Contact Linguistics

This chapter is an attempt to identify the individual homelands of the five families making up the Transeurasian grouping, i.e. the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic, and Japonic families. Combining various linguistic methods and principles such as the diversity hotspot principle, Bayesian phylolinguistics, cultural reconstruction (“linguistic paleontology”), and prehistoric contact linguistics, the chapter aims to determine the original locations and time depths of the families under discussion. Integrating an archeological perspective, we further propose that the individual speech communities were originally familiar with millet agriculture, while terms for pastoralism or wet-rice agriculture entered their vocabularies only at a later stage in history.

Existing studies on the translation of Nadsat – the invented language in A Clockwork Orange – neglect the fact that Nadsat is a result of language contact between English and Russian, and ignore the role that translators play in linguistic innovation, as well as the motivating factors behind their creativity. This study addresses this conspicuous gap by examining a multilingual corpus of A Clockwork Orange from a language contact and language change perspective, and creating for the first time a link between adaptation, as understood in contact linguistics, and creativity in translation. The focus is on how Russian-derived nouns in the English version have been rendered in four versions of Nadsat (French, German, Greek, and Spanish), and how these differ from naturally occurring Russian loan nouns in these languages, in terms of gender assignment and inflection. Results suggest that the level of creativity that translators demonstrate is not simply an indication of their talent, but rather a result of an interplay of factors related to translation, and that concepts from the field of language contact are particularly effective in reframing the way in which creativity is viewed in translation studies.

Available from: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/Qui4mZh2eAKjKjYm8HyA/full

Après avoir discuté de diverses typologies existantes, sur la question des alternances codiques, nous décrivons dans cet article, au regard de nos données, les propriétés linguistiques et sociales des parlers bilingues dans les communautés kali'na et businenge. Nous espérons ainsi, au travers de la présentation de nos résultats, montrer que quel que soit le regard porté sur les alternances (linguistique, interactionnel), celles-ci ne peuvent être dégagées des significations sociales qu'elles ont pour les locuteurs qui les produisent.

The study of grammatical variation in language mixing has been at the core of research into bilingual language practices. Although various motivations have been proposed in the literature to account for possible mixing patterns, some of them are either controversial, or remain untested. Little is still known about whether and how frequency of use of linguistic elements can contribute to the patterning of bilingual talk. This book is the first to systematically explore the factor usage frequency in a corpus of bilingual speech. The two aims are (i) to describe and analyze the variation in mixing patterns in the speech of Russia German adolescents and young adults in Germany, and (ii) to propose and test usage-based explanations of variation in mixing patterns in three morphosyntactic contexts: the adjective-modified noun phrase, the prepositional phrase, and the plural marking of German noun insertions in bilingual sentences. In these contexts, German noun insertions combine with either Russian or German words and grammatical markers, thus yielding mixed bilingual and German monolingual constituents in otherwise Russian sentences, the latter also labelled as embedded-language islands. The results suggest that the frequency with which words are used together mediates the distribution of mixing patterns in each of the examined contexts. The differing impacts of co-occurrence frequency are attributed to the distributional and semantic specifics of the analyzed morphosyntactic configurations. Lexical frequency has been found to be another important determinant in this variation. Other factors include recency, or lexical priming, in discourse in the case of prepositional phrases, and phonological and structural similarities and differences in the inflectional systems of the contact languages in the case of plural marking.

This paper presents preliminary research observations on diglossia features (in the Fergusonian sense) and bilingualism of the Turkish-speaking community of Western Thrace, as well as contact-relevant linguistic variables that may be related to different social factors.

Academic Reference:

Zuckermann, Ghil'ad & Monaghan, Paul (2012). "Revival linguistics and the new media: Talknology in the service of the Barngarla language reclamation", pp. 119-126 of Foundation for Endangered Languages XVI Conference: Language Endangerment in the 21st Century:Globalisation, Technology & New Media. Auckland, New Zealand.

