Volume 2013, Issue 221 - Language Competition and Linguistic Diffusion: Interdisciplinary Models and Case Studies

Do languages split into dialects and subsequently into new languages at regular rates? Does such a regular splitting rate also apply to speech communities ancestral to the world's current language families? Do linguistic phylogenies exhibit intermediate levels (“genera”) which are somehow objectively identifiable? These questions are rarely raised, much less answered. In this article we present a simple method that provides insights into all the questions, drawing upon data from a world-wide sample of languages. It will be shown that splitting rates are approximately regular even if the languages studied are proto-languages spoken at very different points in prehistory and different places in the world. Ancestors of the world's linguistic families tend to have similar life-times. An intermediate transitional level corresponding to the point where genera appear can be objectively inferred from differences among descendant languages even without previously having established the structure of the phylogenetic tree.

This article uses computer simulations as a means of assessing two different models for the competition between two languages from the interdisciplinary perspective of complex systems. These models allow for the analysis of the role of bilingual speakers and they consider two of the basic factors determining the use of each language: their relative prestige and the language loyalty of their speakers. Here we assess the effect of these parameters in different social networks, with the aim of contributing to the understanding of the role of bilingualism and social networks in processes of language contact. We first present a qualitative analysis based on a simulation tool that we have designed, in order to visualize the dynamics of the models. Secondly, we consider a qualitative analysis of the role of complex networks, identifying mechanisms for the rapid extinction of a language and for situations of language segregation. Finally, we present a quantitative analysis which shows, counter-intuitively, a transition from a final scenario of language maintenance to one of language shift as language loyalty increases. Other findings are: (i) that the scenario of language coexistence is reduced in the presence of bilingual agents; and (ii) that networks which allow for local effects reduce further the situations for which language maintenance is possible.

This article discusses a case of language competition between two minority languages, Votic and Ingrian. We analyze the sociolinguistic situation in the contact area, and the contact-induced linguistic changes in both languages. Although the two languages had a very similar fate, and the same premises for language competition, Ingrian appears to have been more socially prestigious and was for a long period of time gradually replacing Votic. It is shown that the two languages chose different strategies for interaction. The Ingrians preserved their strong identity but transformed their language significantly, and thus achieved an easier understanding with their neighbors. On the other hand, the Votes were unwilling to adapt their language to contact influence, but shifted easily to their neighbors' identity. We suggest distinguishing between two types of volatility: social volatility, which describes the willingness of a nation to shift to a new language and identity; and linguistic volatility, which denotes the readiness of speakers to adopt innovations from a neighboring language. In minority vs. minority competition, the two types of volatility often demonstrate inverse tendencies: high volatility on the linguistic level corresponds to low volatility on the social level, and vice versa.

The so called bateyes, former company towns for sugar workers in the Dominican Republic, are today marginalized communities with a high concentration of Dominicans of Haitian descent and illegal immigrants from Haiti. In this article, a first approach is made to describe the language contact situation in the Dominican bateyes , focusing on the linguistic behavior of young female informants of the second migrant generation. It becomes clear that in spite of generally positive attitudes toward Haitian Creole, the bateyanos born in the Dominican Republic tend to give up Creole and shift to Spanish within a few generations. Their variety of Creole is heavily influenced by Spanish, showing numerous instances of interference and other phenomena that may be related to language attrition. It is true that Haitian Creole is still widely spoken in the bateyes , but mainly due to the constant influx of new immigrants, not to intergenerational transmission. With reference to the modeling of language contact, our case study supports the often-stated hypothesis that prestige is a powerful factor in language competition, especially when it combines with the stigmatization of the immigrant language. At the same time, it indicates that modeling attempts should more explicitly take into account a number of variables potentially important in migration contexts, e.g., population fluctuation and cross-ethnic networks.

This article focuses on phonological aspects of bilingualism and includes two approaches: internal linguistic and sociolinguistic. The former approach is based on internal variables (markedness, frequency, complexity, uniformity), and the latter on external variables (age, school, family language, language of the peer-group). The article comprises two parts. First, we analyze spontaneous data produced by German-Spanish bilingual children and try to model the contact-language situation of that group characterized by family bilingualism and societal monolingualism. The external variables are relatively homogeneous for those children, as they receive Spanish from the mother and German from the father, and from the broad German-speaking community in Hamburg. These cases of individual bilingualism mainly receive the impact of internal variables, which can be weighed against one another. This leads to the following hierarchy of variables from those having more to less impact: frequency > markedness > uniformity > language of the environment. Second, we analyze and compare the elicited speech of Catalan-Spanish bilingual children in two districts of Barcelona, which differ in the degree of Spanish dominance. Here, the emphasis is on external factors. School and the peer-group seem to play the most important role, as they have more predictive power than the language spoken at home.

In this article we study a language contact situation in Majorca, Spain, in which adult monolingual speakers of Spanish who arrived recently in Majorca acquire aspects of Majorcan Catalan prosody. Although the possibility that the adoption of features can take place directly from Catalan is not rejected, we provide evidence that it can be an indirect process, through a process of accommodation (Trudgill 1986; Giles and Coupland 1991) to the L2 variety of Spanish spoken by L1 Majorcan Catalan speakers. An experiment was set up in which we recorded four native Spanish speakers who arrived recently in Majorca holding a semi-directed conversation in Spanish with a native speaker of Majorcan Catalan. The results showed consistent adoption of prosodic features of L2 Majorcan Spanish in interrogative sentences (not in declaratives). The results support the idea that the adoption of prosodic features of Majorcan Catalan by monolingual Spanish speakers can take place in early stages of contact. Our article also shows that subjective factors such as determination towards integration play a fundamental role in determining the degree of accommodation. Finally, salience of prosodic features is claimed to play a role in the selection of transferred features.