scholarly journals Armeno-Iranian Structural Interaction: The Case of Parthian wxd, Armenian ink‘n

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 401-425
Author(s):  
Robin Meyer
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Structural Interaction ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Discourse Anaphora ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Middle Persian

While Armenian is not a member of the Iranian language family, its lexicon is replete with borrowings from esp. Parthian. This paper ventures to show that borrowing is not restricted to lexical items alone, but extends to the realm of syntax as well. This will be demonstrated by means of a corpus based investigation of the usage of Middle Persian xwd, Parthian wxd and its functional counterpart, Armenian ink‘n; furthermore, parallels regarding the expression of reflexivity in both language groups are addressed. The tripartite function of the respective pronouns as intensifier, discourse anaphora and clause level anaphora are the result of extended language contact between Armenian and Western Middle Iranian.

scholarly journals STUDYING THE PHONOLOGY OF THE OLŮKŮMI, IGALA, OWÉ AND YORŮBA LANGUAGES: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS.

Dialectologia ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bolanle Elizabeth AROKOYO
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Word List ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Sound Changes ◽  
Lexical Items

This study presents a comparative analysis of the phonological systems of the Yorůbá, Owé, Igala and Olůkůmi languages of the Defoid language family of Benue Congo. Data were collected from native speakers using the Ibadan Four Hundred Word List of Basic Items. Using discovered common lexemes in the languages, the classification of the languages sound systems and syllable systems are carried out in order to determine the major patterns of differences and similarities. Some major sound changes were discovered in the lexical items of the languages. The systematic substitutions of sounds also constitute another major finding observed in the languages. It was established in this study that there exists a very strong relationship among these languages. The languages are found to be mutually unintelligible except for Owé that has a degree of mutual intelligibility with Yoruba. The paper concludes that the major reason for divergence is language contact.

scholarly journals Pumé (Yaruro) and Chocoan

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Pache
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
Basic Vocabulary

This paper illustrates and discusses recurrent sound correspondences between Pumé (also known as Yaruro) and Chocoan languages. Pumé is a language of the Apure state of Venezuela and has so far been considered an isolate. Chocoan is a small language family of western Colombia and eastern Panama. Until now, these language groups have never been considered together and compared systematically. It is argued here that the recurrent sound correspondences attested in Chocoan and Pumé basic vocabulary are difficult to explain by coincidence or language contact. It is therefore concluded that there should be enough evidence to postulate a genealogical link between both language groups.

scholarly journals Onko uralilaisen etnohistorian tutkimuksessa tapahtunut käänne? Monitieteisyys ja uudet teoriat itämerensuomalaisten kielten synnystä Valter Langin Homo Fennicuksen valossa

2021 ◽  
pp. 289-298
Author(s):  
Janne Saarikivi
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Early History ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Comprehensive Account ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
History Of ◽  
Loan Word

The question as to how the linguistic and archaeological data can be combined together to create a comprehensive account on the prehistory of present ethnicities is a debated issue around the globe. In particular, the identification of the new language groups in the material remnants of a particular area, or discerning in the material culture correlates for the language contact periods reflected in the loan word layers are complex and often probably insolvable questions. Regarding the early history of the Finns and the related people, Valter Lang’s new monograph on the archaeology of Estonia and the “arrivals of the Finnic people” (Läänemeresoome tulemised, 2018) has been considered a paradigm changing work in this respect. In my article I argue that despite undisputed progress in this ouevre, many of the old questions regarding time, place and method are still in place.

Sound Correspondence and the Comparative Study of Miao-Yao Languages (語音對應與苗瑤語比較研究)

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Feng Wang (汪鋒) ◽  
Wen Liu (劉文)
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Relationship ◽  
Similar Pattern ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Genetic Position ◽  
Long Time ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Comparative Study

