aimed to study language contact as a social practice and gain access not only to linguistic facts but also to speakers’ perceptions of them revealed in interviews and conversations. The discussion is based on field data collected between 2008 and 2010 in Zabaykalskiy Krai in Russia and in the province of Inner Mongolia in China. The study reveals different non-standard varieties emerging through interethnic interactions in the border area, and uncovers linguistic features that were typical of Russian–Chinese pidgin (and impossible in Standard Russian) being ‘reinvented’ now both in the Chinese ethnolect of Russian and in some extreme forms of foreigner talk employed by Russian speakers professionally involved in regular communication with Chinese speakers. The paper stresses the role of the professionalization of communication for pidgin development. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
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18 pages, 1037 KiB  
Article
Transitivity Marking in Light Warlpiri, an Australian Mixed Language
by Carmel O’Shannessy, Amelia Carter and Siva Kalyan
Languages 2022, 7(3), 235; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7030235 - 9 Sep 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2287
Abstract
Light Warlpiri is a newly emerged Australian mixed language that systematically combines nominal structure from Warlpiri (Australian, Pama-Nyungan) with verbal structure from Kriol (an English-lexified Creole) and English, with additional innovations in the verbal auxiliary system. Lexical items are drawn from both Warlpiri [...] Read more.
Light Warlpiri is a newly emerged Australian mixed language that systematically combines nominal structure from Warlpiri (Australian, Pama-Nyungan) with verbal structure from Kriol (an English-lexified Creole) and English, with additional innovations in the verbal auxiliary system. Lexical items are drawn from both Warlpiri and the two English-lexified sources, Kriol and English. The Light Warlpiri verb system is interesting because of questions raised about how it combines elements of its sources. Most verb stems are derived from Kriol or English, but Warlpiri stems also occur, with reanalysis, and stems of either source host Kriol-derived transitive marking (e.g., hit-im ‘hit-TR’). Transitive marking is productive but also variable. In this paper, we examine transitivity and its marking on Light Warlpiri verbs, drawing on narrative data from an extensive corpus of adult speech. The study finds that transitive marking on verbs in Light Warlpiri is conditioned by six of Hopper and Thompson’s semantic components of transitivity, as well as a morphosyntactic constraint. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
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28 pages, 8121 KiB  
Article
Contact Phenomena in Azov Greek
by Maxim Kisilier
Languages 2022, 7(3), 174; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7030174 - 6 Jul 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4655
Abstract
Azov Greek is a Modern Greek dialect currently spoken in several villages in the area of Mariupol (Eastern Ukraine). Recent studies in Modern Greek dialectology clearly demonstrate that all Modern Greek dialects (even so specific as Tsakonian) in some period (or periods) of [...] Read more.
Azov Greek is a Modern Greek dialect currently spoken in several villages in the area of Mariupol (Eastern Ukraine). Recent studies in Modern Greek dialectology clearly demonstrate that all Modern Greek dialects (even so specific as Tsakonian) in some period (or periods) of their history were deeply influenced by other dialects or languages and the traces of this influence can be found on various linguistic levels. Azov Greek is no exception here. This contribution intends not only to specify languages involved in language contact with Azov Greek and to analyze the most remarkable features but also to reconstruct a timeline of these contacts. The analysis is based on the field research data collected in Greek speaking villages around Mariupol between 2001 and 2019 and considers folklore and literary texts in Azov Greek. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
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21 pages, 816 KiB  
Article
Μorphological Integration of Loan Words in Kaliardá
by Angela Ralli and Andreas Rouvalis
Languages 2022, 7(3), 167; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7030167 - 1 Jul 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1662 | Correction
Abstract
This article deals with lexical borrowing and the morphological integration of loan words in Kaliardá, a Greek-based antilanguage, spoken in the urban areas of Greece by socially marginalized communities of cross-dressers, transgender people, and gay men. It is shown that the accommodation of [...] Read more.
This article deals with lexical borrowing and the morphological integration of loan words in Kaliardá, a Greek-based antilanguage, spoken in the urban areas of Greece by socially marginalized communities of cross-dressers, transgender people, and gay men. It is shown that the accommodation of most loans follows the general rules of Modern Greek morphology, namely, the stem-based word formation and compulsory inflection. However, for a considerable part of the borrowed items, there are certain morphological deviances compared to loan formation in Greek. More particularly, there is an overuse of the feminine grammatical gender, assigned to -human nouns, contrary to a neuterization tendency displayed by the Greek language, while the masculine grammatical gender is scarcely employed, and a significant number of feminine loans end in -o and -u in the citation form. Verbal loans do not substantially differ from those in Greek, with the exception of the frequent use of verbal periphrastic formations, consisting of an auxiliary inflected verb type, avélo or vuélo (both loans themselves), and a nominal item. Sometimes, avélo is also employed as a mediator for the integration of English verbs. The data under examination are drawn from a Kaliardá dictionary. Their accuracy is checked with 10 Kaliardá speakers in 2 big Greek cities, Athens and Patras, and they are enriched by a small oral corpus of 32 words collected through interviews. The investigated data comprise items from Italian, French and English, three principal donor languages in Kaliardá, but there are also loans from other languages, mainly from Romani and Turkish, but also from Albanian, German and Spanish. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
19 pages, 500 KiB  
Article
Greek-Canadian Koiné: The Emergence of a Koiné among Greek-Canadian Immigrants
by Panayiotis A. Pappas, Angela Ralli and Simeon Tsolakidis
Languages 2022, 7(2), 110; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7020110 - 3 May 2022
Viewed by 4225
Abstract
The present paper is a contribution to the study of a new Modern Greek variety that is spoken in Canada by first-generation immigrants who arrived in this country between 1945 and 1975. This variety displays features originating from: (a) A Common Modern Greek [...] Read more.
