Language in contact

"Even a dog we do know is better company than
a man whose language we know not".
-St. Agustine Cit-St. Agustine, the City of God, 5th century.

The contact between languages has facilitated our lives. Nowadays, it is easier to travel without the fear of not being able to communicate. 

Bilingualism and the use of lingua francas have given us a lot of personal, and business experiences, even when it is nothing new. There are a lot of cases throughout history where people have developed pidgins as a way to communicate, therefore in this blog, we have given ourselves the task of explaining everything about the language in contact. 

Meet us...

Who are we?

  

 

Video

First, watch our video about Languages in Contact on:

Youtube

Animaker App (in case of the youtube link doesn't work):

https://app.animaker.com/video/Q5VPRGH568NPI4DN

The purpose of the video is to give you an introduction to the topic.

Presentation

Also, we have prepared a presentation for you to understand and have a clear idea about the topic:

Click here: Presentation

Pictures related to the topic

Gray-matter volume in a bilingual and monolingual brain

Being bilingual or multilingual has many benefits, one is that it fortifies the brain, boosting grey-matter volume. 

Map of Official Languages Per Country

 

Most countries have one official language. Some countries have two or more than two official languages (they are multilingual.) Few countries have no official language.

Map of Creoles

 

This map shows where creole languages (in blue) and non-creole languages (in red) are used.

Pidgin Signed English (PSE)

Sign languages may also be pidgins.

Hawaiian pidgin English

 

Many languages have contributed to the Hawaiian Pidgin, but English is its superstrate language.

Summary

Summaries are the key to any topic, it's one of the best methods to study. Click to download the summary about Languages in contact:

Download

Useful links 

1. What is a lingua franca?

https://alphaomegatranslations.com/foreign-language/what-is-a-lingua-franca/

This article explains in a simple way what a lingua franca is. Some questions like: Why are they called “lingua francas”? What do all lingua francas have in common? What are some of the most common lingua francas? and Can lingua francas be created? are answered here.

2. Pidgin Languages

https://www.tomedes.com/translator-hub/pidgin-language#:~:text=of%20this%20now.-,What%20is%20the%20difference%20between%20pidgin%20and%20creole%3F,and%20more%20complex%20grammatical%20structures.

Do you want to know more about what Pidgin Languages are? Well, this article will help you with that. It has a lot of information related to Pidgin Languages and explains the difference between Pidgin and Creole languages.

3. Creole Languages

https://www.tomedes.com/translator-hub/creole-languages

Here you can find the definition of what the Creole Language is. And, did you know how the formation of Creole Languages was? No? Don’t worry, you can learn about it in this article. In addition, you can find a list of existing Creole Languages and learn more about them.

4. Individual Versus Societal Bilingualism

https://onhike.com/individual-versus-societal-bilingualism/147913/

We assumed you would like to know more about bilingualism, so here we share this link with you.  After reading this article, you will have learned what is individual and societal bilingualism, and its differences. 

5. Linguistic code-switching: what it is and why does it happen?

https://www.unitedlanguagegroup.com/blog/linguistic-code-switching

We are sure you are interested in codeswitching as we are, that’s why we recommend you to read this article. You will learn more about this topic, and even you can watch an example video about codeswitching. 

Semantic Map

A simple way to understand topics is by the use of graphics, so On Lingua has created a Semantic Map, click to "Download" to obtain the graphic:

Download

Questions

Time to questions!

Let's see some interesting questions about the topic: 

1. What is a lingua franca?

A lingua franca is a language that is used by common agreement when groups desire social or commercial communication.

2. How do lingua francas arise?

Certain lingua francas arise naturally; others are instituted by government policy and intervention.

3. What is pidgin?

A pidgin is a language that is developed by speakers of mutually unintelligible languages in order to communicate with one another and that is not native to anyone. 

4. What is a superstrate or lexifier language?

A superstrate language is a language that contributes the most lexical items to the pidgin.

5. What is a substrate language?

A substrate language is the language or languages that also contribute to the lexicon and grammar of the pidgin but in a less obvious way.

