to google/should be
John Dunn
J.Dunn at SLAVONIC.ARTS.GLA.AC.UK
Tue Nov 20 09:56:02 UTC 2007
It may be worth noting that in Welsh you can also find the reverse pattern of relexification, i.e. Welsh structures with English lexicon. Examples I recall hearing include 'y favourite ploy Bennett' [Bennett's favourite ploy] and 'tair chops o lamb' [three lamb chops], though since Welsh numerals are followed by the singular, the plural ending may be interpreted as a structural anglicism. It may also be the case that some speakers replace the syntactically and structurally complex higher Welsh numerals with their simpler English counterparts.
Even allowing for the specific features of the education and mass media systems that have brought about this state of affairs, one can presumably posit similarly (or even more) convoluted patterns of influence for other situations of language contact, e.g. German/Yiddish/Slavonic or Yiddish/Hebrew/A.N. Other.
John Dunn.
-----Original Message-----
From: colkitto <colkitto at ROGERS.COM>
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 22:40:35 -0500
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] to google/should be "who is a Slavic speaker?"
I will take the liberty of quoting from my review of Dixon The Rise and Fall
of Languages (1999)
[cut]
.........
[A] much-discussed phenomenon in historical linguistics is relexification,
which involves situations where a language preserves its original
grammatical structure during a period of close language contact while
borrowing most of its lexicon from another language. Some of the examples
cited by Thomason & Kaufman (1988), and discussed by Dixon, appear to this
involve this process (see above). Welsh may also provide a relevant example.
Currently in South Wales a form of relexification appears to be actually
under way. Many children in Glamorgan and the Rhondda whose first language
is English are being educated through the medium of Welsh. However, there
have been no actual Welsh-speaking communities in those areas since about
1850. The Welsh that such children actually use, however, may be described
as English structure with a Welsh lexicon: partially parallel to the
Yiddish/Hebrew situation described by Wexler. This type of Welsh is called
bratiaith (jargon), and is regarded with scorn by many speakers from North
Wales, who often claim that it is incomprehensible. However, if the decline
of Welsh in rural communities coupled with the increase in numbers of
speakers of bratiaith continues, one day the latter might be the only type
of Welsh left.
[cut]
John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland
Address:
Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
40137 Bologna
Italy
Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it
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