missingsch?

[Harold F. Schiffman]

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In a recent query to Linguist-List (below) Wiggers asks if there are other
examples in the world of L-variety speakers imitating H-variety languages,
but not quite getting it right, and subsequent jokes etc. about this.
I'm wondering if there are examples in South Asian languages of this
phenomenon. In South Asia we have of course lots of lampooning of
non-standard dialects in films etc. but it's not a case of those speakers
trying to imitate H-variety.

Hal Schiffman
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                          Harold F. Schiffman

Professor of Dravidian Linguistics and Culture                       Director
Dept. of South Asia Studies                     Pedagogical Materials Project,
805 Williams Hall Box 6305                 South Asia Language Resource Center

                        University of Pennsylvania
                        Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

                        Phone:  (215) 898-5825
                        Fax:  (215) 573-2138

                        Email:  haroldfs at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
                        http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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Message 2: Missingsch

Date: 05-Apr-2005
From: Heiko Wiggers <wiggersheikohotmail.com>
Subject: Missingsch


Dear all,

I am doing research on Low German and have come across an interesting
phenomenon, called Missingsch. Missingsch is defined as the attempt to
speak High German but with a Low German substrate, i.e. it is a mix of Low
and High German. It originated ca. in 18th/19th century when Low German
was
more and more regarded as "backwards", and its speakers started to imitate
High German because it was seen as "sophisticated". A lot of fun has been
made of this mix language, and it continues to this day, mostly in satire
etc. My question is: are there any other mix languages that originated in
a similar fashion? For example, to use Ferguson's terms, speakers of a Low
variety decide to imitate the High variety, and the outcome is a mixture
of
H and L?

thanks

Heiko Wiggers
Undergraduate Instructor of German and Dutch
University of Texas at Austin