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Revival Linguistics and the New Media:
Talknology in the service of the Barngarla Language Reclamation


Ghil‘ad Zuckermann

Chair of Linguistics and Endangered Languages
School of Humanities, University of Adelaide, SA Adelaide 5005, Australia
[[email protected]]


Paul Monaghan

Mobile Language Team
School of Humanities, University of Adelaide, SA Adelaide 5005, Australia
[[email protected]]


Abstract

Revival Linguistics is a new branch of linguistics, currently being established at Adelaide. It analyses comparatively and systematically the universal constraints and global mechanisms on the one hand (see Zuckermann 2009), and local peculiarities on the other hand, apparent in revival attempts across various sociological backgrounds, all over the world (see Zuckermann & Walsh 2011). A branch of both linguistics and applied linguistics, it combines scientific studies of native language acquisition and foreign language learning (language reclamation is the most extreme case of Second Language Learning).

The study: The Barngarla language (spelled Parnkalla by Schürmann 1844) is a no-longer spoken Thura-Yura Pama-Nyungan Aboriginal language of the Lakes Cultural Region of South Australia. Most recently Zuckermann, Monaghan and the Barngarla community have launched a reclamation of this sleeping beauty in three major rural/urban centres on the Eyre Peninsula, namely Port Lincoln, Whyalla, and Port Augusta. The presence of three Barngarla populations several hours drive apart presents the revival linguist with a need for a sophisticated reclamation involving ‘talknological’ innovations, such as online chatting, newsgroups, photo and resource sharing through a Barngarla wiki. This paper also examines the tensions accompanying the creation of a Barngarla ‘community of practice’ (cf. Wenger 1998) in a post-traditional Aboriginal context. In important ways, the new talknology poses a direct challenge to existing authority structures relating to the everyday management of knowledge, collaboration and participation. We predict that how the broader Barngarla community negotiates these issues will have an important bearing on the ultimate results of the reclamation project.




Revival Linguistics

Revival Linguistics is a new branch of linguistics, currently being established at Adelaide. It analyses comparatively and systematically the universal constraints and global mechanisms on the one hand (see Zuckermann 2009), and local peculiarities and idiosyncrasies on the other hand, apparent in revival attempts across various sociological backgrounds, all over the world (Zuckermann & Walsh 2011). A branch of both linguistics and applied linguistics, it combines scientific studies of native language acquisition and foreign language learning (language reclamation is the most extreme case of Second Language Learning).

Revival Linguistics complements the established field of documentary linguistics, which records endangered languages before they fall asleep. Revival Linguistics ought to revise the fields of grammaticography (writing grammars) and lexicography (writing dictionaries): Grammars and dictionaries ought to be written for language reclamation, i.e. in a user-friendly way, for communities, not only for linguists. For example, juxtapose Lutheran missionary Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann’s 1844 spelling of the Barngarla word nunyara ‘recovery’, which ignores the English environment, thus resulting in the pronunciation nanYAra rather than NOONyara.

Closely related to contact linguistics, Revival Linguistics changes the field of historical linguistics, e.g. by weakening the Family Tree model, which implies that a language ought to have only one parent. Assisting Aboriginal communities in a realistic, non-purisitic way, without selling them myths, Revival Linguistics promotes efficiency and efficacy in language reclamation.

Certainly Australia has been made the ‘Unlucky Country’ through the historical processes of linguicide (language killing) and glottophagy (language eating). These twin forces were in operation from the early colonial period. In her detailed study of the role missionary language practices in the early years of the South Australian colony, Scrimgeour quotes the following colonial language ideology: ‘Mr Forster afterwards adverted to the present mode of teaching the children in their own language. He, with all respect to the Missionaries, would say, on several grounds, that this was wrong. The natives would be sooner civilized if their language was extinct. The children taught would afterwards mix only with whites, where their own language would be of no use – the use of their language would preserve their prejudices and debasement, and their language was not sufficient to express the ideas of civilized life.  He gave the Missionaries full credit for their talents and zeal, but he thought it would be better to teach the children in English’ (from Report on a public meeting of the South Australian Missionary Society in aid of the German Mission to the Aborigines, Southern Australian, 8 September 1843; Scrimgeour, 2007: 116, italics added).

