digest
Björn Wiemer
Bjoern.Wiemer at UNI-KONSTANZ.DE
Sun Jan 12 15:59:45 UTC 2003
Dear colleagues from ALT and "Linguistik",
after my request from the middle of December concerning self-referring
names of speech communities ("our language" and the like) I received a
large number of really interesting replies. Some of them were distributed
by their authors on the list already. I nevertheless decided to compose a
kind of digest of the replies received from both e-mail lists.
I have got replies from Winfried Böder, Mily Crevels, Östen Dahl,
Dan Everett, Maria-José Ezeizabarrena, Jan Terje Faarlund, Francesca Fici,
Viktor Friedman, David Gil, Gideon Goldenberg, Claude Hagège, Elke
Hentschel, László Honti, Valerij Khabirov, Johanna Laakso, Martin Mato,
Kazuto Matsumara, Thomas Menzel, Johanna Nichols, Alberto Nocentini,
Michael Noonan, Elke Nowak, Manfred Ostrowski, Paolo Ramat, Jeanette Sakel,
Pilar Maritza Valenzuela. All of them I want to thank in the first place
(if I have forgotten somebody, please excuse me). I also want to thank
Mikael Parkvall, who sent me a file with an alphabetical list of
"glossonyms" (if you want a copy you should ask him directly:
parkvall at ling.su.se). As you will see from the table in the first
attachment, the phenomenon I am searching for can be encountered on the
predominant number of continents; the only continents I have not got any
information on are Australia and Northern America. I guess this is just an
incidental fact resulting not from the non-occurrence of this phenomenon on
these two continents, but from lack of information on it. If anybody knows
more on this topic, please let me know.
What can be generalized so far?
1. In many aboriginal languages no special name for the ethnic group's own
dialect/language exists, nor are there special ethnonyms. A widespread
technique of referring to the speech of one's own ethnic group is just to
take the word for 'speech, talk, language, tongue, word' and add a
determiner to them: mostly a possessive pronoun (1.pl) or a possessive
suffix on a 1.pl personal pronoun is used, but a definite article (if it
exists, e.g. in Arabic) may suffice, too. If the language distinguishes
between 1.pl exclusive and inclusive, the inclusive is used throughout
(with the somewhat artificial exception of Itonama in Amazonian Bolivia!).
Often only the word for 'our(s)' is used, thus identifying the native
tongue with ethnic membership by treating the tongue as the central
distinguishing feature against other ethnic groups. This can be observed
both in South America and on the Balkans. A less common technique seems to
be to refer to the place where the ethnic group lives (see however
Goldenberg's e-mail).
2. Ethnic and dialect/language names are often not distinguished from one
another. They are often not restricted to one particular linguistic and/or
ethnic group, but may embrace neighboring indigenous groups, e.g. in the
Caucasus (cf. Nichols' contribution). I guess that this is basically an
outcome of the same opposition as in the next point.
3. As for South American indigenous languages, it seems to be the case that
the terms for the group's own dialect (which, as I guess, is more often
than not a minority dialect, in many cases on the verge of extinction) were
invented after the European conquest and after Spanish (probably also
Portuguese?) began to dominate linguistically as linguae francae and as
languages, which -- in one way or other -- are spoken by the indigenous
peoples as second or first (?) language. The ethno- and glossonyms for
these ethnic groups are often used and general terms in order to oppose the
indigenous people from the dominating white people (i.e. only
Spanish-speaking population). Cf. the contributions by Mily Crevels, Dan
Everett and Jan Terje Faarlund.
4. Somewhat in contrast to this, on the Balkans and in the Black Sea region
designations like 'our language/speech' derive from a period before
national consciousness, when religion (Christian, Moslem etc.) was the
basic feature by which people identified with each other (cf. Friedman's
e-mail from 12/14/02).
There are two general problems of a methodological character:
5. Do the self-designations coincide with the designations given by
outsiders (researchers, state officials etc.)? This quite often seems to
have been the case with South American indigenous languages (looked at from
the "Spanish" perspective).
