Week 6

Language and Isolation (II):

Transported Varieties
 Outline
 Introduction
Overseas varieties of English
Dialectal transfer
Features
 St Helenian English
 Pidgins and Creoles in the
Pacific
Summary and Conclusion
 Final lecture in the language and mobility
series
 Focus on transported dialects
 An extension to last week’s theme
 Transported dialects can be noticed in
relatively isolated settings
 Those taken away from their original
settings
 Transposed in other parts of the world
 Continue with the idea of both retentive
(recessive) and dynamic variation
 Retained certain features from
the original dialects of early
settlers
 Known as RECESSIVE traits
 Also developed new attributes
based on new patterns of
dialect mixture
 Exacerbated by the human
traffic in these places due to
social and political reasons
 During colonisation, people from the
educated, middle class and higher Senior
officials in the administration, clerical and
educational staff or army officers

 Eventually existed in contact with other

locals, imported population groups and
their descendants

 Gave rise to a series of circumstances

determining the shape of the resulting
variety

 Some of these are (Hickey 2004: 1)

1. Dialect input and the
survival of features from a
mainland source or sources

2. Independent
developments within the
overseas communities,
including realignments of
features through
koineisation
3. Creolisation in those
situations where there
was no linguistic
continuity and where
virtually the only input
was a pidgin, based on
English, from the
preceding generation
 Transported variety eventually
transformed through the above
factors
 Focus today on each factor in
turn
 Examples for each case
 A world tour!

 Focus on socio-historical
perspectives
 Major theoretical concern
 Determining just what constitutes
dialect input to extraterritorial varieties
 Method: contrasting unusual features
in these varieties with those attested in
present-day British dialects
 Simultaneously consider whether there
is historical continuity
 Between the area in Britain where the
feature is found and the overseas site
where it appears
 E.g. Relics of British and Irish
English in Newfoundland in North
America (Clarke, 2004)
 Became along with Labrador the
10th province of Canada in 1949
 Considered as the oldest of any
transported variety
 Island claimed for the British
crown in 1583
 Settled by the English in the 17th
century
 Origins of British and Irish emigrants in
Newfoundland documented
 To a degree virtually unprecedented in the
history of the New World settlement
 Mannion (1977: 7):
“It is unlikely that any other province or state in
contemporary North America drew such an
overwhelming proportion of its immigrants
from such localized source areas in the
European homeland over so substantial a
period of time”

 Thirdly – as an island off the East coast of

North America, Newfoundland remained
relatively isolated from the rest of the
continent
 Isolation persisted till the mid 20th century
 Inhabitants having very little contact with
mainland varieties
 Very little internal dialect contact as well due
to difficult geography
 Transportation between communities being
possible only by water until well into the 20th
century
 Languages in contact: British English, Irish
English and Irish Gaelic
 Influence from Mi’kmak (also written as
Mi’kmaq), Scottish Gaelic and Acadian
French in the 18th and 19th centuries minimal
 However- that does not mean that the
dialect has remained static
 Simply implies that the origins of a lot
of its lexical, phonetic/ phonological
and morphosyntactic sources be easily
traced
 Cf. Mufwene’s Founder Principle
 Generally applied to Creoles- primacy
of languages spoken by European
settlers
 Founder constraints evidenced in
Newfoundland English as well
 Assimilation of /z/ to /d/ before syllabic
/n/
 Occurs mainly in contracted negative
forms of the verb to be such as ‘isn’t’
and ‘wasn’t’
 E.g. idn’t, wadn’t
 Derived from South-West British
English (SWBE)
 Seen in areas of the Southern US as
well
 Broadened to encompass words such
as business
 Form of object personal pronoun
governed by syllable stress
 E.g. Unstressed: Give me the
books
 Versus stressed: Give ‘em to I

 Object-like pronouns in
unstressed subject position e.g.
have ‘em had…?
 From SWBE as well
 Auxiliary – paradigm has zero inflection
throughout
 E.g. He haven’t seen her/ Do she want to
leave?
 Lexical verbs - -s inflection used throughout
 Either they haves no business being here/ we
doos (du:z) that all the time
 Or they has no business being here/ we does
that all the time
 Relic of SWBE too
 Note: Phonology (especially clear and dark /l/
come from Scottish and Irish English)
Activity 1
 Have a look at the following song in Newfoundland
English

 Can you notice the features that we’ve just spoken

about?

 Do you notice any other ‘odd’ feature(s)?