In the case of glottophagy, Governor George Grey noted: ‘The merchant in London who lays on a vessel for a certain port, regards the affair as a mere mercantile speculation, but could he trace out the results he effects in their remotest ramifications, he would stand astonished at the changes he produces.  With the wizard wand of commerce, he touches a lone and trackless forest, and at his bidding, cities arise, and the hum and dust of trade collect – away are swept ancient races; antique laws and customs moulder into oblivion.  The strong-holds of murder and superstition are cleansed, and the Gospel is preached amongst ignorant and savage men. The ruder languages disappear successively, and the tongue of England alone is heard around’ (Grey 1841: 200-201, italics added). Grey was a strong supporter of Aboriginal languages, encouraging Schürmann’s work documenting the Adelaide language (Kaurna) and Barngarla at Port Lincoln (see below).

With globalization, homogenization and Coca-colonization there will be more and more groups all over the world added to the forlorn club of the lost-heritage peoples. Language reclamation will become increasingly relevant as people seek to recover their cultural autonomy, empower their spiritual and intellectual sovereignty, and improve their wellbeing. There are various ethical, aesthetic and utilitarian benefits of language revival: for example, social justice, diversity and employability, respectively.

Zuckermann (2012) has enthusiastically called for Native Tongue Title and linguistic human rights, suggesting that the Australian government ought to compensate Indigenous people not only for the loss of land but equally importantly for the loss of language. Zuckermann has suggested to the Australian government to define Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander vernaculars as official languages.

Furthermore, it is predicted that in the future the very insights offered by Revival Linguistics will themselves become part of Indigenous Intellectual Property, when Slovenes and Estonians come to Australia and New Zealand to ask Aboriginal Australians and Maori to assist them in their own European language resurrection.

There is an urgent need to produce perspicacious LINGUISTIC and socio-linguistic insights relevant to language reclamation. Otherwise, linguists or language workers would not be able to offer, if asked by Indigenous people, efficient and efficacious advice. There are linguistic constraints applicable to all revival attempts. Mastering them would help revivalists and First Nations leaders to work more efficiently; for example, to focus more on basic vocabulary and verbal conjugations than on sounds and word order – see Zuckermann (2009: http://www.zuckermann.org/pdf/Hybridity_versus_Revivability.pdf.

Revival linguistics would assist revivalists to be more realistic and to abandon discouraging slogans such as "Give us authenticity or give us death!" The following are among the basic principles that the revival linguist encourages in Aboriginal communities:

i. If your language falls asleep: stop, revive, survive!
ii. If you revive a language, embrace the hybridity of the emerging tongue; and
iii. If your language is healthy, assist others in linguistic need.

One day we may invent devices to “inject” a language into our brains. But until then, any attempt to reclaim a hibernating language will result in a hybrid that combines components from the revivalists' and documenters' mother tongues and, of course, the target language. In the immortal words of Jerry Seinfeld: "Not that there's anything wrong with that!"

The Study


Figure 1: Map of Traditional Aboriginal Country after Norman Tindale (adapted from Hercus 1999)

The Barngarla language reclamation project has arisen through partnerships between the University of Adelaide (Linguistics and the Mobile Language Team) and the Barngarla people. Although still in its infancy, consultations began in September 2011, a number of very significant steps have been made towards reclaiming this ‘sleeping beauty’. Without doubt, the key challenge has been to develop a strategy for the reclamation of the language simultaneously and without favour in three major regional centres. In ways that will be elaborated below, this multi-sited, regional or peripheral reclamation makes demands that are very different to those often found in metropolitan reclamation contexts (e.g. Kaurna, cf. Amery...

This article presents Slavic languages in diaspora (SLD) from a broad geographic and diachronic perspective, i.e., worldwide and including old and new Slavic migrant communities with diverse historical and political backgrounds. Accordingly, the definition of SLD is discussed on the one hand within the paradigm of contact linguistics and historical dialectology and on the other hand within the paradigm of the sociolinguistics of migrant communities. The article provides linguistically significant information from the history and demography of Slavic migrant communities (Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, BCMS, Bulgarian, and Czech) and describes their sociolinguistic framework. Furthermore, the article gives a brief comparative overview of the main linguistic features of SLD and the current state of research in the field.

https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-slavic-languages-and-linguistics-online/diaspora-slavic-languages-in-COM_036122

