Language convergence

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Language convergence is a type of linguistic change in which languages come to resemble one another structurally as a result of prolonged language contact and mutual interference, regardless of whether those languages belong to the same language family, i.e. stem from a common genealogical proto-language. [1] In contrast to other contact-induced language changes like creolization or the formation of mixed languages, convergence refers to a mutual process that results in changes in all the languages involved. [2] The term refers to changes in systematic linguistic patterns of the languages in contact (phonology, prosody, syntax, morphology) rather than alterations of individual lexical items. [3]

Contents

Contexts

Language convergence occurs in geographic areas with two or more languages in contact, resulting in groups of languages with similar linguistic features that were not inherited from each language's proto-language. [1] These geographic and linguistic groups are called linguistic areas, or Sprachbund areas. [1] [4] Linguistic features shared by the languages in a language area as a result of language convergence are called areal features. [1] In situations with many languages in contact and a variety of areal features, linguists may use the term language convergence to indicate the impossibility of locating a singular source for each areal feature. [2] However, as the classification of linguistic areas and language convergence depends on shared areal features, linguists must distinguish between areal features resulting from convergence and internally motivated changes resulting in chance similarities between languages. [5]

Language convergence can also occur for a particular person's grammar. It sometimes occurs in children who are acquiring a second language. Because the grammar of the child's native language is still developing, the grammar patterns of the first and second language can influence each other. Singaporean students learning both English and Mandarin showed use of common Mandarin grammatical structures when speaking English. [6]

Mechanisms

Language convergence occurs primarily through diffusion, the spread of a feature from one language to another. [1] The causes of language convergence are highly dependent on the specifics of the contact between the languages involved. Often, convergence is motivated by bilingual code-switching or code-alternation. [2] Seeking full expressive capacity in both languages, bilingual speakers identify preexisting parallels between languages and use these structures to express similar meanings, eventually leading to convergence or increasing the frequency of the similar patterns. [3] Sociolinguistic factors may also influence the effects of language convergence, as ethnic boundaries can function as barriers to language convergence. Ethnic boundaries may help to explain areas in which linguists’ predictions about language convergence do not align with reality, such as areas with high inter-ethnic contact but low levels of convergence. [3]

Results

Language convergence often results in the increased frequency of preexisting patterns in a language; if one feature is present in two languages in contact, convergence results in increased use and cross-linguistic similarity of the parallel feature. [3] As contact situations leading to language convergence lack defined substrate and superstrate languages, the outcomes of convergence often resemble structures found in all the languages involved without perfectly replicating any one pattern. [2] Language convergence is most apparent in phonetics, with the phonological systems of the languages in contact gradually coming to resemble one another. [5] In some cases, the results of phonological convergence may be limited to a few phonemes, while in other linguistic areas phonological convergence can result in widespread changes that affect the entire phonological system, such as the development of phonemic tone distinctions. [5] In contrast to the limited effects of lexical borrowing, phonetic, syntactic, or morphological convergence can have greater consequences, as converging patterns can influence an entire system rather than only a handful of lexical items. [3]

Difficulties

When studying convergence, linguists take care to distinguish between features inherited from a language's proto-language, internally motivated changes, and diffusion from an outside source; in order to argue for language convergence, linguists try to argue for both an outside source and the mechanism that precipitated the change. [4] The more drastic effects of language convergence, such as significant syntactic convergence and mixed languages, lead some linguists to question the validity of traditional historical linguistic methods. [1] Because of these far-reaching effects, other linguists are hesitant to accept convergence explanations for similar features and argue that often another explanation better represents changes that might otherwise attributed to language convergence. [1]

Examples

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altaic languages</span> Hypothetical language family of Eurasia

Altaic is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. The hypothetical language family has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, although it continues to be supported by a small but stable scholarly minority. Speakers of the constituent languages are currently scattered over most of Asia north of 35° N and in some eastern parts of Europe, extending in longitude from the Balkan Peninsula to Japan. The group is named after the Altai mountain range in the center of Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comparative method</span> Technique for studying the historical development of languages, based on language comparison

