[Algonquiana] Prehistoric Language contact ?

Thu Nov 20 18:43:59 UTC 2014

noonki neemaani. neewe, pankihtamwe.

Quoting David Costa <pankihtamwa at earthlink.net>:

> 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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