17.1393, Review: Historical Ling/Lang Contact:Tent & Geraghty(2004)

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Subject: 17.1393, Review: Historical Ling/Lang Contact:Tent & Geraghty(2004)

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1)
Date: 28-Apr-2006
From: Simon Musgrave < Simon.Musgrave at arts.monash.edu.au >
Subject: Borrowing 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 13:43:18
From: Simon Musgrave < Simon.Musgrave at arts.monash.edu.au >
Subject: Borrowing 
 

Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-2504.html 

EDITORS: Tent, Jan; Geraghty, Paul
TITLE: Borrowing
SUBTITLE: A Pacific perspective
SERIES: Pacific Linguistics
PUBLISHER: Pacific Linguistics
YEAR: 2004

Simon Musgrave, Linguistics Program, Monash University

DESCRIPTION AND SUMMARY

This volume is a collection of sixteen papers all (except perhaps one - 
see below) concerned with lexical borrowing in languages spoken in 
the Pacific region. Most of the papers deal with borrowing into 
languages from the Oceanic sub-group of the Austronesian language 
family, but two papers discuss borrowing in non-Austronesian 
languages spoken in Fiji. In the following discussion, all languages 
referred to are Oceanic languages, unless specifically identified as 
belonging to some other grouping. Three of the papers have been 
published previously (Biggs, Clark and Milner), the remainder are 
either new or represent a substantial reworking of previously 
published material. 

Biggs' paper (originally published in Lingua vol.14:383-415 [1965]) 
remains a classic in the literature on Oceanic languages. Its 
meticulous examination of directly and indirectly inherited words in the 
Rotuman language is an object lesson in how it is possible to identify 
borrowed words even when they come from related languages.

Clark (originally published in Halim et al 1982) examines borrowing in 
the Ifira-Mele language (Vanuatu), and addresses the question of why 
borrowing takes place. Clark suggests that some borrowing 
is 'necessary', in the sense that contact between cultures causes the 
need for words to denote new artefacts and concepts. Other 
borrowing is, however, 'unnecessary', in that the needed words 
already exist in the target language but a new word is nevertheless 
borrowed. Clark suggests that this second type of borrowing still 
requires explanation, although he is unable to provide a solution.

Crowley's paper is a response to the argument of Mühlhäusler (1996), 
that the structural integrity of Pacific languages is threatened by 
borrowing, and that the languages which survive will become local 
relexifications of European structures. Crowley presents evidence 
from the Sye language (Vanuatu) to show that restructuring has 
indeed been caused by loan words, but that it is not necessarily in the 
direction of English, the main source for borrowings. He also points 
out that attempting to protect minority languages from outside 
influences means preventing the speakers from interacting with the 
modern world on their own linguistic terms.

Early discusses the strategies by which borrowed verbs are integrated 
into the language of Epi Island (Vanuatu). Loan words which were 
originally verbs or adjectives are treated consistently in these 
languages. Across the six languages of the island, borrowed verbs 
are barred from appearing in the structure typical of native verbs, in 
which the verb has an obligatory subject-referencing prefix and 
optional suffixes. Instead, borrowed verbs always follow a native 
copula, which carries any morphology needed. Early notes the parallel 
with the behaviour of borrowed nouns, which are also barred from 
appearing in a structure which would require them to be 
morphologically modified, the so-called directly-possessed form (see 
Crowley 1996 for discussion of possession in Oceanic languages). He 
further suggests that the remarkable parallelism across the six 
languages in their treatment of loans should be attributed to borrowing 
amongst the languages, most likely by way of one acting as a lingua 
franca.

The paper by Geraghty uses linguistic evidence to establish which 
plant names in Polynesian languages, especially Fijian, are loan 
words. These borrowings in turn are argued to support the idea that in 
prehistoric times there was greater mobility amongst Pacific 
populations than is often thought to be the case. Geraghty gives 
convincing evidence that a sizeable number of Polynesian plant 
names are indeed loans. He follows Clark in distinguishing 
between 'necessary' and 'unnecessary' borrowings, and offers 
examples of both types. Methodologically, Geraghty suggests that 'the 
most valuable service provided to the study of prehistory by historical 
linguistics is not reconstruction per se, but the detection of borrowings 
that is made possible by reconstruction' (p65). 