In linguistics, the comparative method is a technique for studying the development of languages by performing a feature-by-feature comparison of two or more languages with common descent from a shared ancestor and then extrapolating backwards to infer the properties of that ancestor. The comparative method may be contrasted with the method of internal reconstruction in which the internal development of a single language is inferred by the analysis of features within that language. Ordinarily, both methods are used together to reconstruct prehistoric phases of languages; to fill in gaps in the historical record of a language; to discover the development of phonological, morphological and other linguistic systems and to confirm or to refute hypothesised relationships between languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Language family</span> Group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor

A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term family is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics analogous to a family tree, or to phylogenetic trees of taxa used in evolutionary taxonomy. Linguists thus describe the daughter languages within a language family as being genetically related. The divergence of a proto-language into daughter languages typically occurs through geographical separation, with different regional dialects of the proto-language undergoing different language changes and thus becoming distinct languages over time.

Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages systematically organize their phones or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a particular language variety. At one time, the study of phonology related only to the study of the systems of phonemes in spoken languages, but may now relate to any linguistic analysis either:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ural-Altaic languages</span> Abandoned language family proposal

Ural-Altaic, Uralo-Altaic, Uraltaic, or Turanic is a linguistic convergence zone and abandoned language-family proposal uniting the Uralic and the Altaic languages. It is now generally agreed that even the Altaic languages do not share a common descent: the similarities between Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic are better explained by diffusion and borrowing. Just as in Altaic, the internal structure of the Uralic family has been debated since the family was first proposed. Doubts about the validity of most or all of the proposed higher-order Uralic branchings are becoming more common. The term continues to be used for the central Eurasian typological, grammatical and lexical convergence zone.

Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include:

  1. to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages
  2. to reconstruct the pre-history of languages and to determine their relatedness, grouping them into language families
  3. to develop general theories about how and why language changes
  4. to describe the history of speech communities
  5. to study the history of words, i.e. etymology
  6. to explore the impact of cultural and social factors on language evolution.

A sprachbund, also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The languages may be genetically unrelated, or only distantly related, but the sprachbund characteristics might give a false appearance of relatedness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Languages of the Caucasus</span> Diverse languages between the Black and Caspian seas

The Caucasian languages comprise a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in and around the Caucasus Mountains, which lie between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

ǂʼAmkoeAM-koy, formerly called by the dialectal name ǂHoan, is a severely endangered Kxʼa language of Botswana. West ǂʼAmkoe dialect, along with Taa and Gǀui, form the core of the Kalahari Basin sprachbund, and share a number of characteristic features, including the largest consonant inventories in the world. ǂʼAmkoe was shown to be related to the Juu languages by Honken and Heine (2010), and these have since been classified together in the Kxʼa language family.

Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness.

Language contact occurs when speakers of two or more languages or varieties interact with and influence each other. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics. Language contact can occur at language borders, between adstratum languages, or as the result of migration, with an intrusive language acting as either a superstratum or a substratum.

A mixed language, also referred to as a hybrid language, contact language, or fusion language, is a language that arises among a bilingual group combining aspects of two or more languages but not clearly deriving primarily from any single language. It differs from a creole or pidgin language in that, whereas creoles/pidgins arise where speakers of many languages acquire a common language, a mixed language typically arises in a population that is fluent in both of the source languages.

