Ethnohistory of speaking
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Emanuel J. Drechsel
Abstract
Because most non-European pidgins-creoles have not survived into modern times, their study requires alternative, complementary historical analyses under the heading of the ethnohistory of speaking: philology (or the systematic reconstitution of early attestations by triangulation with contemporaneous or modern comparative linguistic data) and ethnohistory (or the critical interpretation of historical documents by ethnological criteria). Three examples illustrate Maritime Polynesian Pidgin, a Polynesian-based pidgin of the eastern Pacific for the early colonial period, with grammatical patterns and uses reminiscent of Pidgin Hawaiian, but extending regionally to the Society Islands, New Zealand, and overseas locations and with a greater time depth since the late eighteenth century. These data also lend startling support to the “broken Polynesian” portion of South Seas Jargon (Clark 1977, 1979).
Abstract
Because most non-European pidgins-creoles have not survived into modern times, their study requires alternative, complementary historical analyses under the heading of the ethnohistory of speaking: philology (or the systematic reconstitution of early attestations by triangulation with contemporaneous or modern comparative linguistic data) and ethnohistory (or the critical interpretation of historical documents by ethnological criteria). Three examples illustrate Maritime Polynesian Pidgin, a Polynesian-based pidgin of the eastern Pacific for the early colonial period, with grammatical patterns and uses reminiscent of Pidgin Hawaiian, but extending regionally to the Society Islands, New Zealand, and overseas locations and with a greater time depth since the late eighteenth century. These data also lend startling support to the “broken Polynesian” portion of South Seas Jargon (Clark 1977, 1979).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Ethnohistory of speaking 7
- The ‘language of Tobi’ as presented in Horace Holden’s Narrative 41
- Language variation in Gulf Pidgin Arabic 57
- How non-Indo-European is Fanakalo pidgin? 85
- Language change in a multiple contact setting 101
- Pidgin verbs 141
- Area index 171
- Language index 173
- Subject index 175
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- Ethnohistory of speaking 7
- The ‘language of Tobi’ as presented in Horace Holden’s Narrative 41
- Language variation in Gulf Pidgin Arabic 57
- How non-Indo-European is Fanakalo pidgin? 85
- Language change in a multiple contact setting 101
- Pidgin verbs 141
- Area index 171
- Language index 173
- Subject index 175
