AP Notes, Outlines, Study Guides, Vocabulary, Practice Exams and more!

Linguistics Test #3 - Power of Babel Flashcards

Terms : Hide Images
2328720561What is a Pidgin?-Just enough X -Circumstances: trade, slavery, colonization -lacks many features of a full on language (gender, article, cases)0
2328727926Creoles "when a pidgin becomes a language"-when a pidgin becomes the "lived language" of a group -children are raised speaking it -full grammar and a rich vocabulary develop1
2328731825Grammiticalization-watching a pidgin become a creole is the closest we can get to witnessing the birth of a new language -tenses and helping verbs for tenses develop -sounds/meaning shift as vocab develops -articles develop -examples in English: "to will" and "to have" became participles2
2328739392Creoles do everything "languages" do...-change over time, form dialects, intertwine with other languages -Fly Taal is an example of a pidgin formed from two creoles3
2328742658Creoles and Dialects-dialects affect how a creole develops -creoles often form on the base of earlier stages of a language -Example: the French creole of Mauritius came from a non-standard dialect of French4
2328748875Default Settings of Human Language as Revealed by Creoles-creoles reveal that the natural word order is subject-verb-object (this happens regardless of the order of the native language) -Example: Berbice Dutch in Guyana has this pattern despite how both Dutch and Ijo place their verbs at the end of the sentence -we also find that particles are placed before the verb --> non-creoles tend to stray from this, such as in Standard English suffixes5
2328763194Tok Pisin History-name comes from "talk business" -creole spoken in PNG, which become the lingua franca -began with English colonization in the 1700s -aborigines developed a pidgin English to use during trade that expanded into a full human language -a common language among 800 other languages6
2328770615Tok Pisin Grammar/Vocab-meri = woman, comes from the specific name "Mary" (example of semantic shift) -hevi = heavy, sad (example of shades of meaning) ARTICLES -wanpela = "a" comes from "one fellow" -dispela = "this" comes from "this fellow" HELPING VERBS -i stap = present progressive -bin = been -pinis = finished -bai = future (by and by) -save = continuing action *PNG languages don't have [f] so substitute it with [p]7
2328780700Gullah-"sea island creole" spoken on the Islands off South Carolina and Georgia -English + Jamaican + West African languages -spoken by descendants of slaves -there is a Gullah Bible published by the American Bible Society8
2328800620Degrees of Creolization...-field working slaves spoke a reduced pidgin -artisan slaves spoke a creole -slaves plantation homes has a more developed "semicreole" -the most privileged slaves spoke Standard English9
2328811439Shaved Languages-frequent contact with non-native speakers -trimming away some of the more arbitrary aspects of language10
2328814441Shaved Fula-West African lingua franca -spoken as a second language from Senegal to Cameroon -Fula has sixteen gendered articles that are ignored by nonnative speakers11
2328819336Shaved Swahili-spoken by small East African communities -5-10 million native speakers, but spoken by a total of 80 million people -trade language with Arabs and Africans -shaved language, but NOT a pidgin or a creole -it is "streamlined" and less complex that other Bantu languages --> doesn't have tones and has fewer irregular forms12
2328875499Language and Function - Unnecessary Grammar-unnecessary grammar does NOT reflect culture -however, culture can create grammar sometimes (ex: Japanese hierarchical language) -most frill is just the "natural overzealousness of language"13
2328886521A Little Bit of "Dammit" in Every Language-verb endings are unnecessary --> Spanish verb endings -irregular verb forms are unnecessary --> German stem changes, Spanish irregular verbs -reflexive verbs14
2328908470Language Frills: Inflections-inflections (noun and verb endings) develop through creeping grammaticalization -origin of Latin tenses = habeo (I have) eroded and rebracketed into -bo ending (I will) --> an independent word became a piece of grammar -example: amabo = I will love15
2328911462Language Frills: Tones-the meaning of words can change based on pitch -4 main tones in Mandarin, 6 tones in Cantonese -Thai, Vietnamese and many African and Native American languages -languages become tonal when sounds erode --> endings wear off ("shitty little monkey" example)16
2328953979Language Frills: Evidential Markers-suffixes and prefixes -In the language of Makah the suffixes indicate the source of information -a verb must include where you got the information -suffixes are grammaticalizations that began as separate, independent verbs17
2328967152Language Frills: To Have-some languages distinguish two kinds of having -alienable = things you can loose and still be you -inalienable = things you cannot lose and still be you18
2329011135Linguist Frills: Articles-definite (the), indefinite (a(n)) -some languages have neither (balto-slavic, Latin) -only 1/5 languages have both (English is in the small minority) -they are somewhat ineficient19
2328939297Simple Past vs. Past Perfect-English distinguishes between two "past tenses" -simple past = event is completed and done -present perfect = event has begun in the past but may continue -Germanic and Romance languages have this distinction but most others do not (ex: Russian)20
2328925276Maori-has noun classes for alienable (body parts) and inalienable possessions (small portable objects) -they are very weird and each category contains random things21

Need Help?

We hope your visit has been a productive one. If you're having any problems, or would like to give some feedback, we'd love to hear from you.

For general help, questions, and suggestions, try our dedicated support forums.

If you need to contact the Course-Notes.Org web experience team, please use our contact form.

Need Notes?

While we strive to provide the most comprehensive notes for as many high school textbooks as possible, there are certainly going to be some that we miss. Drop us a note and let us know which textbooks you need. Be sure to include which edition of the textbook you are using! If we see enough demand, we'll do whatever we can to get those notes up on the site for you!