[Algonquiana] Prehistoric Language contact ?

Thu Nov 20 18:58:41 UTC 2014

There’s a nice quote from Weinreich that I’ve always liked, on this topic:  “The locus of language contact is in the mind of the bilingual.”  When I was an undergrad I kind of imagined these two clouds, Language A and Language B, and then magically they touched, and shared features.  Well, no.  ;-)  That contact is in the mind of the bilingual, or even better, in the minds of a bunch of them.

> On Nov 20, 2014, at 12:38 PM, David Costa <pankihtamwa at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> Generally what’s needed for this kind of borrowing is extensive bilingualism. That can take the form of large numbers of people from the ‘other’ group marrying in, or by a community gradually switching languages. The longer the period of bilingualism, the greater the influences that can be passed from one language to another. If the nasal vowel passed from Mohawk to Mahican (probably the most geographically plausible option), that might indicate that there was a large group of Mohawks somewhere who switched from speaking Iroquoian to Algonquian. Once the feature was established in Mahican, it would have been much easier to pass into other Algonquian languages, specifically Abenaki. (It’s already been established that there are Mahican loanwords in Western Abenaki.)
> 
> David
> 
> 
>> Yes. Trade languages and their aboriginal use, I'm aware of. But I'm squeamish about accepting the notion that a handful of foreign terms borrowed into an unrelated language can have such a far-reaching effect phonologically on that language. Perhaps my imagination is limited. I will keep gnawing.
>> 
>> Michael
>> 
>> 
>> Quoting John Steckley <John.Steckley at humber.ca>:
>> 
>>> Michael:
>>> 
>>> Another potential source of that influence could be trade languages
>>> or lingua franca.  When I worked on Gabriel Sagard's dictionary and
>>> discovered the presence of the dialects of Wendat plus St. Lawrence
>>> Iroquoian, I found that the St. Lawrence Iroquoian came in the form
>>> of a trade language, with certain key items--awls, grapes,
>>> beads--highlighted.  Trade languages existed in a variety of areas in
>>> pre- and post-contact Aboriginal North America.  In addition to what
>>> I found with the St. Lawrence Iroquoian example, there was Mobilian
>>> (which included Algonquian and Iroquoian entries) in the southeast,
>>> and, of course, Chinook on the West Coast.  Being fluent in a trade
>>> language used between Iroquoian and Algonquian speakers could cause
>>> there to be some phonetic influences.
>>> 
>>> John
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Algonquiana
>>> [mailto:algonquiana-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] On Behalf Of
>>> Michael McCafferty
>>> Sent: November 20, 2014 12:55 PM
>>> To: algonquiana at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>> Subject: Re: [Algonquiana] Prehistoric Language contact ?
>>> 
>>> Thank you so much, Ives, for your comments and, at least for me,
>>> clearing away some of the fog.
>>> 
>>> What I just cannot wrap my head around, though, is how a sound in one
>>> language can influence the sound system of totally unrelated language.
>>> All I can get at is that women from one language group married into
>>> or were captured by another group speaking an unrelated language, and
>>> in learning the unrelated language use sounds that were in their
>>> native language that over time get adopted into the sound system of
>>> their husbands. Is this the mechanism for this transfer?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Michael
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Quoting "Goddard, Ives" <GODDARDI at si.edu>:
>>> 
>>>> On Eastern duals.
>>>> 
>>>> This subject was broached if incompletely treated in my 1967 papers
>>>> (NMC Bull. 214:9-10, 104-105, with a reference to the issue having
>>>> been earlier raised by Siebert in AA 42:331-333 and to his having told
>>>> me that he no longer thought it was an Eastern archaism).  An Ottawa
>>>> parallel for the formation of the Eastern AI triplural is cited, but
>>>> more information on this would be welcome.  (I haven?t
>>>> looked.)  In Delaware these marked plurals are commonly made as
>>>> collectives, and many examples are to be found in O?Meara?s Munsee
>>>> dictionary (his label is  ?emphatic?), as if built on the causative
>>>> finals PEA *h and *r.  See entries for kchíiw and matáhkeew.  Western
>>>> Abenaki also appears to have the longer forms as marked (used for an
>>>> indefinite number) but not as consistent triplurals.  I recall that
>>>> the duals are used in Micmac for the people in a boat (always a
