{"title":"Bajuni – A Language Peninsula","authors":"Derek Nurse, Jasmin Mahazi","doi":"10.1163/19552629-01602005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-01602005","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The article deals with the northern Swahili dialect Bajuni. It is viewed as a language peninsula rather than island, attached to neighbouring and related dialects to the south but jutting north into Somali-speaking areas. It is currently severely endangered, having been largely replaced by Somali in Somalia, and Swahili in Kenya during the late twentieth century, so it is regarded essentially as a historical language peninsula. It is treated under these headings: geography and population; history; political, sociocultural, and economic context; linguistics; regularity/complexity/stability; contact phenomena; sociolinguistics; language use and attitudes; networks.</p>","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141062562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Miini – A Lonely Bantu Outpost in the Vast North","authors":"Derek Nurse, Alessandra Vianello","doi":"10.1163/19552629-01602006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-01602006","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The article deals with Miini, spoken in the town of Brava. Some regard it as a northern Swahili dialect, others view it as a closely related language. The town and its speech form have existed for probably a millennium. During most of that period it flourished, surrounded by a community or communities speaking southern Somali dialects. When the Somali central government collapsed in 1991 it was invaded and occupied by the Habr Gidir clan, part of the larger Hawiye group. Most inhabitants who could left. It is currently severely endangered, having been largely replaced by Somali. It is treated under these headings: geography and population; history; political, socio-cultural, and economic context; linguistics; regularity/complexity/stability; contact phenomena; sociolinguistics; language variation; language use and attitudes, language and education; networks.</p>","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141062574","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Anii Language: A Progressive Language Island in Togo and Benin","authors":"Deborah Morton","doi":"10.1163/19552629-01602010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-01602010","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Anii language of Togo and Benin is surrounded by essentially unrelated languages because the ancestors of the current speakers migrated into their modern territory within the last few centuries. This paper presents what is known about the cultural history and current social context of the Anii people and argues that Anii is a progressive language island despite a social situation that is different from that of many traditional language islands. The analysis of Anii linguistic structures (including comparisons with related languages and the presentation of relevant dialect differences) provides further support for the analysis of Anii as a language island. Much of the data, particularly the comparative analyses, presented here have never been previously available to scholars. This paper thus sheds new light on a little-known language with a complicated history that is not yet well understood, as well as potentially expanding the definition of the term ‘language island’.</p>","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141062581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Korandje as a Songhay Language Island","authors":"Lameen Souag","doi":"10.1163/19552629-01602013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-01602013","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Among the many language islands produced by the expansion of Songhay out of the middle Niger valley, Korandje stands out for its geographical isolation and linguistic divergence. Confined since perhaps 1200 <span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">CE</span> to a single Algerian oasis well over a thousand kilometres from any other Songhay-speaking community, its speakers have extensively reshaped their language and identity under the influence of North African norms, while nevertheless keeping the former clearly distinct. Yet, following the socioeconomic and political changes of the 20th century, the survival of Korandje is now in doubt, as speakers increasingly adopt speech norms and linguistic ideologies negotiated outside the oasis.</p>","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141062626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Temi – A Survivor in Difficult Sea","authors":"Derek Nurse, Christine Derungs","doi":"10.1163/19552629-01602007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-01602007","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article treats the Bantu language Temi, sometimes called Gitemi or Sonjo. The Temi language island is 125 kilometres from the nearest Bantu community and completely surrounded by historically hostile Maasai communities. As far as we know, Maasai were preceded by other non-Bantu communities for most of the last millennium. Community and language are both in good shape: in 1928 the population was 2,500, at Tanzanian independence in the 1960s it was 5,000, and now it is over 30,000. It is treated under these headings: geography and population; history; political, sociocultural, and economic context; linguistics; regularity/complexity/stability; contact phenomena; sociolinguistics; language use and attitudes; networks.</p>","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141062563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Sandawe: Distinctiveness in Diversity","authors":"Helen Eaton","doi":"10.1163/19552629-01602003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-01602003","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The Sandawe language community in Tanzania is surrounded by languages from different African language families, yet retains a special distinctiveness in this context by virtue of its unusual phonology and its status as a relic of the original inhabitants of the area. It is also noteworthy how long the Sandawe situation has endured and how this has been possible. This paper examines the reasons for the Sandawe community’s situation and its continued survival. The description of the Sandawe situation takes in its history and the question of its linguistic classification. The sociocultural features of the community and the typological features of the language are then considered, particularly in comparison with the surrounding communities and their languages, as well as possibly related languages in southern Africa. Finally, the status of Sandawe as a linguistic island is discussed, with reference to different definitions of the concept.</p>","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141062627","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mervi de Heer, Rogier Blokland, Michael Dunn, O. Vesakoski
{"title":"Loanwords in Basic Vocabulary as an Indicator of Borrowing Profiles","authors":"Mervi de Heer, Rogier Blokland, Michael Dunn, O. Vesakoski","doi":"10.1163/19552629-bja10057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-bja10057","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Loanwords carry information on linguistic interactions, and can also reveal (pre-)historical population contacts. The contact history of a particular language family is an essential component of historical linguistics, but it is also illuminating for integrative studies of the human past. However, data availability and the time-consuming nature of etymology mean that comprehensive research on loanword layers exists for relatively few languages, forcing us to rely on limited material for others. This paper compares the loanword layers in the basic and total vocabulary of six well-studied Uralic languages, assessing how accurately the borrowing profile in basic vocabulary reflects the full profile of a language. We define “borrowing profile” as the known contact history of a language reflected by its loanword layers. We demonstrate that the loanword layers in basic vocabulary provide an adequate cross-section of the full borrowing profile, although basic vocabulary manifests prehistoric contacts more strongly than more recent contacts.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140224240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Hebrew Loanwords in Two Rural Dialects of Arabic in Israel","authors":"Duaa Abu Elhija","doi":"10.1163/19552629-bja10063","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-bja10063","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This study examines loanwords from Hebrew into Arabic in the spoken language of people from Iksal village, in the lower Galilee and Um Al-Fahm city, in the Triangle region in Israel. The current study specifically examines borrowing in spoken language, with a comparison of the current findings with a previous research by Abu Elhija (2017), where the data was taken from online writings on Facebook. The research questions the frequency of loanword items from Hebrew into two rural dialects, the domains that appear with Hebrew loanwords, the phonological representations of the loanwords, and the reasons for these words to be borrowed. The main findings show that more loanwords were found in the spoken corpus than in the social media corpus in Abu Elhija (2017). There are more loanwords in synchronous communication compared to asynchronous. The findings also show that topics like education, employment, and technology had the most extensive loanwords. Moreover, in the case of loanwords used by Arabs in Israel, a word can be considered a loanword regardless of its phonology.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140225402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Middle Persian Interference in Early Arabic Prose","authors":"Luca D’Anna, Adam Benkato","doi":"10.1163/19552629-bja10051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-bja10051","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper discusses agreement patterns in Kalīla wa-Dimna, a collection of animal fables translated from Middle Persian to Arabic in the 8th century CE by Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ and considered one of the masterpieces of early Arabic prose. It advances the hypothesis that the text bears traces of interference from the L1 of its translator, Middle Persian. Kalīla wa-Dimna features agreement patterns unattested in any other described variety of Arabic. The paper provides an introduction to the complex textual history of Kalīla wa-Dimna, followed by a detailed analysis of the agreement patterns emerging from the text. A survey of agreement in both Arabic (in its written and spoken varieties) and Middle Persian then highlights the main differences between the two systems, followed by a discussion of the possible interference that resulted in Ibn al-Muqaffaʿ’s reinterpretation of the Arabic system as based on animacy.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140227100","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Contact, Diffusion and Divergence","authors":"Shobha Satyanath","doi":"10.1163/19552629-01601001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/19552629-01601001","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The study discusses the outcomes of the contact and diffusion in two contact varieties of Assamese with respect to classifiers. The findings suggest that while classifiers have remained remarkably stable in their characteristics in Assamese over the past 160 years, during the same period, one of the contact varieties (Nagamese) has significantly diverged from the source language, and the other variety (Nefamese) displays greater continuity. The divergence in Nagamese is attributed to the substratal effect which has altered its characteristics associated with numerals and quantifiers in the source language, thereby making it more congruent with the host Naga languages. By concentrating on a smaller part of the region spanning three contiguous states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Nagaland from Northeastern India, the findings also help unlock in small ways the mysteries surrounding the diversity of classifiers arising out of areal diffusion.","PeriodicalId":43304,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Language Contact","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2024-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140224628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}