Objetiva-se descrever a situação etnolinguística de comunidades-terreiros de Candomblé jeji maxi do Brasil, de origem beninense, etnia fon, oeste africano. As principais comunidades são o Zògbódó Bògún Màlé Sɛ̀jáhùnɖé (Roça do Ventura, Cachoeira-BA), Zoogodo Bogun Male Hundo (Terreiro do Bogun, Salvador-BA) e o Hunkpame Ayono Huntoloji (Huntoloji, em Cachoeira-BA). A Roça do Ventura hoje possui o título de 1º Consulado Honorário Cultural dos Povos Tradicionais Fon do mundo, inaugurado em 14/03/2018, pelo 1º Secretário da Embaixada do Benim no Brasil e pelo Pontífice do Culto ao Vodun no mundo. Nestas comunidades, estão presentes o português e o fɔngbé, este classificado como língua nígero-congolesa, grupo gbe, sub-família kwa. Esta língua possui 1,7 milhões de falantes no Benim e 36 mil na Nigéria, além de influenciar o crioulo haitiano e o léxico do espanhol dominicano (LEFEBVRE & BROUSSEAU, 2002). O foco desta pesquisa é interdisciplinar, seja pelo viés histórico, político e de contato linguístico que há no processo de escravização de negros africanos multilíngues, seja pelo viés social e de configuração de “comunidades de práticas” antropologicamente situadas (ECKERT, 2000). Este termo configura-se como um agregado de pessoas que se reúnem em torno de um compromisso mútuo com alguns esforços comuns, maneiras de se fazerem as coisas, formas de falar, crenças, valores e relações de poder e surgem no decorrer da sua atividade conjunta em torno desse esforço coletivo. Ademais, este trabalho segue a perspectiva do pensamento racial crítico que diz que sujeitos negros só se reconhecerão como indivíduos e terão voz dentro e fora do sistema quando forem adotadas novas práticas sociais em todos os ambientes, sobretudo na academia. No que se refere especificamente às relações étnico-raciais e ao desenvolvimento da pesquisa de campo, mencionam-se os seguintes autores: Diop (1974), Fanon (2008) e Hall (2003). Metodologicamente, sob uma abordagem de natureza etnográfica, os dados se compõem a partir de análise documental, observação-participante e pela recolha e análise de depoimentos. Como produto parcial, têm-se alguns resultados: o uso linguístico do fɔngbé - como língua ritual - e a vivência de cultura fon se fortaleceram (principalmente o léxico) a partir da preservação de segredos e manutenção do Sagrado pelos ancestrais africanos e pelos antepassados da diáspora brasileira. Acredita-se que esta pesquisa contribui à compreensão da diversidade linguística do Brasil e para os estudos de descrição do Português Brasileiro, sobretudo de variedades regionais/populares/rurais, a fim de preencher uma lacuna em relação aos estudos linguísticos, com ênfase na variação, contato e política linguística.

2003 UPenn dissertation: Viking Pronouns in England
Chapter 3: Pronoun Forms and Uses: Etymologies and Attested Paradigms
Summary: I provide evidence bearing on two of the principal questions posed by the Scandinavian to English pronoun transfer: whether the English demonstrative was a factor in the rise of some of the th- forms, and when the Scandinavian forms appeared in English. The problematic identity of “English” is discussed, along with the possibility that insular “Scandinavian” differed from continental varieties. The pronoun paradigms of runic Scandinavian, Old Norwegian, and Old Danish on the one hand, and of Anglian and early Middle English on the other hand, are described.  The Scandinavian forms differ significantly from the Old Icelandic ones usually cited, and therefore traditional assumptions abut the modifications of the Scandinavian forms (such as loss of -r and monophthongization) are invalid. I discuss the implications of both the early-transfer hypothesis and the late-transfer hypothesis.

Una lengua se inscribe constantemente en un proceso de renovación lexical; tendencias que se ven aceleradas en situaciones de contacto poblacional y lingüístico. Tal es el caso del español estadounidense, también conocido como spanglish, cuyos hablantes, por razones cognitivas inherentes a su situación de bilingüismo, han demostrado estas últimas décadas una gran creatividad léxica, resultando en la introducción de extensiones semánticas en el español.  Se conocen con este nombre las variaciones que, sin afectar cuantitativamente el léxico del sistema receptor –en este caso el español–, lo modifican cualitativamente.  En efecto, su definición implica la variación en el uso de una palabra de la lengua receptora para incluir el uso de la palabra equivalente en la lengua fuente. Así, en el español estadounidense han sido descritas como extensiones semánticas las siguientes variaciones que calcan el uso de la palabra equivalente en inglés: 

Aplicar: “La importancia de aplicar a la universidad temprano” (del ingl. to apply).
Introducir: “James me introdujo a todos sus amigos” (del ingl. to introduce).
Crecer: “Están creciendo lechugas en el jardín” (del ingl. to grow).
Saber: “Yo no sé a nadie” (del ingl. to know).

