[Algonquiana] Prehistoric Language contact ?

Thu Nov 20 19:07:24 UTC 2014

I imagine that seeking protection with another group would be one of 
the situations where bilingualism could occur.

Quoting Monica Macaulay <mmacaula at wisc.edu>:

> 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
>
>