Geraghty is also co-author of a paper, with Tent, which establishes 
that a small number of Dutch words (six or seven) were borrowed into 
Polynesian languages in the early stages of contact with Europeans. 
The authors provide convincing evidence that the earliest European 
linguistic influence in Polynesia is not English but Dutch (both are 
West Germanic languages), and that such influence predates Cook's 
voyages by at least a century. The authors also present evidence 
which shows that the borrowed words then spread through Polynesia, 
again before Cook's arrival, and therefore provide additional evidence 
for Geraghty's position (discussed above) that inter-island voyaging 
was extensive in Polynesia before European contact.

Harlow's paper provides a survey of borrowing as it has affected the 
Maori language. He examines three periods in detail: the arrival of 
Polynesian people in New Zealand about 1000 years ago, the period 
of contact with Europeans (effectively from the latter half of the 
eighteenth century), and the revitalization activities since about 1980 
(which Harlow calls 'the Maori renaissance'). Harlow shows that 
different pressures acted on the language in each of these periods, 
and that outcomes were therefore different. Adaptation of existing 
lexical resources was the common strategy in the first period, while 
borrowing was the dominant strategy in the second period, with many 
English words being adopted. In more recent times, there has been a 
conscious purism operating in Maori language planning. This has 
meant that borrowing from English has not been favoured as a 
strategy for expanding vocabulary in the third period, and Harlow also 
briefly discusses some of the alternative strategies.

Hollyman's brief paper examines names used in New Caledonia which 
contain some reference to the putative origin of the item. An example 
of such a name is the French (Romance) _persil chinois_ 
for 'coriander'. With examples from local French varieties as well as 
indigenous Pacific languages, Hollyman shows that these names 
emphasize exoticism, but exoticism understood in a non-European 
way.

In his fascinating paper, Langdon examines the linguistic evidence for 
the presence of non-Polynesian people on Futuna (north east of Fiji) 
before European contact. The impetus for such a study comes from a 
well-established tradition on Futuna concerning the Tsiaina people, 
the name clearly being an adaptation of 'China'. Langdon shows that 
there is good linguistic evidence to give this tradition an historical 
foundation, as well as evidence from cultural innovations. He argues 
that the Tsiaina had nothing at all to do with China, but possibly came 
from the Sangir Islands close to Sulawesi. A consequence of this 
research for linguists is that evidence from Futuna used in 
reconstructing Proto-Polynesian may not be as reliable as previously 
thought.

Studies of borrowing, unsurprisingly, concentrate on actual instances 
where a word has been taken from one language into another 
language. Lynch's paper, in contrast, discusses two situations in 
which, on the basis of the historico-social situation, extensive 
borrowing might have been expected but did not eventuate. The 
Melanesian creole Bislama underwent much of its development as a 
result of recruitment of people from Vanuatu for plantation labour, 
ships' crews and the sandalwood trade. Many people from southern 
Melanesia, particularly the Loyalty Islands and the current Tafea 
province, were recruited, but the languages of these two areas have 
had negligible impact on the lexicon of Bislama. Again, German 
presence in Samoa was significant, but there are only small numbers 
of German (West Germanic) loans in Samoan, either in the current 
language or as obsolete words previously recorded. In the first case, 
Lynch suggests that the phonologies and phonotactics of the possible 
source languages were such as to make borrowing difficult. He 
suggests that the southern people were also looked down on and that 
therefore words from their languages would have had low prestige. In 
the Samoan case, the difference in linguistic attitudes of the German 
administrators and the contemporary English missionaries led to 
English being a significant source of new words in preference to 
German.

Milner (originally published in Lingua, vol 14:416-430 [1965]) 
examines some sets of doublets in Oceanic languages. He considers 
first the reflexes of palatal consonants, which posed problems for 
Dempwolff (1934-38). The doublets seem amenable to explanation as 
reflexes of pairs of words in the proto-language with consonants 
which either are pre-nasalised or are not. However, Dempwolff
rejected this explanation due to the more limited distribution of 
homorganic nasal clusters in his reconstructed Proto-Indonesian in 
comparison to Oceanic. Milner gives additional evidence, and extends 
the argument to other (non-palatal) consonants in order to suggest 
that pre-nasalisation appears to have been an option for all 
consonants, at least in initial position, at some stage in
the history of the Austronesian languages. His position is that the 
languages of the Oceanic branch, and also Malagasy (Western 
Malayo-Polynesian), are conservative in this respect. Dempwolff's 
tendency to place greater weight on evidence from the western 
branch of the family misled him in dealing with this problem.