El presente estudio parte de un enfoque variacionista cuyo fin es ilustrar la presencia y la distribución de tales fenómenos léxicos en la sociedad hispana estadounidense ; un análisis basado en una serie de encuestas realizadas en Miami y en Nueva York en el verano de 2012 con residentes hispanos que presentan diferentes grados de bilingüismo y diferentes perfiles socioculturales.  Este estudio variacionista será el punto de partida para un análisis de estas transferencias semánticas dentro de una perspectiva guillaumiana. Análisis cuyo fin es ilustrar de qué manera estos nuevos usos se integran dentro de las capacidades referenciales autorizadas por el significado de estos vocablos y cómo el español estadounidense se adapta a un contexto sociolingüístico anglófono explotando plenamente la flexibilidad del sistema.

Abstract: The argument I will develop in this essay is that the foreign students are a latent human resource who can assist with overcoming English monolingualism in the Australian population. Foreign students, properly rewarded, can be a major source of skills transfer. Every one of those students is a walking compendium of language and cultural skills that Australians need to know.

Статья представляет предварительные наблюдения над способами конструирования собственных номинаций, отмеченными в русском языке как унаследованном (Russian as a heritage language) в Швеции и Германии. Предшествующие исследования рассматривали, как правило, одну определённую ситуацию языкового контакта, например, русский / английский, русский / немецкий или русский / иврит. В нашей работе механизмы словообразования у детей-билингвов рассмотрены как в сопоставлении со взрослыми
билингвами, так и в межъязыковом сопоставлении.

This study, which first aim was to demonstrate correspondences between Gaulish and Slavic languages, between which I found 500 common words, allowed me also to establish, on the basis of genetical, archaeological and religious data, that those correspondences were linked with ancient migrations which spread the Dravidian civilisation of the Indus Valley to Iran, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Caucasus, the North of the Black Sea, Danuban and Balkan Europe, Gaul and Iberia, where Neolithic farmers contributed to the development of the megalithic civilisation which began in 5.000 BC. This also explains the linguistic correspondences I established between Gaulish and Dravidian languages – 250 common words from the 500 words I studied, as well as similarities I found in the organisation of the Society and the religion, which lead various researchers to suggest, on the basis of the diffusion of the very ancient gene H2-P96 from India to Western Europe, that the first Europeans and the proto-Dravidians had a common origin.

Cette étude, dont l’objectif initial était de démontrer les correspondances entre le gaulois et les langues slaves, entre lesquelles j’ai trouvé 500 mots communs, m’a en outre permis de démontrer, sur la base de données génétiques, archéologiques et religieuses, que ces correspondances étaient liées à des migrations anciennes qui ont diffusé la civilisation dravidienne de la vallée de l’Indus vers l’Iran, la Mésopotamie, l’Anatolie, le Caucase, le Nord de la Mer Noire, l’Europe danubienne et balkanique, la Gaule et l’Ibérie, où les agriculteurs néolithiques ont contribué à former la civilisation mégalithique qui s’est développée à partir de -5.000. Cela explique aussi les correspondances linguistiques que j’ai établies entre le gaulois et les langues dravidiennes - 250 mots communs sur les 500 mots étudiés, et les similitudes que j’ai constatées dans l’organisation de la société et la religion, qui amènent certains chercheurs à suggérer, sur la base de la diffusion du gène très ancien H2-P96 de l’Inde à l’Europe de l’Ouest, que les premiers Européens et les proto-Dravidiens avaient une origine commune.

