An introduction to sociolinguistics


Download 0.49 Mb.
Pdf ko'rish
bet1/11
Sana18.02.2023
Hajmi0.49 Mb.
#1212548
  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11
Bog'liq
LANGUAGE CONTACT IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS



AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLINGUISTICS 
 
2015
CHAPTER IV 
LANGUAGE CONTACT 
 
Multilingualism and language contact has likely been common throughout much of human 
history, and today most people in the world are multilingual. In tribal hunter-gatherer societies, 
multilingualism was common, as tribes must communicate with neighboring peoples and there is 
often inter-marriage. In present-day areas such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where there is much 
variation in language over short distances, it is usual for anyone who has dealings outside their 
own town or village to know two or more languages. 
When speakers of different languages interact closely, it is typical for their languages to 
influence each other. Languages normally develop by gradually accumulating dialectal 
differences until two dialects cease to be mutually understandable, somewhat analogous to the 
species barrier in biology. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum 
languages, or as the result of migration, with a “disturbing” language acting as either a super-
stratum or a sub-stratum. 
Language contact occurs in a variety of phenomena, including language convergence and 
borrowing. The most common products are code-switching and mixed languages. Other hybrid 
languages, such as English, do not strictly fit into any of these categories. 
The most common way that languages influence each other is the exchange of words. 
Much is made about the contemporary borrowing of English words into other languages, but this 
phenomenon is not new, nor is it very large by historical standards. The large-scale importation 
of words from Latin, French and other languages into English in the 16th and 17th centuries was 
more significant. Some languages have borrowed so much that they have become scarcely 
recognizable. Armenian borrowed so many words from Iranian languages, for example, that it 
was at first considered a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages. It was not recognized as an 
independent branch of the Indo-European languages for many decades. 


AN INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLINGUISTICS 

Download 0.49 Mb.

Do'stlaringiz bilan baham:
  1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11




Ma'lumotlar bazasi mualliflik huquqi bilan himoyalangan ©fayllar.org 2024
ma'muriyatiga murojaat qiling