Samoan, which is briefly discussed in Lynch's paper, is the focus of 
the paper by Mosel which gives an overview of borrowing into that 
language. There are two areas of variation in the language which 
have interesting consequences for the phonological treatment of 
borrowed words. Firstly, there are two registers of the language, one 
of which consistently replaces the phoneme /t/ with /k/. The 
differentiation is socio-cultural: the K-register is associated with 
indigenous Samoan culture. Borrowed words therefore often have 
different forms in the two registers. For example, the English 
word 'teapot' becomes _tipoti_ in the T-register, but _kipoki_ in the K-
register. However, some words with an original /t/ (or /d/) are 
commonly used in the T-register with a /k/. Mosel suggests that use 
of /k/ hides the English origin of the word, and is used to indicate that 
a word has been fully integrated into Samoan culture. Similar 
considerations apply to the treatment of /r/ in loan words. Samoan 
historically has no phoneme /r/, and this sound would be expected to 
become /l/. However, the actual results are more complex. There is a 
tendency for the T-register to retain /r/ and for the K-register to 
prefer /l/, but there are words which retain /r/ in both registers and 
other words which have /l/ in both. Mosel suggests that the 
explanation is again cultural: /r/ is retained for words which connote 
Christianity and European concepts, regardless of register, while use 
of /l/ indicates that a concept is considered as part of everyday 
Samoan life.

(The following summaries deviate from the published order, which is 
by author's surname. Sperlich's paper therefore appears between 
Schütz and Tent.)

Sperlich's paper discusses borrowing in the Niuean language under 
two heads: borrowing before and after European contact. The first 
topic is of interest as the position adopted by most scholars (e.g. Clark 
1979) is that Niuean is a Tongic language, but with features which 
suggest the possibility of other influences. Sperlich examines in some 
detail the evidence proposed (especially by McEwen 1970) for 
borrowings from Eastern Polynesian into Niuean, and concludes that 
almost all the putative examples can be explained adequately by 
factors internal to Niuean. He therefore concludes that there is little 
support for extensive contact between Niue and Eastern Polynesia. 
After European contact, Samoa was an important influence as 
Christianity came to Niue via Samoa. Religious language therefore 
shows a strong Samoan influence, but there was little impact in the 
everyday language. After 1900, Niue was under the control of the 
British and then of New Zealand. Influences then came from the Cook 
Islands (that is Rarotonga), from Maori, and of course from English. 
The first two of these have left traces in contemporary Niuean, but the 
major impact is from English, to the extent that Sperlich believes that 
the Niuean language is endangered.

Three papers (by Mugler, Schütz and Tent) deal with the complex 
linguistic ecology of Fiji, where the indigenous Fijian language co-
exists with English and a variety of Hindi (Indo-Aryan), as well as 
several other languages with small speaker communities. Mugler 
discusses the role of Hindi and other Indian languages, both as 
sources for borrowing and as receptors. Fijian Hindi is the dominant 
language of the substantial Fijian population of Indian ethnic 
background, although the Dravidian languages Tamil, Telugu and 
Malayalam are also present. The imbalance between Hindi and the 
others is seen in the fact that although the Dravidian languages have 
borrowed some Hindi words, there has been little or no borrowing in 
the opposite direction (or from Dravidian languages into Fijian or 
English). Mugler also argues that loans from Fijian or English have 
only reached the Dravidian languages via Fijian Hindi. Mugler's other 
focus is on the vector of some early borrowings from English into 
Fijian Hindi. She suggests that some of these may have occurred in 
India, before the indentured Indian labourers were brought to Fiji, and 
that they therefore are more properly considered as items contributed 
to Fijian Hindi, viewed as a koiné, by one of its source languages. 

Schütz's paper examines English words borrowed into Fijian, and 
offers an account of the process of assimilation which takes prosody 
to the primary consideration. Fijian favours simple syllable structures 
without consonant clusters or codas; this is of course rather different 
to English phonotactic patterns. Schütz argues that, in adapting 
English patterns to Fijian, the crucial unit of analysis is what he 
terms 'measure'. Prosodic fit is accomplished ''not with individual 
consonants or vowels, or with syllables, but with a larger unit that is 
determined by accent'' (p263). (This description suggests to me that 
what Schütz calls 'the measure' is very similar to what many 
phonologists call 'the foot'.) The process of matching between the two 
languages works with these units; the assimilated Fijian word need not 
have the same number of syllables as the English source, but it should 
have the same number of accented units. Schütz gives numerous 
examples of how this process works. He also exemplifies the 
correspondences which are seen at the segmental level, and shows 
that where Fijian phonotactics require an additional vowel, the quality 
of the vowel can often be predicted from the preceding consonant. In 
recent data, Schütz finds examples of loan words in Fijian publications 
spelt more according to English phonotactics, that is with final 
consonants and consonant clusters. Such data raise the question of 
the relation between orthography and phonology: do these new 
examples show that the Fijian system is changing under the pressure 
of English? 