The Cimbrians settled in a morphologically uniform area. Several toponyms referring to similar features of the landscape are found both in the linguistic islands of Trentino and Venetian highlands, and in the so-called ‘Cimbrian Corridor’, where the Cimbrian languages disappeared centuries ago. For example the Cimbrian ‘LAZ’ standing for a man made track in the woods to make timber slide downstream is the basis for several toponyms and is used to form simple nouns, heads of compounds, or inside prepositional phrases that were later lexicalized. Where Cimbrian and Venetian dialects came into contact first, the LAZ-based toponyms have beeen subjected to a strong and long-lasting pressure, undergoing radical transformation. Namely, as I show in my work, the toponyms Spelaccia and Cappellazzi, referring to two settlements in the middle and upper Agno valley (belonging to the Cimbrian Corridor), have been ‘disguised’ as two alterate Venetian words, respectively as a verb the former, and as a noun the latter.

The present paper provides two case studies of the basic vocabulary of the Turkic languages spoken on the Crimea Peninsula. Its aim is to illuminate the issues that a historical linguist, and in particular a phylogeneticist, faces when analyzing the basic vocabulary of closely related languages in a situation of intensive contact. The first case study is dedicated to the onomasiological reconstruction of the Proto-Karaim Swadesh list. The main problem here is detection of the West Oghuz loans and especially of contact-induced archaization (fake ar-chaisms) in Crimean Karaim. The objective of the second case study is to identify the genea-logical affiliation of the Crimean Tatar dialects. Both the manual analysis of the innovations in the basic vocabulary and the computational lexicostatistics (Bayesian approach, Neighbor-joining, Maximum Parsimony Analysis) confirm the traditional view that the Coastal dialect belongs to the Oghuz subgroup, the Orta dialect-to the West Kipchak subgroup, and the Steppe dialect-to the Nogai Kipchak subgroup. Such affiliations fully fit the documented ethnic history. The correct genealogical affiliation of the dialects in question became possible only after exclusion of all the loans, which has not been done in previous lexicostatistical studies of Crimean Tatar. Both cases show that careful elimination of areal influences is crucial for semantic (onomasiological) reconstruction and phylogenetic studies.

Russian-Czech cultural and language contacts have a very long tradition, but  the  really  intensive  contacts  between  both  nations  and  languages  are  noticeable since the end of 18th century. In this period the Czech scholars like J. Dobrovský or A. J. Puchmayer started their studies of Russian language, and other Czech patriots (e.g. J. Jungmann) began to translate the ambitious European literature into Czech, using a lot of loanwords taken from Polish and Russian. The Russian-Czech language contacts reached their first acme in 1820s and 1830s when the Czech patriots of J. Jungmann’s circle borrowed hundreds of  words  from  Russian  (e.g.  průmysl “industry”, příroda “nature”, vzduch “air”)  that  occured  in  Jungmann’s  impressive  Czech-German  Vocabulary published  in  five  volumes  between  1835  and  1839.  Russian  loanwords  (including  the  words  that  Russian  language  itself  borrowed  from  another  languages, especially from Turko-Tatar and Finno-Ugric languages and also from French and German) were utilized in the Czech language mainly as the scientific terms (babočka “peacock butterfly”, nářečí “dialect”, záliv “bay”) or as the poetisms (děva “girl”, chrabrý “valiant”, jeseň “autumn”) and many of  them  successively  spread  into  the  common  language  (ohromný „huge“, lyže “ski”, ženština “lady of easy virtues”). Sometimes it is not effortless to decide whether a certain loanword is borrowed from Russian or from Polish (e.g. pyl “pollen”, rosomák “wolverine”)  because  surely  more  loanwords  came  from  Polish  into  the  Czech  language  than  from  Russian.  Moreover,  some  Russian  loanwords  in  the  contemporary  Czech  language  have  their  exact (and later extinct) counterparts in the Old Czech (řešit “to solve” and others).  Our  analysis  of  Russian  loanwords  in  Czech  is  also  complicated  by the fact that many Russian words were very arbitrarily adaptated in the Czech language both in formal and semantic respects. The second acme of Russian-Czech language contacts came during the World  War  I  (from  1914  to  1918)  and  during  the  Russian  Civil  War  (after  1918)  when  about  100  000  Czechs  and  Slovaks  who  were  fighting  in  the  Czechoslovak  Legion  (originally  established  within  the  Imperial  Russian  Army) were in very close relations with the Anti-Bolshevik Russian troops and with civilians in Russia, and thus with the Russian culture and language. Through the mediation of members of the Czechoslovak Legion, that were celebrated  social  class  in  the  Masaryk’s  Czechoslovakia  between  1918  and  1939,  many  Russian  loanwords  spread  foremost  in  the  Czech  military  terminology (e.g. nálet “air strike”, protivník “adversary”, prověrka “test”).The third acme of the Russian-Czech language contacts was reached in the period of building and maintaining of  socalism in Czechoslovakia after 1948  when  the  Russian  language  was  the  first  and  often  the  only  foreign  language  taught  in  the  Czech  schools.  The  Russian  was  also  the  original  language of texts that were predominantly translated into Czech in this period. Not only Russian loanwords like bezpartijní “non-party person”, dokladovat “give evidence of something”, úderník “hardly productive worker” occured in Czech after 1948, but also some word-formation models were borrowed from Russian to Czech (e.g. compound adjectives like hospodářskopolitický “economic-political”, palivoenergetický “fuel-energetical”, veřejnosprávní “public-administrative” or abbreviated names like Druchema < Družstvo pro chemickou  výrobu  „Corporation  for  Chemical  Industry“.  Russian  was  to  a  lesser extent the inspiration for some new Czech syntactic constructions and it contributed to the temporarily higher productivity of adnominal genitives like ulice  Lenina “Lenin  street”  (instead  of  Leninova  ulice  with  possesive  adjective that is more typical in Czech).