 Depends on the value of dialect input
 General principle that the more widespread a feature,
the less it is indicative of a connection between
homeland and colony
 E.g. the common diphthong flattening where wife is
pronounced as /wa:f/ and and house as /ha:s/
 Common – therefore more likely to be a local feature
 Versus less common – come + V + ing (seen in AAVE) –
she come acting like she was mad (evidenced in some
coastal varieties of US English)
 Irish never to mark past tense – E.g. she never called
us that evening
 Not all features of the original variety are of
equal significance for the status of the
transported dialect
 Some are even group-exclusive
 I.e. a community of speakers uses a variant
which is not found in adjacent communities
 Marked features in original variety tend to
disappear first
 Owing to style shifts to a more prestigious
variety
 Case for Irish English (one of the most
transported dialects, along with Scottish,
around the world)
 E.g. Habitual aspect: she does be
home of a Saturday
 Co-occurs with features such as
immediate perfective: she’s after
eating the cake
 Resultative perfective: she has
the book read
 Eventually disappeared due to
upward style shifts to Standard
British English
 Now that we have looked at the
retention of dialect features

 Let’s focus on why they survive

 Characteristic topography which

goes with dialect survival overseas

 In general – inaccessible,
mountainous or isolated coastal
regions
 Help in retaining features which
were characteristic of input
varieties

 E.g. English in the Appalachian

mountains or in the Ozark
Mountains region

 Popular belief that the Ozarks had

retained Shakespearean English

 Good for tourism in the 20th century

 E.g. Susan Young (www.usatoday.com),
outreach coordinator for Shiloh
museum of Ozark History in Springdale
 “To say your language dates back to
Shakespeare gives you a lot of cachet.
That's high-toned. That gives you a
great sense of self-worth. It was a way
to make us feel better about ourselves.
It played into this need for us as a
culture to have a place to go back to --
our roots”
 In actual fact: “mutts’ of the British Isles
 Archaic words from 16th century
England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales
 Use of Scottish word ‘blinked’ for
‘sour’
 Irish word ‘sook’ to call the cows at
feeding time
 Ozark words with Elizabethan roots:
 "Axe" for ask
 "Heap" for a lot
 "Poke" for sack
 "Plat" for plait
 "Sallat" for salad
 "Ruinate" for ruin
 "Chimley" for chimney.
 Common expressions showing dialect
relics:

 "Duller than a 'widder' woman's ax"

 "Tight as the bark on a tree"
 "Nose running like a sugar tree"
 "No use shutting the gate after the mule's
done got out"
 "Scarce as preachers in paradise"
 "Thicker than fiddlers in hell“

 Mountain English – proof of the

survival of dialects
 Hardly static
 However – replete with anachronisms
Activity 2
 Listen to the following folk song from the Ozark
mountain

 Titled Dandoo

 Please see transcript provided

 Comments?
 Movement away from one area to a smaller,
more remote one
 Termed as ‘dialect diaspora’
 Situation is found in a few cases in the
anglophone world
 Has been the subject of investigation by
linguists such as Poplack, Tagliamonte and
Singler
 Diasporic forms of African American English
 Separation from the core dialect area and
consequent lack of participation in new
developments
 E.g. American settlement in Brazil
 Consists of African Americans who left
the Southern United States
 In the wake of their defeat after the
American Civil War
 Features regarded as prototypical of
Southern US speech
 E.g. diphthong flattening in ‘price’
 NOT seen in Brazil
 Same situation in the African diaspora
amongst the Samaná, Dominican
republic and in Nova Scotia
 Dominican Republic:
Spanish-speaking
 In contrast, three main
languages spoken in
Samaná: Spanish, English
and Haitian Kreyol
 Samaná penininsula has a
rich history
 Across the Samaná bay –
existence of subterranean
caves
Activity 3
 Have a look at the following two clips

 One shows you the geographical features of the Bay

 The other one explores Los Haitises National Park

where the caves are found

 Pay particular attention to the walls of the caves

 Comments?
 Populated by indigenous people

 Prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in

1493

 Part of his legacy seen in the “Golfo de Las

Flechas” (Bay of Arrows)

 Armed conflict ensued between Indians and

Spaniards following the initial encounter

 In 1523, Jean and Rouel Parmetier, two brothers

from Dieppe, France, arrived in Samaná. They
described the region as "una zona habitada por
negros salvajes", meaning that runaway African
slaves inhabited the wildest and most remote
part of the peninsula
 Period between 1795 and 1822
particularly interesting from a
sociolinguistic perspective

 Establishment of Haitian rule and a

series of military and political decisions
that particularly affected Samaná,
culturally and linguistically

 In 1824 Haitian President Boyer,

negotiated with Philadelphia Quakers
the arrival in the Dominican Republic of
6,000 ex-slaves
 Hailing from many different parts of
the United States

