The Anthropology of Language: An
Introduction to Linguistic
Anthropology
Chapter 9
Change and Choice
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Change and Choice
• All living languages change
– Affects all parts of language
• Phonology, morphology, semantics, orthography…
– Can come from within or from contact…
• Mechanisms of drift, borrowing, pidgins, creoles…
– Can be welcomed or resisted
• Multilingualism, diglossia, nationalism, endangered languages…
• Understanding change allows us to
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Discover relationships between languages...
Reconstruct ancient languages…
Address issues of language, dialect, and identity…
Help to protect endangered languages…
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Diversification and Change
• As speakers of a language spread out
– The language diversifies into dialects
• Wash vs warsh, coffee vs cawfee, fourth vs fawth
– Eventually the dialects become different languages
• Two, deux, due, dos, dve, dva…
• As speakers of languages come into contact
– They may borrow from one another
• Safari, pajama, tomato, garage, beisbol, falasika…
– In special situations they may create new languages
• Pidgins
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Relationships Between Languages
• Languages descended from common ancestors
– Are considered ‘families’
• Mother and daughter languages
– Family trees of languages
• Show branches and sub-branches
• Language ‘isolates’
– Are considered sole survivors of ancient families
• Languages developed in contact situations
– Are considered unique
– Are difficult to classify
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Why Languages Change
• Prestige
– shifting to (r) in NY after WWII (Labov)
• Novelty
– bits, bytes, e-mail, mp3, imho, ‘sup, epic
• Identity
– locals vs. tourists - vowels in Cape Cod
• Contact
– Need to communicate for trade
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How Languages Change: Sounds
• Assimilation:
– illegal, immoral, irresponsible
• Dissimilation:
– Febyuary,
– English vowel shift
• from [a:] to [o] (stone went from [sta:n] to [ston])
• Elision: [cloðz] to [kloz]
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How Languages Change: Sounds
(cont.)
• Metathesis:
– [æsk] to [æks],
– [æstəɹɨks] to [æstəɹɨsk
• Borrowing:
– American [] borrowed from French
– British English retained [ʤ]
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How Languages Change:
Morphology/Syntax
• Misanalysis (redivision):
• an apron, a nother; -burger
• Regularization:
• dived; fishes; safaris, agendas, auditoriums
• Loss (and replacement):
• adverbs, cases, 2nd person singular pronouns
• Borrowing:
– Nudnik, final ‘not’ from Yiddish
• I kid you not
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How Languages Change: Words
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Narrowing: ‘deer’ once meant any small animal
Expansion: box meant specific wood box
Metaphorical shift: ‘uptight’ ‘bad’ ‘sick’ ‘gay’
Shortening: dorm, exam, prof
Coining:
– acronyms: laser, snafu, phat; bff
– blending (portmanteau): slithy, brunch, smog, blog;
frenemy
• Borrowing
– tomato, potato, coyote, pajama, robot, safari, beisbol
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How Languages Change: Spelling
• Symbol shift:
– <Þ> [ ] and <đ> [ð] both replaced by <th>
• Spelling shift:
– <colour> changed to <color>
– <light> changing to <lite>
• Borrowed spellings:
– <debt> borrowed from Latin
• Old English spelling was <dette>
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Using Borrowed Words to Trace
Contact History in a Language
• Chinese word for ‘foreign’:
– Before 10th century: {hai-} (sea)
• {haitung} = crab apple
• {haizao} = date palm
– 10th century thru 16th century: {fan-} (foreign country)
• {fangie} = tomato
• {fanshiliu} = pomegranate
• {fansu} = sweet potato
– 17th century {yang-} (foreign country)
• {yangchong} = onion
• {yangjiang} = jerusalem artichoke
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Borrowing a word
• All Created Language groups in a large circle
• Word Borrowers:
– Go one group clockwise – borrow a useful word
– Go one more group clockwise, borrow a useful word
• CL teams – using your phonology, transform the
words you have borrowed
• Turn in:
– The two words originally borrowed, and the CL from
which they come
– The transformed versions of each word
– A brief explanation of your choices
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How Fast Do Languages Change?