6. To which degree are coinages given by the speech communities themselves
conventionalized (for the respective community)?
Now, the reason for my request was that I was curious if there are certain
patterns for ethnic groups in a socially disfavourable position to refer to
their own "lect", which are comparable to those which I have observed
myself in the borderland region of Lithuania, Latvia and Belarus'. The
variety I am thinking of is called 'mowa prosta' (lit. 'simple, ordinary
speech'). This is a kind of uncodified, only spoken mixture of several
Belarusian dialects with elements from Polish and on a Lithuanian
substratum, which hitherto has been described neither in structural nor in
sociolinguistic terms, the reason being most probably that traditional
dialectologists have not worried about this unprestigious variety, which
does not seem to have clear roots in any of the traditional,
"time-honoured" Belarusian dialects and has been perceived (both by the
speakers and by the researchers) in opposition to regional Polish (with a
high prestige), lately also in opposition to standard Lithuanian (after
1990). The description of the mowa prosta has thus been hampered by a some
(socio)linguistic prejudices. Paradoxically enough, however, this variety
is perhaps the most widely spoken one by Slavic speakers, although it would
be difficult to state ultimately whether it is the first language (in terms
of language acquisition and of frequency of use in "adult life") of the
majority of people who use it.
The term 'mowa prosta' most probably arose first in the mouths of
the speakers themselves at the end of the 19th c. (or even earlier). Later
dialectologists and field-workers began to use this denomination as a kind
of quotation, but meanwhile it has become a quite widespread term among
specialists of that region. This term however has not been defined in any
stricter manner.
'Mowa prosta' refers only to the linguistic variety, in ethnic
terms the speakers would rather refer to themselves as 'tutejsi' (lit. 'the
people from here', 'the here-ians'). Linguistic and ethnic identity, thus,
do not necessarily coincide for these people, but both terms are clearly
used in place of (and in contrast to) denominations which would associate
these people closely to speakers of either Belarusian, Polish or
Lithuanian. Both terms derive from a period before national consciousness,
and to this extent the situation is comparable to the situation on the
Balkans (see above p. 4). But neither of these terms is associated to
religion in such strict a manner. For sure, most speakers of 'mowa prosta'
are Catholics of Belarusian origin (often on a Lithuanian ethnic and
linguistic substratum), and many (most?) of them speak also a regional
variety of Polish (at least on "official" occasions), the language tightly
associated with Catholicism. However, both 'mowa prosta' and 'tutejsi' are
self-designations used in lack of a clear national, linguistic and even
religious membership. They just stress the fact that people are
autochthonous and can be used as a safe-guard against different kinds of
politics. For during the last centuries political and administrative
borders and, as a consequence, languages compulsory at school and in
official places have changed frequently (only during the 20th c. in some
subregions they changed no less than five times). Indigenous people, thus,
do not know (and are not fond of knowing) "to whom they belong". They are
staying just there where they and their ancestors have been living all the
time. Typical for the whole region is a high degree of multilingualism
(multidialectism), where people adapt to each other's dialect (speech) very
willingly and quickly. The structural features of 'mowa prosta' testify a
degree of convergence of Belarusian (East Slavic), Polish (West Slavic) and
Lithuanian (Baltic) features, part of them is common to the eastern part of
the Circum-Baltic Area as a whole.
I would be curious if there are similar "sociolinguistic constellations" in
other parts (contact zones) of the world.
With best wishes and regards,
Bjoern Wiemer.
PD Dr. Bjoern Wiemer
Universitaet Konstanz
FB Sprachwissenschaft / Slavistik
Postfach 55 60, D 179
D- 78457 Konstanz
tel.: ++49 / 7531 / 88 -2582
fax: ++49 / 7531 / 88 -4007
e-mail: Bjoern.Wiemer at uni-konstanz.de
http://www.uni-konstanz.de/FuF/Philo/Sprachwiss/slavistik/wiemer/index.htm
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