In geolinguistics, areal features are elements shared by languages or dialects in a geographic area, particularly when such features are not descended from a proto-language, i.e. a common ancestor language. That is, an areal feature is contrasted with lingual-genealogically determined similarity within the same language family. Features may diffuse from one dominant language to neighbouring languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uralo-Siberian languages</span> Proposed language family including Uralic, Yukaghir, Eskimo–Aleut and possibly Nivkh

Uralo-Siberian is a hypothetical language family consisting of Uralic, Yukaghir, and Eskaleut. It was proposed in 1998 by Michael Fortescue, an expert in Eskaleut and Chukotko-Kamchatkan, in his book Language Relations across Bering Strait. Some have attempted to include Nivkh in Uralo-Siberian. Until 2011, it also included Chukotko-Kamchatkan. However, after 2011 Fortescue only included Uralic, Yukaghir and Eskaleut in the theory, although he argued that Uralo-Siberian languages have influenced Chukotko-Kamchatkan.

In linguistics, a feature is any characteristic used to classify a phoneme or word. These are often binary or unary conditions which act as constraints in various forms of linguistic analysis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wave model</span> Model of language change

In historical linguistics, the wave model or wave theory is a model of language change in which a new language feature (innovation) or a new combination of language features spreads from its region of origin, being adopted by a gradually expanding cluster of dialects. Each innovation starts at a certain place, and spreads from speaker to speaker, from dialect to dialect, in the same fashion as waves on the water.

The Pueblo linguistic area is a Sprachbund consisting of the languages spoken in and near North American Pueblo locations. There are also many shared cultural practices in this area. For example, these cultures share many ceremonial vocabulary terms meant for prayer or song.

North Junín Quechua is a language dialect of Quechua spoken throughout the Andean highlands of the Northern Junín and Tarma Provinces of Perú. Dialects under North Junín Quechua include Tarma Quechua spoken in Tarma Province and the subdialect San Pedros de Cajas Quechua. North Junín Quechua belongs to the Yaru Quechua dialect cluster under the Quechua I dialects. Initially spoken by Huancas and neighboring native people, Quechua's Junín dialect was absorbed by the Inca Empire in 1460 but relatively unaffected by the Southern Cuzco dialect. The Inca Empire had to defeat stiff resistance by the Huanca people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linguistic areas of the Americas</span>

The indigenous languages of the Americas form various linguistic areas or Sprachbunds that share various common (areal) traits. The following list of linguistic areas is primarily based on Campbell.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albanian–Eastern Romance linguistic parallels</span> Linguistic contact research

The Albanian–Eastern Romance linguistic parallels are subject of historical and contact linguistic research applied to the Albanian and Eastern Romance languages. It has also been studied to understand the history of Albanian and Eastern Romance speakers. The common phonological, morphological and syntactical features of the two language families have been studied for more than a century. Both are part of the Balkan sprachbund but there are certain elements shared only by Albanian and Eastern Romance languages that descended from Common Romanian. Aside from Latin, and from shared Greek, Slavic and Turkish elements, other characteristics and words are attributed to the Palaeo-Balkan linguistic base. Similarities between Eastern Romance and Albanian are not limited to their common Balkan features and the assumed common lexical items: the two language families share calques and proverbs, and display analogous phonetic changes, some of the latter especially shared between Tosk Albanian and Common Romanian.

References

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  2. 1 2 3 4 Thomason, Sarah (2001). Language Contact: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 89–90, 152. ISBN   0748607196.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Hickey, Raymond, ed. (2010). The Handbook of Language Contact. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 19, 68–9, 76, 285–87. ISBN   1444318160.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Winford, Donald (2003). An Introduction to Contact Linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell. pp. 65, 70–78. ISBN   0631212515.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Appel, René; Pieter Muysken (1987). “Language Contact and Language Change,” In Language Contact and Bilingualism. New York: Edward Arnold. pp. 153-163.
  6. Chen, Ee San (2003) Language Convergence and Bilingual Acquisition, Annual Review of Language Acquisition, vol. 3, 89–137, doi : 10.1075/arla.3.05che
  7. Scollon, Ronald (1 January 1979). "Variable Data and Linguistic Convergence: Texts and Contexts in Chipewyan". Language in Society. 8 (2): 223–243. doi:10.1017/s0047404500007442. JSTOR   4167072.