INTRODUCTION
There is a famous quotation states that the language used by the speaker could identify where the speaker comes from. Particular place has their particular dialect. The language use and dialect form a particular place should differ from the dialect at other places. But, when a linguistics innovation—a new word, a new pronunciation, a new usage—occurs at a particular place, it may subsequently spread to other areas, particularly those nearest to it, so long as no serious barriers to communication intervene. The social and linguistics reasons for this development of regional language differences are very complex.
This paper was written to inform the reader about the main topic: ’language and geography’. The sub-topics of this main is about the language geography, the linguistic innovations, the barrier and the distance, lingua franca, and many other important examples related to language and geography.
LANGUAGE GEOGRAPHY
As what is cited in www.wikipedia.com, the language geography is the branch of human geography that studies the geographic distribution of language or its constituent elements. Moreover, the site also mentions that there are two principal fields of study within the geography of language, they are:
1. The “geography of languages”, which deals with the distribution through history and space of languages. It gives insights about the background of the diffusion of a language.
2. The “linguistic geography”, which deals with regional linguistic variations within languages.
One illustration of the variations of language which is influenced by the geographical condition happens in Britain in which the relationship between social dialects and geographical dialects such that regional linguistic differentiation is greatest at the level of varieties most unlike Standard English. The speakers in the areas of Britain who live in north of the river Humber still have a monophtong in words like house which is pronounced as [hu:s], and the speakers who live in south of the river Humber have a dipthong in word house which is pronounced as [haus].
LINGUISTIC INNOVATIONS
A language innovation is a new word, a new pronunciation, a new usage of a language. According to Trudgill (1983:169), a linguistic innovation that occurs at a particular place can be spread from a particular place into other places that near to the previous place.
a. The linguistic innovations involve social and geographical pressure
The good example of linguistic innovation that involves social and geographical pressure is the loss of non-prevocalic /r/ in English. Harold Orton (in Trudgill, 1983:170) encounters the loss in English of non-prevocalic /r/ in words like: farm and yard. Orton shows the map of the areas in England where can be found the use of spelling without /r/ such as in the south-west, the north-west, and the north-east spreading up to the Scotland.
However, the diffusion of non-prevocalic /r/ in English based on Orton’s finding has faced the true-state of affairs, they are:
- There are only two words which are confined in it. An examination of data for other words would reveal additional areas, such as east parts of Yorkshire, where non-prevocalic /r/ may be pronounced.
- Socially, it is very incomplete because there is only elder speakers from the lowest social groups who are the ‘r-pronouncers’ in all along the eastern edge of the south-western area.
- Orton’s map gives information only for rural linguistics varieties. For many urban areas, the impression given is very inaccurate since they may be entirely ‘r-less’ (e.g. in Liverpool).
b. The linguistic innovations in rural and urban areas
The differences between rural and urban accents are also affected by the linguistic innovations. The linguistic innovations often spread from urban centre to another, and then later spread out into the surrounding countryside, although the urban centre is near to the countryside. For example, a language innovation from London will spread to urban Bristol before reach to rural Wiltshire although the rural Wilshire is nearer to London. It is due to general economic (the urban people are more in prosperity than the rural people), demographic (structure, size, community distribution, and the dynamic of society) and cultural dominance of town over country, and the structure of communication network (there are more complete communication devices in urban life).
Another example of the spread of linguistic innovation can be also seen from the speech of urban Manchester, in many ways more like to urban London than of nearby rural Cheshire as follow:
Words | London | Manchester | Hyde, Cheshire |
‘brush’ | [brΛs] | [brəs] | [brəis] |
‘such’ | [sΛc] | [səc] | [sIc] |
‘tough’ | [tΛf] | [təf] | [tɒf] |
‘put’ | [pƱt] | [pət] | [pər] |
(table 1. The speech of urban Manchester, London, and rural Hyde, Cheshire)
From the table 1 above, such all London [Λ] and [Ʊ] vowels correspond to Manchester [ə] vowel. But, there is no such regular correspondence with rural Hyde and Cheshire forms.
c. Factors in Linguistic Innovations Diffusion
There are two terms that influence the spreading of linguistic innovations, they are:
1. Distance
According to www.wikipedia.com, distance is numerical description of how far apart objects are. It is an important factor in the diffusion of linguistic forms. The distance can be separated into two: the geographical distance and social distance. According to www.wikipedia.com, the geographical distance is the distance measured along the surface of the earth. For example, Singaraja is closer with Seririt rather than Gerokgak. It can be proved from the duration when someone travel (with constantly speed) from Singaraja to Seririt only takes 45 minutes, but if someone travel from Singaraja to Gerokgak it will take more than 60 minutes. The social distance describes the distance between different groups of society and includes all differences such as social class, race/ethnicity or sexuality (www.wikipedia.com). As what we can see from the example of urban London and Manchester above, those two towns may be socially ‘closer’ to each other rather than with the rural countryside, because London and Manchester have similarities as urban areas unlike other rural areas.
2. Barrier
Language Barrier is a figurative phrase used primarily to indicate the difficulties faced when people, who have no language in common, attempt to communicate with each other (www.wikipedia.com). The barriers that influence the language use are social barrier and geographical barrier. The example of social barrier is that the social stratification in Bali influences the use of Basa Bali Alus Sor, Basa Alus Singgih, Basa Alus Madya, and Basa Kepara, which are spoken by the Balinese based on their caste. The example of geographical barrier is the speakers in the areas of Britain who live in north of the river Humber still have a monophtong in words like house which is pronounced as [hu:s], and the speakers who live in south of the river Humber have a dipthong in word house which is pronounced as [haus]. In this case, the river Humber has acted as geographical barrier of the language.
d. Linguistic innovations spread from one language into another.
