How non-Indo-European is Fanakalo pidgin?
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Rajend Mesthrie
Abstract
Fanakalo is a southern African pidgin whose main lexifier is Zulu, a non-Indo-European language, and whose genesis lies with Europeans as “imperfect learners” and Africans as “superstrate speakers” in the 19th CE. The question can therefore be raised whether this reversal of social relations and the identity of those who were doing the initial language learning and pidgin creation resulted in a typological reversal too (compared to, say, Caribbean contact varieties). The answer appears to be in the affirmative. The question can also be raised how non-Indo-European this pidgin is. This time the answer is less clear: while the vocabulary is largely from Southern Bantu, its grammar resembles a basic English, or – more plausibly – a basic analytic SVO code.
Abstract
Fanakalo is a southern African pidgin whose main lexifier is Zulu, a non-Indo-European language, and whose genesis lies with Europeans as “imperfect learners” and Africans as “superstrate speakers” in the 19th CE. The question can therefore be raised whether this reversal of social relations and the identity of those who were doing the initial language learning and pidgin creation resulted in a typological reversal too (compared to, say, Caribbean contact varieties). The answer appears to be in the affirmative. The question can also be raised how non-Indo-European this pidgin is. This time the answer is less clear: while the vocabulary is largely from Southern Bantu, its grammar resembles a basic English, or – more plausibly – a basic analytic SVO code.
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