 A sizeable portion of this group settled

in Samaná

 In addition, Haitian authorities, with

the promise of land, promoted the
settlement of Haitian soldiers in this
region
 Granda - initially Haitian authorities tried to
implement a series of decisions
 Designed to change the structure of
communication and the linguistic repertoire
of the Eastern part of the island.
 Aimed at eliminating the differences
between Haitian and Dominican societies in
order to guarantee the political unity of
both parts of the island.
 Boyer and his administrators declared
French as the official language.
 French became, temporarily, the language
of administration and military and judicial
matters.
 Haitian authorities misinterpreted Dominicans’
initial response to Haitian rule and all the
proposed changes.
 Assumed that no further action was necessary
in order to guarantee the hispanophones’
loyalty to Haitian rule
 A few years later - an increase in opposition in
certain Dominican quarters
 Boyer tried to reformulate his national plan for
political and sociocultural unification.
 Authorized the creation of French and English
schools and actively promoted the immigration
of freed African-Americans
 Some, among this first group of African-
American immigrants, returned to the United
States, but others remained…
 Poplack and David (1987) collected and
analyzed speech samples from speakers of
Samaná English.

 These speakers exhibited Creole-like

features, such as copula-free constructions
of the type:

 "Well, my father, my mother, they ⓪

English people" (Poplack & Tagliamonte
2001: 27)

 Poplack and Sankoff found that copula

absence was ten times higher among these
speakers than among Urban African-
American Vernacular English (AAVE)
speakers
 In 2001 - a reexamination of these data

 A series of comparisons with other

diasporic English-speaking communities

 Als0 - a consideration of the linguistic and

sociocultural isolation reported by their
Samaná English informants

 Poplack and Tagliamonte (2001: 37)

concluded that “the English spoken in
Samaná in the early 1980’s appears to have
descended, relatively unchanged at the
core grammatical level, from that first
transported to the Dominican Republic in
1824”
 Many scholars have tried to
explain such dialect relics

 Argue for a colonial lag

 I.e. a slight delay in catching up

with latest developments in the
original variety

 E.g. Dialect of Forth and Bargy,

co. Wexford, Ireland

 Remarks dating as far back as

1577 by Richard Stanyhurst

 Similarity between that variety

and Chaucerian English
 Antique form of English

 Latter-day writers refer to the language of

the Elizabethan era or to that of
Shakespeare

 Frequently claim that dialects tend to

maintain these features

 Colonies take time to catch up

 Closer look at these conservative dialects

reveals that they are not simply preserved
versions of earlier forms of the language

 They have themselves gone through

processes of their own
Activity 4
 Do you really believe that?

 We’re a former colony as well

 Are we suffering from some sort of lag?

 Lag implies that the sociolinguistic status of both

countries has remained static

 Is that possible?
 Neighbour of Tristan da Cunha
 Discovered by Portuguese in 1502
 Became a Dutch and then a British
possession
 Under the East India Company, then
the Crown
 Strategically important port of call
during the British Empire
 Until the opening of the Suez canal
and the advent of steamships
 Island’s remote location meant that it
was used as a place of exile for key
prisoners
 Prisoners included some 6000 Boers, Chief
Dinizulu (King of the Zulus in colonial South
Africa), Bahraini princes and of course,
Napoleon

 Died on the island

 The Island also played an important role

during the abolition of slavery

 This heritage provides a significant legacy

of fortifications, remains, historic buildings

 And also what has been described as "the

quintessential Atlantic port" - Jamestown.
 Massive exodus though

 Economic struggles resulting in mass

exodus

 Reclassified as British Colony in 1981

 Resulting in inability to migrate and

having right of abode in the UK

 Rights given back in 2002

 Estimated population of St. Helena at

the end of 2006 – 4 030
 Has a small population mainly descended
from people from Europe (mostly planters,
government employees and ex-soldiers
serving in the local St Helena Regiment)
 Chinese (itinerate workers from about 1810)
 Slaves (mostly from Madagascar and Asia,
only a few coming from Africa from 1840
onward)
 St. Helenians, also known as ‘Saints', are
known for their friendliness
 Everyone waves and greets each other,
(wave even to passing cars)
 Saints are renowned for their hospitable
nature.
Activity 4
 Have a look at the following clip

 Quick introduction to St Helena

 Highlights both its strengths and more subtly its

limitations

 Think of the implications at the level of English

language usage...
 Actually – interesting situation

 Relics which have come in contact with

other languages leading to Creolisation

 Schreier (2008) asserts that when

looking at the British heritage of StHE,
we thus have to focus on the late 17th

 Or more likely: the early 18th century

 I.e. the period when a British born white

population settled permanently in St
Helena
 Eventually, non-English speaking slaves
brought in from Madagascar

 Believed to be more quiet and subserviant

 Added their native languages to this mix

 StHE formed in a sociolinguistic

environment that was diverse and
heterogeneous.