• glottochronology (lexicostatistics)
• (Swadesh 1950)
– Uses “core vocabulary” lists
– Assumes fixed rate of retention in each list
• 200 word list r=80%, 100 word list r=86%
– Calculates when two languages separated
• (log of % of cognates times retention rate)
– Often correlates with archaeological record
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Reconstructing Ancient Languages
• If languages split apart
– related languages will be similar to one another
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Irish ‘do’ Welsh ‘dau’ Greek ‘duo’ Latin ‘duo’
Italian ‘due’ Spanish ‘dos’ French ‘deux’ German ‘zwei’
Dutch ‘twee’ Swedish ‘tva’ Danish ‘to’ Old English ‘twa’
Polish ‘dwie’ Russian ‘dva’ Bengal ‘dvi’ Persian ‘do’
Lithuanian ‘du’ Albanian ‘dy’…..
– [d], [t], [dv] [tv], and [dz] all descended from same sound
» how to find the original sound?
– by using the daughter languages
– to reconstruct the mother language(s)…
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Grimm’s Law
• IE [p, t, k]  Germanic [f, θ, h]
– pater  father, tres  three,
centum [kentum] hundred
• IE [b, d, g]  Germanic [p, t, k]
– labium  lip, duo  two, genus  kin
• IE [bh, dh, gh]  Germanic [b, d, g]
– bhrata  brother, rudhiras  red (etc.)
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Steps in Reconstructing
(see W/R pp. 201-204)
• 1. Identify cognates (as opposed to borrowings)
– ‘words related by descent from the same language’
• will have similar meanings & sounds
– e.g. German ‘zwei’ and English ‘two’
– e.g. German ‘zehn’ and English ‘ten’
Example from Proto-Polynesian:
• Maori
• tapu
Hawaiian
kapu
Samoan
tapu
Fijian
tabu.
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Reconstructing: Step 2
• 2. Develop a table of correspondence sets
M
H
S
F
t
a
p
u
k
a
p
u
t
a
p
u
t
a
b
u
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Reconstructing: Step 3
• 3. Use the correspondence sets to reconstruct the
ancestral phonemes (proto-phonemes)
M
t
a
p
u
H
k
a
p
u
S
t
a
p
u
F
t
a
b
u
ancestral
*t
*a
*p
*u
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Reconstructing: Step 4
• 4. Chart the ancestral sounds
consonants
vowels
stops
bilabial
*p
alveolar
*t
*u
*a
You may need to go back and forth between
steps 3 and 4 until the charts look right—aim for
good balance, logical lines, in the charts.
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Reconstructing: Step 5
• 5. Develop rules to explain sound changes
– from ancestral to modern sounds
Maori
Hawaiian
*t
k
Samoan
Fijian
*p
b
• Only create rules for sounds which change
• Create general rules from groups of similar rules
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Reconstructing: Step 6
• 6. Reconstruct likely ancestral words
– Use the rules and the ancestral (proto) sounds
– How might each word sound in the protolanguage?
*tapu
(don’t forget the * )
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Proto-Indo-European:
Language & Culture
• Sounds
– *duwo, *treyes, *kwetores, *bhrater, *dhugeter
• Morphology
– Three genders: male - female - neuter
– Three pronoun numbers: single, plural, dual
– Eight cases
– Complex tenses, modal verbs
• Culture
– Patrilocal residence
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Larger Groupings?
Nostratic (Shevoroshkin 1964)
• Aquitanian (Proto Basque)
• AfroAsiatic (HamitoSemitic)
– Semitic, Egyptian, Cushitic, Chadic, Berber
• KartveloEusian
– Kartvelian
– Eusian
• Sumerian
– EmeGir
– EmeSal
• Caspian
– BoreAltaic
» Altaic
» Boreal (Dravidian, Eskaleut, Yukaghir, Uralic)
– IndoEtruscan
» IndeoEuropean
» EtruscoRhaetic (Etruscan, Rhaetian)
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Other Possible Groupings?