6. What is a creole?

A creole is defined as a language that has evolved in a contact situation to become the native language of a generation of speakers. 

7. What are some characteristics that creoles have?

• Creoles may have inflectional morphology for tense, plurality, and so on. 

• Creoles typically develop more complex pronoun systems. 

• The phrasal structure of creoles is also vastly enriched, including embedded and relative clauses, among many other features of ‘‘regular’’ languages. 

8. What is bilingualism?

Bilingualism refers to the ability to speak two (or more) languages, either by an individual speaker, individual bilingualism, or within a society, societal bilingualism.

9. What is codeswitching?

Codeswitching is a speech style unique to bilinguals, in which fluent speakers switch languages between or within sentences.

10. How is codeswitching distinguished from bilingual borrowing?

Bilingual borrowing occurs when a word or short expression from one language occurs embedded among the words of a second language and adapts to the regular phonology, morphology, and syntax of the second language. In codeswitching, in contrast, the two languages that are interwoven preserve their own phonological and other grammatical properties. Moreover, borrowing can be easily distinguished from codeswitching by the pronunciation of an element. 

Reflections

Lizzi's reflection:

It is amazing how people who do not speak the same language, try to adapt and found a way to communicate. The human capacity to communicate is something that has been developed throughout history and you can bet, it will continue to do so. 

Doing this blog was a good experience, but I think it was a little stressful because we had to do a lot of activities. Despite this, I liked working on this blog along with my classmates. It was a pretty activity.

Tania's reflection:

I like that with this project we used all the strategies that we have learned so far. For example, how to do a video using Popplet. The only thing I didn’t like is that it was a little bit difficult to find images related to our topic. I have learned about the topic in a deep way since I only knew what a lingua franca was. I didn’t know a thing about creole and pidgins. I also found the topic of bilingualism and codeswitching really interesting. Codeswitching was my favorite topic.  I wouldn’t change anything about the project, and lastly, my only suggestion is to reduce the number of images to three depending on the topic, because some topics are easier to relate with images.

Fabiola's reflection:

I think we don't appreciate enough how we have created this important means of communication... Language. We don't appreciate the origin of our language and that's a bit sad because our ancestors were capable of developing a lot of languages and we're still doing it. We should consider more all work, the passion and of course the contact of those languages have been traveling throughout history, passing from generation to generation.

Osmary's reflection:

When I was a little girl, I had always wondered who was the first man or woman who learned another language, and how she or he could learn a no native language, how did she or he translate words?
Doing this project I learned more about "Bilingualism", it's incredible how we acquired a language, it's something that feels like an automatic process. Also, I learned about "codeswitching" something that was really new and interesting for me.
And I'm still wondering who was the first man or woman who speaks no native language, but I've been thinking about how learning another language can provide us new opportunities, and also experiences.
I really enjoy and also stressed doing this project.

Bibliography

• ISB Native Language Programs. (2018, 10 December). How Bilingualism Can Boost the Brain [Fotografía]. Native Language. https://inside.isb.ac.th/nativelanguage/2018/12/10/bilingualism-boost-brain/
• Indy100. (2017, 16 August). The world by number of official languages [Fotografía]. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/08/these-countries-have-the-most-official-languages/
• Gray, R. (2017, 4 septiembre). Map of Creoles [Fotografía]. EurekAlert! https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/613707
• Mixed Languages System: (PSE) Pidgin Signed English. (2018, 11 September). [Fotografía]. The Bridge Outreach. https://www.thebridgedhh.org/blog/2018/9/11/mixed-language-systems-pse-pidgin-signed-english
• Hawaiian Pidgin. (s. f.). [Fotografía]. Live Your Aloha. https://www.liveyouraloha.com/hawaiian-culture-pidgin-phrases-know/
• Nirbhaya. (2021, September 14). ONHIKE. Retrieved August 09, 2022, from https://onhike.com/individual-versus-societal-bilingualism/147913/
• Fromkin, V., Rodman, R., & Hyams, N. (2014). An Introduction to Language (Tenth ed.). United States: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.