2. The superstrate is not always the lexifier: Lingua Franca in the Barbary Coast 1530-1830
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Rachel Selbach
Abstract
The terms superstrate and substrate seem to lose some of their predictive force in the earliest documented European contact language. While Lingua Franca (LF) is best known for its purported origins as a trade pidgin used across all areas of the Mediterranean, the vast majority of actually available LF documents come from slave colonies on North Africa’s “Barbary Coast’’. Here, the social and the linguistic data do not synchronically coincide according to the usual creolist framework, where lexifier and superstrate are largely treated as being synonymous. Algiers held the largest prison colony where, according to contemporary reports (Haedo 1612), some 25,000 people lived, all of them speaking LF with different proficiencies. Masters in these prisons were Arab and Turkish Moslems; slaves were the captured European Christians. Most of the lexicon of LF is derived from Romance languages, therefore the bulk of the lexifier is that of the oppressed, not of the oppressor. This situation is shown in the major documents of LF, such as the 1830 Dictionnaire de la Langue Franque ou Petit Mauresque. Bakker’s principle – pidgins often do not use the lexicon of the dominant group – being borne out by available LF data, the possible (social) causes for this difference to the majority of the well-known contact languages coming out of slavery contexts will be discussed.
Abstract
The terms superstrate and substrate seem to lose some of their predictive force in the earliest documented European contact language. While Lingua Franca (LF) is best known for its purported origins as a trade pidgin used across all areas of the Mediterranean, the vast majority of actually available LF documents come from slave colonies on North Africa’s “Barbary Coast’’. Here, the social and the linguistic data do not synchronically coincide according to the usual creolist framework, where lexifier and superstrate are largely treated as being synonymous. Algiers held the largest prison colony where, according to contemporary reports (Haedo 1612), some 25,000 people lived, all of them speaking LF with different proficiencies. Masters in these prisons were Arab and Turkish Moslems; slaves were the captured European Christians. Most of the lexicon of LF is derived from Romance languages, therefore the bulk of the lexifier is that of the oppressed, not of the oppressor. This situation is shown in the major documents of LF, such as the 1830 Dictionnaire de la Langue Franque ou Petit Mauresque. Bakker’s principle – pidgins often do not use the lexicon of the dominant group – being borne out by available LF data, the possible (social) causes for this difference to the majority of the well-known contact languages coming out of slavery contexts will be discussed.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- List of standard abbreviations ix
- Preface xi
- 1. The problem of multiple substrates: The case of Jamaican Creole 1
- 2. The superstrate is not always the lexifier: Lingua Franca in the Barbary Coast 1530-1830 29
- 3. In praise of the cafeteria principle: Language mixing in Hawai'i Creole 59
- 4. Tense marking and inflectional morphology in Indo-Portuguese creoles 83
- 5. Vowel epenthesis and creole syllable structure 123
- 6. The origin of the Portuguese words in Saramaccan: Implications for sociohistory 153
- 7. Encoding path in Mauritian Creole and Bhojpuri: Problems of language contact 169
- 8. On the principled nature of the respective contributions of substrate and superstrate languages to a creole's lexicon 197
- 9. Valency patterns in Seychelles Creole: Where do they come from? 225
- 10. A first step towards the analysis of tone in Santomense 253
- 11. Balanta, Guiné-Bissau Creole Portuguese and Portuguese: A comparison of the noun phrase 263
- 12. Zamboangueño Chavacano and the potentive mode 279
- 13. Between contact and internal development: Towards a multi-layered explanation for the development of the TMA system in the creoles of Suriname 301
- 14. The formation of deverbal nouns in Vincentian Creole: Morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic processes 333
- 15. A la recherche du "superstrat" : What North American French can and cannot tell us about the input to creolization 357
- Personal name index 385
- Language index 391
- Places and Peoples index 405
- Subject index 411
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- List of contributors vii
- List of standard abbreviations ix
- Preface xi
- 1. The problem of multiple substrates: The case of Jamaican Creole 1
- 2. The superstrate is not always the lexifier: Lingua Franca in the Barbary Coast 1530-1830 29
- 3. In praise of the cafeteria principle: Language mixing in Hawai'i Creole 59
- 4. Tense marking and inflectional morphology in Indo-Portuguese creoles 83
- 5. Vowel epenthesis and creole syllable structure 123
- 6. The origin of the Portuguese words in Saramaccan: Implications for sociohistory 153
- 7. Encoding path in Mauritian Creole and Bhojpuri: Problems of language contact 169
- 8. On the principled nature of the respective contributions of substrate and superstrate languages to a creole's lexicon 197
- 9. Valency patterns in Seychelles Creole: Where do they come from? 225
- 10. A first step towards the analysis of tone in Santomense 253
- 11. Balanta, Guiné-Bissau Creole Portuguese and Portuguese: A comparison of the noun phrase 263
- 12. Zamboangueño Chavacano and the potentive mode 279
- 13. Between contact and internal development: Towards a multi-layered explanation for the development of the TMA system in the creoles of Suriname 301
- 14. The formation of deverbal nouns in Vincentian Creole: Morpho-phonological and morpho-syntactic processes 333
- 15. A la recherche du "superstrat" : What North American French can and cannot tell us about the input to creolization 357
- Personal name index 385
- Language index 391
- Places and Peoples index 405
- Subject index 411
