LL-L "Language varieties" 2007.09.09 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

=======================================================================

 L O W L A N D S - L * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226

 http://www.lowlands-l.net * lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Rules & Guidelines: http://www.lowlands-l.net/rules.php

 Posting: lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org - lowlands.list at gmail.com

 Commands ("signoff lowlands-l" etc.): listserv at listserv.net

 Server Manual: http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8c/userindex.html

 Archives: http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/lowlands-l.html

 Encoding: Unicode (UTF-8) [Please switch your view mode to it.]

 Administration: lowlands.list at gmail.com or sassisch at yahoo.com


 You have received this because you have been subscribed upon request.
 To unsubscribe, please send the command "signoff lowlands-l" as message
 text from the same account to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or
 sign off at http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.


 A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
 L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
 S=Scots Sh=Shetlandic V=(West) Flemish Z=Zeelandic (Zeeuws)

=======================================================================

L O W L A N D S - L  -  31 August 2007 - Volume 03
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
 ========================================================================

From: Elsie Zinsser <ezinsser at icon.co.za>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2007.09.08 (01) [E]

Hi all,

Ron, I have not yet seen reference to Chamorro, only that officials were
forbidden to speak Creole-Portuguese to slaves after 1675.

According to Raidt, very little information is available about slaves before
1700. Van Riebeeck tried to import 174 slaves in 1657 from Angola of which
most died or escaped. After 1675 most slaves were imported from the 'East'
and by 1685 mixed marriages between slaves and Free Burghers were forbidden
unless the slave women were offspring of Dutch fathers, could speak Dutch
and accepted the Christian faith. By 1791, there were 17,396 slaves and most
were born at the Cape.

That might partly answer your question, Paul, about the speed in linguistic
change: 1) Remove one's mother tongue and 2) lingua franca, plus 3) couple
the usage of a preferred language to economical and social advantage, and
anything is possible.

Incidentally, Van Riebeeck was not sent to the Cape to settle a colony but
to provide provisions for ships going to the East. That in itself changes
the dynamics. The main focus was on productivity and economy, not on social
advantage and development. We see that still today where people enter a new
linguistic milieu that forces them to speak a certain tongue. They mix and
match and drop superfluous rules and forms. New forms might be reminiscent
of mother tongue forms and are reinforced and become embedded. Is that not
how creoles develop?

Regards,
Elsie Zinsser
>That seems amazingly early! less than 60 years after Jan van Riebeeck's
first colony, and it raises a couple of >questions:  Does this show just how
fast linguistic change can occur, or is it evidence of Dutch or other
>Lowlands presence in southern Africa before the "official" date?

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Language varieties

Thanks a lot, Elsie!  I find all this fascinating, not surprisingly,
considering that language contacts and the creation of new languages from
such contacts are my particular thing.

I find it interesting that Guam got involved, because it was a Spanish
colony, not a Dutch one.  As such, there were close ties with Legazpi and
other parts of what are now the Philippines.  By the way, Chamorro (Chamoru)
and the native languages of the Philippines, the Indonesian Archipelago and
the Malay Peninsula all are Malayo-Polynesian, thus Austronesian.  Modern
Chamorro is strongly Spanish-influenced, lately also English-influenced.

Of course, just because slaves came from a certain place doesn't necessarily
mean that's where they originated. Slaves tended to be traded and thus
shipped about.  For instance, there are two small but relevant minorities in
Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon). The Burghers (now less than 1% of the
population) began as children of Portuguese and Dutch fathers and Sinhalese
mothers, and British and African admixtures came to be added later. Their
original language was Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese Creole which is still used
by many so-called "Portuguese Burghers," while others now have English as
their first language.  Interestingly, the second minority worth mentioning
are the Sri Lankan Malays (now 0.3% of the population) many of whom still
speak Sri Lankan Creole Malay which is influenced by Sinhalese and Tamil,
apparently also by Dutch as well as Persian and Arabic. I don't know how the
Malays got there, but I suspect that Dutch colonization had something to do
with it, if not Portuguese colonization prior to that. This would make
connection with South Africa more understandable, namely transport of Malays
via Sri Lanka to the Cape.

We should not forget that there were also Malagasy-speaking slaves from
Madagascar in South Africa.  Malagasy, too, is Malayo-Polynesian, thus
Oceanic, the westernmost member of this large family (in pre-modern times
the largest family spread across water).

By the way, I hear that there is now a substantial Afrikaans-speaking
community in Perth, Western Australia. There were few Afrikaans speakers
there when I lived there, though many Anglo-South Africans.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

•

==============================END===================================

 * Please submit postings to lowlands-l at listserv.linguistlist.org.

 * Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.

 * Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.

 * Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")

   are to be sent to listserv at listserv.linguistlist.org or at

   http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.

*********************************************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20070909/66bf7ec5/attachment.htm>