• Amerind, Na-Dene, Eskimo-Aleut
– Greenberg & Ruhlen 1987
• Dene-Caucasian
– Shevoroshkin 1990
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Pidgins
• Develop in contact situations
– trading/colonization
• Are incomplete languages
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Simplified grammar
Reduced lexicon
Limited subject matter
Never used as a first language (mother tongue)
• Are hard to place on family trees
– host’s grammar
– intruder’s lexicon
• Rarely last beyond a generation or two
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Creoles
• Develop from pidgins
– Plantations, more stable speech communities
• Are complete languages
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Grammar is elaborated
Lexicon is expanded (using ‘dominant’ language)
Subject matter is broadened
Can be first language of community
• Often seen as bad version of ‘lexifier’ language
– Haitian Kreol seen as “bad” French
– African American English seen as “bad” English
• May persist long-term, become standardized
• Swahili, Haitian Kreol, AAE, Tok Pisin, (English?)
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Other Ideas About Pidgins & Creoles
• Theoretical (innatist) Linguistics:
– Develop from innate bioprogram
• Similarities to child language
• Reveal the universal grammar
• Historical Linguistics:
– Can be traced to Sabir
• 10c southern French dialect (the lingua franca)
• Was spread throughout Mediterranean by sailors
• Then spread further by European colonization
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How Ideas Can Affect Policy
• The Ebonics controversy
– Oakland school board decides AAE is a Creole
• A different language from English
• “genetically based and not a dialect of English”
– Make sure you understand what this means!
• Descended from African languages
– i.e., through pidgnization-creolization process
• But treated as inferior variety of English in U.S.
– Board asks for bilingual approach in schools
• Where teachers learn & use AAE to teach standard
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Bilingualism & Diglossia
• Bilingualism: using two different languages
– Who is expected to be bilingual (or multilingual)?
• Everyone? Immigrants? Minorities?
– Stable vs transitional bilingualism?
• Diglossia: using two varieties of one language
– ‘high’ and ‘low’ varieties
• formality of situation determines choice
– German & Swiss German
– Classical & Colloquial Arabic
– Marked & ‘Standard’ varieties of English?
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Code Switching
• Takes place at linguistic boundaries
– Segments are internally ‘correct’
• ‘let’s go to – la playa’
• ‘Do you want that with – au jus?’
• Also at social/cultural boundaries
– Public and private domains
– Formal and informal situations
– Can be used to mark identity, stance
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National and Ethnic Identity
• Language can be a source of division
– Basque & Spanish are two different languages
• Basque is linked to ethnic pride
• Language is used as an argument for independence
• Can language be a source of unity?
– Czechoslovakia: one language, different cultures
• Language not enough to keep country unified
– People now think in terms of Czech and Slovak languages
– China: many languages, all called Chinese
• Politics more important in keeping country unified
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Standard Languages
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Carry more social prestige
Are thought of as ‘more correct’
Are preferred for formal occasions
The choice is usually ‘arbitrary’
– the speech of an ‘upper’ class
– or a group seen as powerful, respected
• Note how the status of speakers can affect the
status of a variety
• English as a de-facto standard in the US
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Official Languages
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Recognized by the ‘state’
Are used in legal, political contexts
Are taught, used in schools
Possible to have more than one
– Switzerland has 4 official languages
– India has 2 official languages
• Does an official language create unity?
– English-Only movements in the US
• Question: Which variety of English?
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Geographic Variation:
American English Dialects
PBS: Do you speak American?
Mapping American English
Pop vs. soda
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The Current Situation
• 5,000-6,000 “languages” in the world
– Depending on definition of language, dialect
• Some still ‘undiscovered,’ undescribed
• Some on the verge of extinction
• What do we lose when we lose a language?
• Is English becoming a world language?
– Advantages, disadvantages?
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Next:
• Doing Linguistic Anthropology
– Read:
• Textbook Chapter 10
• Workbook/Reader:
– Ottenheimer (pp. 213-226)
– Prepare to do:
• Writing/Discussion Exercises (W/R p. 227-228)
• Language Creating (W/R p. 233)
• Conversation partnering (W/R p. 234)
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