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"I've been speaking Tsotsitaal all my life without knowing it": Towards a unified account of tsotsitaals in South Africa.

  • Rajend Mesthrie
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Social Lives in Language – Sociolinguistics and multilingual speech communities
This chapter is in the book Social Lives in Language – Sociolinguistics and multilingual speech communities

Abstract

This chapter focuses on varieties that flourish in South African townships with names like Tsotsitaal, Flaaitaal, Iscamtho, Gamtaal etc. Some speakers and scholars argue that these are new languages arising out of urbanisation and underworld culture in multilingual settings. This chapter examines the extent of overlap in names and defining characteristics of these varieties. It concludes that we may possibly be dealing with just one phenomenon: essentially a set of lexical items associated with gang and prison culture at one end and that of youth culture at the other, which is attached to the syntax of previously existing languages. Evidence for this claim comes from unearthing a similar variety that uses English as its base language.

Abstract

This chapter focuses on varieties that flourish in South African townships with names like Tsotsitaal, Flaaitaal, Iscamtho, Gamtaal etc. Some speakers and scholars argue that these are new languages arising out of urbanisation and underworld culture in multilingual settings. This chapter examines the extent of overlap in names and defining characteristics of these varieties. It concludes that we may possibly be dealing with just one phenomenon: essentially a set of lexical items associated with gang and prison culture at one end and that of youth culture at the other, which is attached to the syntax of previously existing languages. Evidence for this claim comes from unearthing a similar variety that uses English as its base language.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction: Social lives in language 1
  5. Photos of Gillian: Then and now 17
  6. Biographies of contributors and email addresses 19
  7. Part I. Language Ideology: From the speakers, what can we learn about the language?
  8. Language, mobility and (in)security: A journey through Francophone Canada 27
  9. Language repertoires and the middle class in urban Solomon Islands 43
  10. Land, language and identity: The socio-political origins of Gurindji Kriol 69
  11. "I've been speaking Tsotsitaal all my life without knowing it": Towards a unified account of tsotsitaals in South Africa. 95
  12. Tok Bokis, Tok Piksa: Translating parables in Papua New Guinea 111
  13. Part II. Bridging Macro- and Micro-sociolinguistics
  14. Chiac in context: Overview and evaluation of Acadie's Joual 137
  15. How to predict the evolution of a bilingual community 179
  16. How local is local French in Quebec? 195
  17. Part III. Quantitative sociolinguistics: From the languages, what can we learn about the speakers?
  18. Ne deletion in Picard and in regional French: Evidence for distinct grammars 223
  19. The dynamics of pronouns in the Québec languages in contact dynamics 249
  20. Subordinate clause marking in Montreal Anglophone French and English 273
  21. Mysteries of the substrate 315
  22. Empirical problems with domain-based notions of "simple" 327
  23. Index of names 357
  24. Index of subjects 361
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.24.09mes

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements ix
  4. Introduction: Social lives in language 1
  5. Photos of Gillian: Then and now 17
  6. Biographies of contributors and email addresses 19
  7. Part I. Language Ideology: From the speakers, what can we learn about the language?
  8. Language, mobility and (in)security: A journey through Francophone Canada 27
  9. Language repertoires and the middle class in urban Solomon Islands 43
  10. Land, language and identity: The socio-political origins of Gurindji Kriol 69
  11. "I've been speaking Tsotsitaal all my life without knowing it": Towards a unified account of tsotsitaals in South Africa. 95
  12. Tok Bokis, Tok Piksa: Translating parables in Papua New Guinea 111
  13. Part II. Bridging Macro- and Micro-sociolinguistics
  14. Chiac in context: Overview and evaluation of Acadie's Joual 137
  15. How to predict the evolution of a bilingual community 179
  16. How local is local French in Quebec? 195
  17. Part III. Quantitative sociolinguistics: From the languages, what can we learn about the speakers?
  18. Ne deletion in Picard and in regional French: Evidence for distinct grammars 223
  19. The dynamics of pronouns in the Québec languages in contact dynamics 249
  20. Subordinate clause marking in Montreal Anglophone French and English 273
  21. Mysteries of the substrate 315
  22. Empirical problems with domain-based notions of "simple" 327
  23. Index of names 357
  24. Index of subjects 361
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