Darstellung der valdostanischen Mehrsprachigkeit unter zwei Aspekten: Teil 1 (Externe Sprachgeschichte) bietet ein von der Vorgeschichte bzw. der Romanisierung bis in die 1990er-Jahre reichendes Panorama der Geschichte des Aostatals unter besonderer Bedachtnahme auf die sprachliche und autonomiepolitische Situation. Teil 2 (Soziolinguistik) stellt dazu das empirische und synchrone Gegenstück dar. Es wird ein Forschungsbericht über Untersuchungen gegeben, die in den Jahren 1987ff. in 24 valdostanischen Ortschaften bei über 100 Gewährspersonen durchgeführt worden sind.

This paper takes stock of the accomplishments of the project to revise and update the Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (1967; DCHP-1), which was first presented at the Dictionary Society of North America&#39;s 2007 annual meeting in Chicago. The five years since have seen a drastic shift in the dictionary market, and as a result, the updated edition (DCHP-2) is entirely an online project. A milestone towards the new edition—an online version of the first edition (DCHP-1 Online)— was completed in 2011 will be released to be published on 28 January 2013. This paper introduces the tools developed for the new edition—the Dictionary Editing Tool (editing software) and the Bank of Canadian English (quotation file). It then explains the selection criteria for digital data harvesting, which is the main source of data for the new edition, describes the project&#39;s connection to undergraduate and graduate teaching and, most importantly, proposes a revised five-tiered classification scheme for Canadianisms, which is the backbone of the new edition.A Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (DCHP-1; Avis et al., 1967) was one of the first historical dictionaries of English produced outside of the UK or the USA, and it served as a national icon for some time. It was the flagship in the &quot;Dictionary of Canadian English&quot; series published by W.J. Gage (now Nelson Education); this series, begun in 1962, produced Canadian-made dictionaries and enjoyed great support by linguists and dialectologists, including the Canadian Linguistic Association.Following the publication of DCHP-1 in 1967, Raven I. McDavid, then editor of the Linguistic Atlas of the United States and Canada, stated confidently that DCHP-1 &quot;unlike most of the other historical dictionaries, is committed to frequent and adequate revision&quot; (McDavid 1970: 289). Flash forward 45 years, and no revised version has yet seen the light of day; indeed, until some six years ago, DCHP-1 had all but vanished from public and scholarly perception. But since 2006, important steps have been taken to revive the dictionary and to bring it into the digital age (see Dollinger 2006; Barber and Considine 2010). In this paper we will contextualize the current project, located at the University of British Columbia at Vancouver, starting with a brief history of DCHP-1, and then detail the progress that has been made towards a revised dictionary, DCHP-2.The DCHP project has two goals: the first is to produce an open-access online version of DCHP-1. The second is to bring DCHP-1 up to date by adding recent Canadianisms and filling major gaps in historical coverage. In July 2011 we accomplished the first goal—DCHP-1 Online (Dollinger et al. 2011)—except for the completion of the licensing agreement with Nelson Education, the copyright holder of DCHP-1. Such agreement has been finalized in the summer of 2012 and was signed on 1 October 2012. Contrary to early plans, ideas of a paper version were abandoned in 2007, and DCHP-2 will be entirely an online product, accessible to all without charge.

In written Hebrew, the final tsere plene <-ֵי> as in <בְּנֵי> ‘sons of’ is the graphemic masculine plural construct marker, but throughout the history of Hebrew until the pre-revival period this morphogram has had no specific linguistic counterpart. This is valid not only for the morphophonology of Classical Hebrew, but also for all non-vernacular communitarian Hebrew orthoepies (reading traditions) throughout the Jewish diaspora. In D. Bolinger’s (1946) terms, the final <-ֵי> graphemic unit is a visual morpheme. With the advent of spoken Hebrew, however, the Ashkenazi dictum “tsere alef → ey”, though unfit vis-à-vis Sephardic ideal Hebrew, was maintained in colloquial Hebrew in instances of open syllable tsere plene, whence the final morpheme +ey as in /bney/ (Sephardic /bene/). This new colloquial Hebrew morpheme has originated ex scripto.

In Namibia, German is spoken as a minority language in a speech community that has its roots in immigration from Europe in the context of colonialism. In contrast to what is happening in most varieties of German outside Europe, Namibian German is consistently passed on to the younger generations, thus offering a special opportunity to investigate the age of speakers as a factor in linguistic variation. To study this, I used data from an online survey eliciting translations of the classical “Wenker sentences” into Namibian German, with over 100 participants from 12 to 78 years of age. My paper presents results from quantitative and qualitative analyses of loan words from the major contact languages Afrikaans and English. Findings indicate that the quantity of loan words is interrelated with the age of speakers, while their grammatical integration does not show cross-generational differences. Comparing my findings with those from other varieties, I discuss the vitality of Namibian German and examine how the concepts of age grading and apparent-time change can contribute to our understanding of linguistic variation in language islands.

Ovaj prilog bavi se problematikom održavanja hrvatskog jezika među članovima drugog naraštaja australsko-hrvatske zajednice u drugom najvećem australskom gradu Melbourneu. Cilj priloga jest najprije prikazati opće podatke o brojčanosti hrvatske govorne zajednice u Australiji i u Melbourneu i prezentirati stopu 'prelaženja' na engleski kod djece čiji su roditelji u jednonacionalnim (i u jednojezičnim) bračnim zajednicama u usporedbi s djecom čiji su roditelji u dvonacionalnim (što skoro uvijek znači i u dvojezičnim) bračnim zajednicama. Glavni dio priloga sačinjava pregled najvažnijih domena u životu govornika manjinskog jezika i opis jezičnih kombinacija koje se koriste u tim životnim domenama. U zaključku su navedene prognoze o budućnosti hrvatskog jezika ukoliko sadašnji članovi druge generacije prenesu hrvatski na buduću treću generaciju, odn. na unučad hrvatskih doseljenika koji su se otisnuli na peti kontinent u pedesetim, šezdesetim i ranim sedamdesetim godinama prošlog stoljeća.


Abstract in English

This paper gives a brief statistical overview of the number of Croatian-speakers in Australia in relation to other ethnic or community languages and concentrates on aspects of language use amongst second-generation Croatian-Australians. Language maintenance or shift factors are framed within an examination of language use within sociolinguistic domains: home/family; personal/intimate; leisure/social life/religious affiliations; media; workplace/shopping/ neighbourhood; education; spouse/partner; (future) children. Second-generation members are generally English-dominant in terms of their proficiency and English is the unmarked choice in a large number of situations. Croatian is the unmarked choice with informants' parents and with others members of the first generation. However, the language variety 'Croatian and English' is used in a number of situations such as leisure, religious activities, the workplace and even eduation. Further, Croatian and English are frequently used as the languages to swear in, communicate with pets and to a lesser with the domain media. Few informants have children and so projections about language use with the succeeding, 'third' generation remain hypothetical. Informants do report a desire for their own future children to gain a knowledge of Croatian although there are a variety of responses to how this can be achieved.