The present paper is a contribution to the study of a new Modern Greek variety that is spoken in Canada by first-generation immigrants who arrived in this country between 1945 and 1975. This variety displays features originating from: (a) A Common Modern Greek spoken in Greece around the middle of the 20th century, (b) mutually intelligible characteristics of the immigrants’ native dialectal varieties, mainly from the Peloponnese, (c) contact with English, (d) Standard Modern Greek. We present, discuss, and analyze data collected within the framework of the project “ImmiGrec: Stories of Greek immigration in Canada.” We focus on linguistic elements that could be considered indicative features of a Greek-Canadian Koiné, more particularly by investigating the borrowing and integration of English nouns and the variation in the use of the unstressed syllabic augment /e-/ and two different imperfective past suffixes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
23 pages, 811 KiB  
Article
Contact-Induced Change in the Domain of Grammatical Gender in Pontic Greek Spoken in Georgia
by Svetlana Berikashvili
Languages 2022, 7(2), 79; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7020079 - 29 Mar 2022
Viewed by 4006
Abstract
This paper presents an empirical study on the cross-linguistic influence of contact languages (Turkish, Georgian and Russian) in the domain of grammatical gender in Pontic Greek spoken by the Pontic-speaking community of Georgia. The study is based on corpus data collected during several [...] Read more.
This paper presents an empirical study on the cross-linguistic influence of contact languages (Turkish, Georgian and Russian) in the domain of grammatical gender in Pontic Greek spoken by the Pontic-speaking community of Georgia. The study is based on corpus data collected during several periods of fieldwork within the Pontic-speaking community of Georgia. The questions addressed in the paper are: What innovations can be observed in the understudied variety in the gender domain, and, if any innovation is observed, are they due to the impact of contact languages? I argue that contact-induced changes in the gender domain manifest themselves in the assignment of gender to loan nouns, and contribute to the establishment of the default gender value. The main findings reveal that, in comparison with other Pontic varieties, this variety is on the one hand more sensitive to the animacy hierarchy, and, on the other, shows increased use of the feminine gender as a result of the incorporation of feminine loans from a gendered language, i.e., Russian. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
17 pages, 726 KiB  
Article
The Jargon of Italian Travellers in Change: A New Social Scenario for Relexification
by Chiara Tribulato
Languages 2022, 7(1), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7010044 - 22 Feb 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2272
Abstract
The present research paper explores the effects of relexification in the context of an in-group jargon variety. Specifically, it addresses the role of Romani as a supplier language in the process of lexical renewal that is ongoing in Dritto—the jargon of the Italian [...] Read more.
The present research paper explores the effects of relexification in the context of an in-group jargon variety. Specifically, it addresses the role of Romani as a supplier language in the process of lexical renewal that is ongoing in Dritto—the jargon of the Italian Travellers. Considered the most ancient descendant of the Italian historical jargon of the Roads, Dritto is a secret code which is still actively used within some socially marginalized service-provider communities, such as the families involved in the circus and the travelling show business. At the margins of the mainstream society, the families of Dritti entertainers share their living and economic spaces with the families of Italian Sinti, whose presence has been documented in Italy for centuries. As a consequence of this intense and prolonged cohabitation, Romani elements have always been documented in the corpora of Italian historical jargon. However, a considerably more significant contribution has recently been documented by researchers among the funfair workers in northern Italy. This work examines the driving factors behind this contact-induced shift by considering the changing socio-economic context faced by the travelling community in the last decades. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
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13 pages, 911 KiB  
Article
Degemination in Emirati Pidgin Arabic: A Sociolinguistic Perspective
by Abdel Rahman Mitib Altakhaineh, Abdul-Salam Al-Namer and Sulafah Alnamer
Languages 2022, 7(1), 8; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7010008 - 5 Jan 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3369
Abstract
This study examines the production of geminates in Emirati Pidgin Arabic (EPA) spoken by blue-collar workers in the United Arab Emirates. A simple naming test was designed to test the production of geminates to determine whether the EPA speakers would produce a geminated [...] Read more.
This study examines the production of geminates in Emirati Pidgin Arabic (EPA) spoken by blue-collar workers in the United Arab Emirates. A simple naming test was designed to test the production of geminates to determine whether the EPA speakers would produce a geminated or degeminated phoneme. Following that, a semi-structured interview was conducted with a subset of the study cohort to obtain the participants’ own explanation of where they degeminated the consonants. Our findings suggest that the exercising of this choice functions as a sociolinguistic strategy, akin to the one observed by Labov in his study of Martha’s Vineyard. In particular, our findings show that speakers of EPA are inclined to degeminate consonantal geminates to establish themselves as members of a particular social group. The reasons for wanting to achieve this aim were given as follows: to claim privileges only available to members of this group (such as employment); and to distinguish themselves from the dominant cultural group. The study concludes that degemination in EPA has developed into a sociolinguistic solidarity marker. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
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1 pages, 286 KiB  
Correction
Correction: Ralli and Rouvalis (2022). Μorphological Integration of Loan Words in Kaliardá. Languages 7: 167
by Angela Ralli and Andreas Rouvalis
Languages 2023, 8(2), 117; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8020117 - 26 Apr 2023
Viewed by 648
Abstract
There was an error in the original publication (Ralli and Rouvalis 2022) [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Investigating Language Contact and New Varieties)
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