>>>> countable number).  The comparative evidence shows this dual-triplural
>>>> contrast gradually emerging and firming up within the Algonquian
>>>> languages, becaming fully grammaticalized as such in the languages
>>>> furthest from the Iroquoians.
>>>> 
>>>> Independently, Unami Delaware has a dual-triplural contrast in
>>>> imperatives, at least for some speakers: mi:tsí:t:am ?let?s eat (I and
>>>> you sg.)? vs. mi:tsí:t:amo:kw ?let?s eat (I and you pl.).
>>>> 
>>>> The nasalized vowel.
>>>> 
>>>> On the other hand, it seems likely that the nasalized reflex of PEA
>>>> *a: in Mahican, SNEA, and Abenaki reflects the influence of Mohawk,
>>>> which has a nasalized vowel of exactly the same odd quality as what
>>>> these languages seem usually to have (PAC 39:282 and n. 74).
>>>> Penobscot Eastern Abenaki has (mostly) denasalized this vowel but
>>>> retained this caret-vowel-like quality.  There will be a little more
>>>> on this in my eventual ?Loup? paper in PAC 44.
>>>> 
>>>> Ives
>>>> 
>>>> From: Algonquiana
>>>> [mailto:algonquiana-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] On Behalf Of
>>>> Conor Quinn
>>>> Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2014 4:59 PM
>>>> To: John Steckley
>>>> Cc: ALGONQUIANA at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
>>>> Subject: Re: [Algonquiana] Prehistoric Language contact ?
>>>> 
>>>> Dia dhaoibh, a chairde!
>>>> 
>>>> If I'm not mistaken, the notional dual contrast is found in most
>>>> (all?) of Eastern Algonquian, and definitely at least as far south as
>>>> Western and Eastern Abenaki.
>>>> 
>>>> It's a tricky pattern, because the "duals" are actually just the
>>>> familiar verbal plurals of the rest of Algonquian.  E.g. they reflect
>>>> the various plural person markings (among them reflex of PA *-aki
>>>> (with Idp) or the EAlg version of PA *-wa·-t, i.e. *-h?ti?-t).  While
>>>> the more-than-dual plurals are limited to AI stems, with an added
>>>> stem-extensional element---most but not all arising historically from
>>>> transitivization (= TA), then reciprocalization (= AI again)---which
>>>> then takes the same pluralization morphology as the "dual".
>>>> 
>>>> So the contrast looks like it emerges from a notion of a minimal
>>>> plural (= just the general Algonquian plural morphology) vs. an
>>>> extended/non-minimal plural (= this new stem-extensional element added
>>>> in).
>>>> 
>>>> What's particularly striking about these systems is that they're not
>>>> in fact strictly dual vs. strictly (more-than-two) plural.  The
>>>> familiar-Algonquian-type simple plurals generally do get a dual
>>>> reading...but if the stems inherently imply more-than-two -type
>>>> participants---e.g. if they incorporate a number 'three' or above, or
>>>> refer to collective/mass action---they very often do not use the
>>>> stem-extensional element, and so superficially have a "dual"
>>>> pluralization pattern.
>>>> 
>>>> As far as I know, the only place where there's a completely strict
>>>> dual vs. plural distinction is in the Mi'gmaq motion verbs, where
>>>> -ie/-a' and -a'si (roughly, 'go..., change...') are systematically
>>>> replaced with -a'ti for dual, and -(i)ta' for plural.
>>>> 
>>>> Apropos of the original question, I think Ives might have suggested a
>>>> possible Iroquoian contact influence in one of his two papers on the
>>>> "intrusive nasal" reflex of PEA *a?.  But I might be thinking of some
>>>> other source; and it's always struck me as a little tenuous given that
>>>> the N. Iroquoian languages I'm aware of systematically have
>>>> contrastive nasalization only in vowels other than /a/.  So the
>>>> contact effect would be oddly indirect/abstracted.
>>>> 
>>>> David Pentland and I have both independently noted some possible cases
>>>> of lexical borrowing. Off the top of my head, 'eel' and 'great horned
>>>> owl' in the northeastern-area Algonquian languages (i.e.
>>>> Mi'gmaq gat(ew)-, PsmMl ka?t(e); Penobscot tiht?k?li, PsmMl
>>>> tihtiko?l) may have Iroquoian links. I don't have the relevant
>>>> Iroquian material at hand, though, and David likely has a more
>>>> extensive list.
>>>> 
>>>> Hope that helps!
>>>> 
>>>> Till later, keep safe and sane.
>>>> 
>>>> Slán,
>>>> bhur gcara
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> P.S.  Is the Denny article the one that suggests PA *?entiy- 'conifer'
>>>> as a possible loan from/with Siouan?  And points out the
>>>> calque-cognacy (functional equivalence) of *wiki-wa·-hm- with t?i-pi?
>>>> If not, who wrote that?
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> 
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Monica Macaulay
University of Wisconsin
Department of Linguistics
1164 Van Hise; 1220 Linden Dr.
Madison, WI  53706