Rigorous sound correspondence is fundamental to historical linguistics. It serves as a solid start in studying genetic relationship. Regarding the genetic position of Miao-Yao languages, Li (1937) proposed a hypothesis that the Sino-Tibetan language family consists of Chinese, Tibeto-Burman, Kam-Tai, and Miao-Yao. Benedict (1942; 1975) excluded Miao-Yao from the Sino-Tibetan language family since sound correspondences between Miao-Yao and Chinese were considered to be caused by language contact. The key point in this debate has been ignored for a long time: are the related morphemes proposed in this debate supported by rigorous sound correspondence? In this paper, related morphemes across 11 Miao-Yao languages have been first identified under the requirement of complete sound correspondence, and then analyzed by the Rank Method. The result of the genetic relationship between the 11 Miao-Yao languages has been confirmed. The same procedure has been applied to Sino-Miao-Yao related morphemes, and similar pattern has been found. The Sino-Miao-Yao related morphemes were recognized to be inherited from the common ancestor of Chinese and Miao-Yao. Combined with the result from the perspective of pervasive sound correspondence (Wang 2015), the proposal of a genetic relationship between Chinese and Miao-Yao has been supported. The Inexplicability Principle has been used to weaken the possibility of Sino-Miao-Yao related morphemes being induced by borrowing from Chinese to Miao-Yao, since some sound correspondences are unlikely to be explained by natural phonetic mechanisms. Moreover, related morphemes in Chinese and Miao-Yao have been examined from the perspective of Old Chinese, and such an examination also supports the hypothesis of a genetic relationship between Chinese and Miao-Yao languages. 嚴格的語音對應是歷史比較的基礎，也是判定語源關係的必要條件。在苗瑤語的語源問題研究中，李方桂（1937）提出漢藏語系四語族學說，即漢語、藏緬語、侗台語和苗瑤語。Benedict（1942、1975）則將苗瑤語從漢藏語系中劃分出去，理由是苗瑤語和漢語有對應關係的語素是由接觸造成的。苗瑤語系屬問題的爭議焦點在於苗瑤語和漢語音近義同的一批關係語素是否有嚴格的語音對應支持，然而這一問題一直以來不被重視。本文基於完全對應得到苗瑤語族內部11個語言的關係語素，隨後應用詞階法分析，結果如願所示，這11個語言之間具有發生學關係。同樣的程序應用于漢-苗瑤語關係語素，結果與上述呈現的模式相同，即這些關係語素是來自漢語和苗瑤語共同的祖語，而非語言接觸的產物。結合普遍對應的研究（Wang 2015），漢語和苗瑤語的發生學關係可以得到支持。不可釋原則也顯示漢-苗瑤語關係語素是由苗瑤語從漢語借用的可能性較小，因為二者間的部分語音對應不可能通過自然音變來解釋。此外，從上古漢語的角度對漢-苗瑤語關係語素的校驗也支持二者的同源關係。

Atlantic

2020 ◽  
pp. 160-173
Author(s):  
Friederike Lüpke
Keyword(s):  
Complex Systems ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Genetic Group ◽  
Language Family ◽  
The Status ◽  
Noun Class ◽  
Lexical Data

Atlantic is one of the controversial branches of the Niger-Congo language family. Both its validity as a genetic group and its internal classification are far from being settled. The longstanding debate on the status and structure of Atlantic cannot be closed before the descriptive situation of these languages allows for sufficient and reliable lexical data; before attempts at applying the comparative method have been made; and before the extensive role of language contact for shaping the languages in question is taken into account. Although no typological feature or feature combinations characterizes the group as a whole, several features are considered typical for Atlantic languages, including noun class systems, consonant mutation, and complex systems of verbal derivation, which have been used to justify suggested genealogical groupings. Atlantic languages, with the exception of Fula, are attested in an area from Liberia to Senegal, stretching from the Atlantic coast to the hinterland.

Central Cushitic

2020 ◽  
pp. 307-322
Author(s):  
Zelealem Leyew
Keyword(s):  
Geographical Distribution ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Verb Morphology ◽  
Semitic Languages ◽  
The North ◽  
Separate Branch ◽  
Salient Features ◽  
Central Highlands

This chapter describes the Central Cushitic (hereafter CC) language family, one of four branches of Cushitic. CC, traditionally known as Agäw, contains four languages: Awŋi, Bilin, Kemantney, and Xamt’aŋa. Apart from Bilin, which is spoken in Eritrea, the CC languages are spoken in the central highlands of Ethiopia. The name CC was evidently given to Agäw on account of the geographical distribution of the North, South, East and the then West Cushitic (later Omotic) subgroups. The morphology, especially the verb morphology, identifies the CC languages as Cushitic, but they are classified as a separate branch of Cushitic on the basis of salient features exhibited in them. CC languages exhibit striking similarities in the lexicon, and due to longstanding language contact there exists much inter-influence with the Ethio-Semitic languages. These and other linguistic properties of CC are discussed in this chapter.

Language Contact in Celtic and Early Irish

2020 ◽  
pp. 330-349
Author(s):  
Raymond Hickey
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Family ◽  
European Language ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
Daunting Task ◽  
External Interface ◽  
Textual Records

There is little doubt that the early stages of the subgroups of the Indo-European language family involved extensive contact. The movements of early groups of speakers across large stretches of land in Euroasia meant that these people came into contact with others who spoke genetically unrelated languages. This contact is responsible for the non Indo-European lexis in Indo-European languages and may also be the source of non-inherited grammatical features. Establishing the precise source of such lexis and grammar is a daunting task, given the great time-depth involved and the dearth of textual records that could provide helpful data for reconstructing the sources of borrowings external to this language family. But there was also contact within the orbit of the Indo-European languages when members of different subgroups came into close geographical proximity with each other due to repeated migrations. This fact accounts for borrowings across Indo-European subgroups (e.g. from Celtic into Germanic). This chapter examines cases of contact and probable borrowing both within the Indo-European language family and at its external interface to languages from other families, inasmuch as this can be established with reasonable certainty. The focus for this treatment is on early stages both of Celtic and of the Irish language as one of the main members of this group. The consideration of contact effects in Irish is limited to the language as it developed up to the late Middle Ages.

scholarly journals Contact or Inheritance? Criteria for distinguishing internal and external change in genetically related languages

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Na’ama Pat-El
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Practical Problem ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Test Cases ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Source Language ◽  
Linguistic Form ◽  
Semitic Language ◽  
Internal Change

Several prominent scholars have recently doubted whether it is possible to differentiate borrowing from internal change, to the point that in some cases subgrouping is not feasible or is restricted (Dench, 2001; Dixon, 2001). Since a situation of prolonged and intense contact between closely related languages is very common, language contact and its results are a major problem if not a real hazard to historical linguistics. The main practical problem is how to differentiate internal changes, changes motivated by internal processes, from external changes, changes due to language contact, when the structure of the languages is so similar. In other words, how do we know which linguistic form is the source of the change: one of the attested languages, or the mother of both of them? In this paper, I suggest two preliminary criteria to isolate the source language in cases of contact: 1) the existence of intermediary stages, and 2) an even spread of the change across categories. I will show, using test cases from the Semitic language family that these criteria can help us distinguish between internal and external changes.

scholarly journals Paleobiolinguistics of New World Crops and the Otomanguean Language Family

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecil H. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Common Bean ◽  
New World ◽  
Common Ancestor ◽  
Chili Pepper ◽  
Language Family ◽  
World Language ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Language Groups ◽  
The Common

Several studies recently published in Ethnobiology Letters treat respectively the paleobiolinguistics of chili pepper, manioc, maize, and the common bean in New World language families. This includes the Otomanguean family of Mexico, one of the oldest language groups of the hemisphere, whose parent language may have been spoken at the latest around 6500 years ago. This communication addresses the possibility that Otomanguean paleobiolinguistics should be considered tentative since languages of the grouping are not yet conclusively demonstrated to be descended from a common ancestor. This challenges the proposal that words for chili pepper, manioc, and maize were in vocabularies of languages spoken two thousand or more years before development of a village-farming way of life in the New World.

scholarly journals In search of language contact between Jarawa and Aka-Bea: The languages of South Andaman

1970 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Anvita Abbi ◽  
Pramod Kumar
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Similarity Judgment ◽  
Andaman Islands ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Past ◽  
Endangered Language ◽  
Loan Word ◽  
South Andaman ◽  
Lexical Items

The paper brings forth a preliminary report on the comparative data available on the extinct language Aka-Bea (Man 1923) and the endangered language Jarawa spoken in the south and the central parts of the Andaman Islands. Speakers of Aka-Bea, a South Andaman language of the Great Andamanese family and the speakers of Jarawa, the language of a distinct language family (Abbi 2006, 2009, Blevins 2008) lived adjacent to each other, i.e. in the southern region of the Great Andaman Islands in the past. Both had been hunter-gatherers and never had any contact with each other (Portman 1899, 1990). The Jarawas have been known for living in isolation for thousands of years, coming in contact with the outside world only recently in 1998. It is, then surprising to discover traces of some language-contact in the past between the two communities. Not a large database, but a few examples of lexical similarities between Aka-Bea and Jarawa are investigated here. Words for comparison are selected from the Automated Similarity Judgment Programme-list ASJP (Holman et al. 2008, Brown et al. 2007, 2008, Wichmann 2010) as well as from the Loan Word Typology research (Haspelmath and Tadmor 2009). Although we have data only for 100 items, we further compared the lexical items against the Swadesh list (1955) (see appendix 5). The result achieved exposes for the first time, the possibility of language contact between Aka-Bea and Jarawa in the past. We pose a very relevant question here: can enmities and rivalries induce changes in languages which can be ascribed to contact of a very special kind? We conclude by claiming that prototypical least borrowable lexical items can also be borrowed in a very specific context despite the absence of interactive communication between the two communities.

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