 Its most influential founders came from the

British Southeast and Madagascar (with
little, often insignificant, input from other
groups)
 In terms of linguistic development, there is
evidence that several varieties were
spoken:

 English, Portuguese, French, Malagasy, plus

a number of non-identifiable Indian and
African languages

 Wilson & Mesthrie (2004: 1006) :

“Present-day St Helena English is theresult

of the contact between regional varieties of
Southern British English, many of them
‘non-standard’, and the rudimentary pidgin
English (‘slave fort English’) that some
slaves must have brought to the island.”
Or Koineised phase
 Romaine (2004)- Focus on Melanesia and Polynesia
 Similar patterns of migration as in other
parts of the word

 Development of Foreigner Talk

 Also known as Sandalwood English, Kanaka

English, Beche de Mer Lingo

 Described by successive generations of

visitors as Broken English

 Input from North American varieties (esp.

New England)

 Input also from the language considered as

the first ever English-based Pidgin in the
Pacific. Guess?
 Chinese Pidgin English

 Due to Sandalwood trade from Hawai'i to

China

 Lots of contact with European languages as

well

 Resulted in Portuguese origin words such as

savvy from sabir/ saber – ‘to know’

 Picanniny from ‘small, little’

 Savvy entered the Standard English lexicon

via the pidgin
 Impact from other indigenous
languages

 E.g. kaikai (eat), Kanaka (Pacific

islander)

 Tapu (taboo, via Tongan)

 Made its way to International Standard

English as taboo

 Along with tatoo – from Tahitian tatau

(which means ‘to carve’)
 Out-migration together with
trade (e.g. the trade of sea slugs in
Kiribati)
 Some forms of island English
 The linguistic legacy of an
infamous massacre survives on
Sapwuahfik atoll in present-day
Pohnpei
 In the formof so-called Ngatik
Men’s Language
 A remnant form of creole English
in use as a special speech form
among older men in casual
conversation (alongside their
primary language, Ngatikese)
 In their belief that the islanders were
harbouring valuable tortoise shell

 Captain Charles Hart and his men killed

all the men on the atoll except for three
boys in 1837.

 These boys transmitted the language

 The atoll was subsequently resettled

with the sailors, Irish beachcomber,
Paddy Gorman, and Pohnpeians,
Gilbertese and Mortlockese islanders

 So, English is the official language

 Pitcairn-Norfolk island

 Populated by sailors from HMS Bounty

following a mutiny on board

 Provided its own input as well

 Mixture of cultures, histories and languages

 Resulting in some specificities (focus on

some lexical ones today)

 E.g. brata – ‘sibling of the same sex’

 Sista/ Susa – ‘Sibling of the opposite sex’

 So?

 A woman’s brata would be her sister!

 A man’s brata would be his brother

 Eventually re-analysed through the

contribution of an exonormative linguistic
system

 Other words from English used in

conjunction with indigenous words

 E.g. belhat for ‘hungy’ (Belly + hot)

 Local knowledge- guts or stomach, the seat

of emotions (not the heart!)
 Scottish influence too

 These include bole ‘to make a small hole in

anything’, devil’s needle ‘dragonfly’, gaggle
‘to cackle’ and possibly tayte (‘potato’)

 Archaisms such as dub ‘to square and

smooth (timber)’, tardy ‘late’, paunch
‘stomach’

 A few words of American origin such as corn

‘maize’ and candy ‘sweets

 May be due to the presence of Isaac Martin,

a mutineer from Philadelphia, or to the
influence of American whalers who called at
the island.
 Many small islands around the word
(similar to Mauritius)

 Have been colonised in waves resulting

in an amazing level of diversity

 Need to study their linguistic features

(mainly lexical and phonological)

 In conjunction with their History

 Focus on the cognates between input

and output varieties

 Come up with plausible explanations

Activity 5
 Let’s end on a musical note

 So, what are these islands doing with their hybrid languages today?

 Band Def Tech – Pacific Island Music

 Def Tech is a J-pop band that established a new musical genre called
'Jawaiian Reggae' (Japanese + Hawaiian + Reggae)

 Jawaiian is also a word that is use to describe Hawaiian Reggae -

influenced by Jamaican and Hawaiian music

 Enjoy!
 All in all – transported varieties

 Relics of an ancient time

 Metamorphosed over the years

 Indigenised through linguistic contact with

other varieties

 Resulting in either Koines or Creoles

 Koines (e.g. Fijian Bhojpuri, Mauritian

Bhojpuri, Fijian Hindustani)

 Creole (more complex situation of mixing

and focusing)
Questions/ Comments?
Thank You