Finally, Tent's paper examines borrowing into Fijian English. Although 
English is the first language of only a very small proportion of the 
population (less than 2%), it has disproportionate influence as the 
main language of education, administration and the media, and is 
widely used as a lingua franca. Tent argues that the overall structure 
of the lexicon of Fijian English is similar to that of other post-colonial 
varieties of English. It is, however, unique because of the mix of 
sources which has contributed to its current state. In common with 
other Pacific varieties of English, it has nativised many indigenous 
words. And it shares the contribution of Hindi with varieties spoken in 
other former colonies where indentured labour was used. But the 
combination of these two factors is only found in Fiji. One 
phenomenon to which Tent draws attention, and which he suggests is 
often overlooked, is that of reborrowing. This occurs where a word 
has been borrowed from English to Fijian and nativised, and that form 
is then borrowed back into Fijian English, often with a semantic shift. 
An example of this process is the English word 'threepence', which is 
nativised in Fijian as _ciriveni_. This form has now been borrowed into 
Fijian English with the meaning 'miserly'. Tent also notes the presence 
of calques and hybrids in Fijian English and that the influence of Fijian 
in Fijian English is much greater than that of Hindi, not surprising 
given that the Indian community arrived in Fiji well after contact with 
Europeans commenced.

EVALUATION

This collection is a valuable source of information for scholars 
interested in language contact phenomena, and especially lexical 
borrowing. Although the studies here are restricted to a specific 
geographical area which is populated mainly by speakers of 
languages from a single family, there is nevertheless sufficient variety 
in the histories and social situations of the various languages 
discussed to ensure that each paper makes a distinct contribution. 
There are possible contributions which one can think of and regret not 
having, for example a paper on the Hawaiian situation and one on 
borrowing into New Zealand English, but the range of the collection as 
it stands is wide. The re-presentation of three previously-published 
papers in a relatively accessible location is another excellent feature 
of the book.

My only reservation about this volume is that it gives the impression of 
being under-edited. By this, I do not mean that the physical 
presentation is problematic (there are some distracting typographical 
errors, but not a huge number); rather I mean that the editors' 
intention appears to have been to minimize their presence. There is 
no introduction to the collection and the contributions are arranged 
according to the authors' surnames. As regards the first point, I would 
have welcomed some editorial overview of the linguistic situation of 
the region, as varied as it is, and some indication of the contribution 
which the editors saw each paper as making. For example, I would 
have been very interested in their ideas as to why the paper by Milner 
was included. To this reader at least, this is an important paper on 
comparative Austronesian linguistics, but one with little to say directly 
about borrowing. And as to the second point, the relationships 
between the papers might have been clarified by a more thematic 
ordering. For example, as implied by my re-ordering for summarisation 
above, in the case of the papers about Fiji, the purely alphabetical 
organisation obscured the relationships between the papers. Perhaps 
the reviewer's strategy of reading the volume from beginning to end is 
unnatural in the case of such a book. However, if the typical reader 
will approach such a collection looking for specific information relating 
to a single theme, then the case for a thematic organisation is all the 
stronger.

REFERENCES

Clark, Ross (1979) Language. In J. D.Jennings (ed) The prehistory of 
Polynesia, 249-270. Cambridge MA/London: Harvard University Press.

Crowley, Terry (1996) Inalienable possession in Paamese grammar. In 
Hilary Chappell and William McGregor (eds) The grammar of 
inalienability: a typological perspective on body part terms and the 
part-whole relationship, 3-30. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Halim, Amran, Lois Carrington and S.A. Wurm (eds) (1982) Papers 
from the Third International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. 
Vol.3, Accent on Variety. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

McEwen, J. M. (1970) Niue Dictionary. Wellington: New Zealand 
Government Printer.

Mühlhäusler, Peter (1996) Linguistic ecology: language change and 
linguistic imperialism in the Pacific region. London and New York: 
Routledge. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER


Simon Musgrave is a post-doctoral fellow at Monash University, 
working in the project Endangered Maluku Languages. His research 
interests include the languages of Maluku, Austronesian syntax and 
typology, non-derivational models of grammar, and computational 
tools for linguistics.





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