Linguistic innovations spread not only from one regional or social variety of the same language to another, they may also spread from one language into another. The example is the European uvular r. In 16th century, all European languages had an r-type sound which pronounced as r (the tongue-tip trill) that is still pronounced today in many types of Scots English or Italian. In 17th century, a new ‘r’ became popular in upper-class Parisian French. This new ‘r’ is pronounced in the back of the mouth by means of contact between the back of the tongue and the uvula. This type of ‘r’ is taught today to foreign learners of French and German. It is spread to the France through the urban or educated French speakers, and it reaches Germany through the educated Germans. It is also used by some of the Dutch speakers as well as the Danes together with a majority in the south of Sweden and parts of the south and west of Norway.
LINGUISTIC AREAS
Linguistic areas refer to areas where several languages are spoken which have a number of features in common as the result of the diffusion of innovations across language boundaries, although they are not very closed related (Trudgill, 1983:173). The area in Europe that can be said as a linguistic area is the Balkans that consists of Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Bulgaria, and Rumania. The languages involved are Serbo-Coat, Macedonia, and Bulgarian (all Slav languages), Rumanian (a Romance language), Greek and Albanian. They are all Indo-European languages except the three Slav languages because they are not closely related genetically.
Some interesting features in common of Balkan languages that create a linguistic area are:
1. The fact that four of the Balkan languages have the form of corresponding to the in English that is placed after the noun:
Albanian : mekaniku
Mean : “the mechanic” |
Macedonian : mexanicarot
Rumanian : mecanicianul
2. A particular usage of subordinate clause:
One example is the sentence in English: “They left without asking me”. In Albanian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Rumanian the sentence is corresponded into “They left without that they asked me”. The example of the sentence in Bulgarian and Greek:
“They left….”
Bulgarian : “… bez da me popitat”
Greek : “… xoris na me rotisune”
“… without that me they asked”
LINGUA FRANCA
The use of English as a lingua franca brings us to a rather different aspect of the geographical spread of linguistic phenomena. According to Holmes (1992), lingua franca is a language used for communication between people whose first languages differ. Lingua franca can be illustrated by the use of English when a Dutchman and a Swede want to talk to another. Here, English is used as a lingua franca in Europe. Another illustration can be seen from the use of Indonesian language as lingua franca by Balinese and Javanese when they talk to another.
When a language is used as lingua franca, it normally undergoes a certain amount of simplification and a reduction in (social) function, as well as being subject to the introduction of errors through interference from the native language of the speaker or through imperfect learning. The simplification and reduction in function of lingua franca may become larger if little or no formal schooling has taken place and if learning takes place only through intermittent and limited contact. The example of this point can be seen from the case of Swahili. On the coast of East Africa, Swahili is a native language of many populations who use it for all or most purpose and it is spoken very fluently. However, Swahili is used to a considerable extent as a lingua franca in the inland Tanzania. This inland lingua franca variety demonstrates some features of simplification, since it is spoken as a second language and there is a reduction in function, such as it is used in more restricted set of circumstances. Further inland still, in eastern Zaire, another variety of Swahili is also used as a lingua franca. In this case, the simplification can be seen from the absence of irregular verbs, the reduction in the number of noun classes (genders), and the avoidance of certain complex syntactic structures. Both of these lingua franca varieties of Swahili, although modified, are clearly nevertheless to be counted as Swahili, therefore they are intelligible.
However, in another part of Zaire, in the rural north, a further lingua franca form of Swahili occurs and it is simplified. The verb structures are radically simplified, there are no noun classes, and only a relatively limited number of sentence structure is employed. Here, the mutual intelligibility with coastal Swahili is minimal. Therefore, if native Swahili speakers want to employ it, they have to learn it. When simplification has taken place in this scale, and when the result is a relatively stabilized form of language consistently employed as a lingua franca, the resulting variety is called a pidgin language.
PIDGIN LANGUAGE
Pidgin language is a lingua franca which has no native speakers. It is derived from a ‘normal’ language through simplification, such as: most often reduction in vocabulary and grammar, and elimination of complexities and irregularities. The example of Pidgin language can be seen from the British Solomon Islands Pidgin or it is known as Neo-Solomonic.
Mifɛlə i-go go lɔŋ sɔlwater, lʊkautɪm fiŠ, nau wɪn i-kɔm. Nau mifɛlə i-go ɔləbaut lɔŋ kinu, nau bɪgfɛlə wɪn i-kəm nau mifɛlə i-fafasi ɔləbautə rɔŋ tuməs
We kept going on the sea, hunting for fish, and a wind arose. Now we were going in canoes, and an immense wind arose now and we were thrown around and were moving very fast.
The grammar and vocabulary of Neo-Solomonic, although similar to English in many ways, is nonetheless quite distinct. Neo-Solomonic has grammatical rules and words of its own. Many people have objected to pidgins on the grounds that they have corrupted the ‘purity’ of English (or some other European languages). Views like this are often accompanied by sentiments about racial and cultural purity as well. Actually, Pidgins are not haphazard mixtures, not bad or not corrupt forms of the language from which they are derived.
(....CONTINUE TO PART 2)
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar