Convergence in the Malabar

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 298-335
Author(s):  
Hugo C. Cardoso
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Case Marking ◽  
Fundamental Domains ◽  
Malabar Coast ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
Creole Languages ◽  
Case Based

Abstract The Indo-Portuguese creole languages that formed along the former Malabar Coast of southwestern India, currently seriously endangered, are arguably the oldest of all Asian-Portuguese creoles. Recent documentation efforts in Cannanore and the Cochin area have revealed a language that is strikingly similar to its substrate/adstrate Malayalam in several fundamental domains of grammar, often contradicting previous records from the late 19th-century and the input of its main lexifier, Portuguese. In this article, this is shown by comparing Malabar Indo-Portuguese with both Malayalam and Portuguese with respect to features in the domains of word order (head-final syntax and harmonic syntactic patterns) and case-marking (the distribution of the oblique case). Based on older records and certain synchronic linguistic features of the Malabar Creoles, this article proposes that the observed isomorphism between modern Malabar Indo-Portuguese and Malayalam has to be explained as the product of either a gradual process of convergence, or the resolution of historical competition between Dravidian-like and Portuguese-like features.

scholarly journals Still Hoping: The Relation of International Auxiliary Languages to Worldview and Perception

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Zorrilla
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Online Forums ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Community Membership ◽  
The World ◽  
Post Length

Constructed international auxiliary languages (IALs) have been proposed to influence the cultural identities and world perspectives of their speakers. The creation of IALs surged in the late 19th century as a response to rising nationalism; through their sociopolitical neutrality and ease of learning, IALs sought to introduce unity to a divided world. Though IAL adoption remains limited, their speakers still believe that given the ability to spread, IALs could unite our global community. To examine group trends and individual perspectives in how IALs may influence identity and perception, I surveyed and interviewed an online Esperantist community. I also performed close reading of randomly-selected posts on online forums for Esperanto, Volapük, and Toki Pona, as well as the general forum Linguistics and Conlangs. Finally, I analyzed content for six months of posts from the Volapük and Toki Pona forums. Most speakers (68.8%) self-reported that IALs changed their perception and, fewer (34.4%), beliefs. Survey respondents and interviewees cited community membership, broader communication, and IALs’ simplified linguistic features as influences on their worldviews. Accordingly, more years speaking Esperanto, seeking and feeling part of Esperanto communities, and believing the world would be a better place with more IAL adoption significantly correlated with change in beliefs. Different IAL forums statistically differed in their content, interactivity, and post length, which may reflect language-influenced disparities. The results suggest that IALs may affect the beliefs of learners in relation to their community-building properties and widening of communication ranges and impact the perceptions of learners through their unique structures.

scholarly journals Afrikaans en Nederlands

1970 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 111-127
Author(s):  
Gerald Stell
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Linguistic Identity ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Boer War

Back in the days of colonial South Africa, "Cape Dutch" used to refer collectivelyto the Dutch-based varieties typical of the Cape. The most formalversion of these registers was close, if not similar to European Dutch.Conversely, the least formal versions of these registers had a distincty localcharacter. The nationalist réveil of the late 19th century prompted the definitionof a new language to be called 'Afrikaans', i.e. truly local, truly SouthAfrican, and as such severed as much as possible from its Dutch connexion.Not as radical, the Afrikaans language activists from the period following thesecond Boer War (1899-1902) would rather endeavour to emphasize theAfrikaans linguistic identity within a Dutch context.The codification of Afrikaans has continuously been marked by the -sometimes conflicting - concerns of nurturing 'truly Afrikaans' linguistic features,while cultivating similarities with Dutch for the sake of distantiationfrom English. However, Afrikaans norms have recently tended to open up tolanguage reality for the sake of stylistic and ethnic representativity.

Creating a Chinese Harbin: Nationalism in an International City, 1916–1932. By James H. Carter. [Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2002. xiv+217 pp. ISBN 0-8014-3966-3.]

2003 ◽  
Vol 175 ◽  
pp. 843-844
Author(s):  
Rana Mitter
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Late 19Th Century ◽  
Cornell University ◽  
Far North ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
Case Based

In the early 20th century, the cognoscenti put forward a rival to Shanghai as their nominee for the title of “Paris of the East” – the far north-eastern city of Harbin. As they pointed out, although it took weeks for goods or people to make their way by sea to Shanghai, Harbin was accessible from Europe in just a few days via the Trans-Siberian railway. A cosmopolitan, colonial place, Harbin was, like Shanghai, a product of late 19th-century imperialism, but in this case based on railways rather than shipping, and with the Russians, not the British, as the driving force.

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