Ethnolect

Typically classified as: ( linguistic actually ) Minority used in a particular language area and as for them ethnolect (from the Greek ethnos, "people", and legein, "speak" ) is a collective term for linguistic variants and speaking styles that of speakers of an ethnic be. A uniform ethnolect which all people with the same linguistic and ethnic origin speak in a country that does not exist, however: " There are many Ethnolektales, but there is no ethnolect " ( Jannis Androutsopoulos ).

• 3.1 Special Cases

Causes for the emergence of Ethnolekten

Ethnolects arise firstly in that migrants have problems with the language of the country that speaks the majority of inhabitants in the immigration country. Typical of recent Immigrant are problems with the pronunciation, a small vocabulary, unidiomatische formulations and implement a rudimentary command of the grammar of the target language. Such expressions of language learners at a low level ( example: "I nix work" instead of "I 'm unemployed " ) are called pidgin.

Ethnolects are but ( if at all) not only due to an insufficient command of the target language, especially since many ethnolect spokesman have left the " pidgin - level " of a language learner long past, are often already born in the host country. The fact that many ethnolect Speakers are certainly in a position to comply with the norms of the standard language, it can be seen, for example, words such as " Ish marry her ": The speaker knows that is formed "with" with the dative and that " her " the dative form of" it " is. Many ethnolect spokesman, when it is expected of them, speak loudly nearly pure words, construct sentences correctly constructed and deliberately renounce the use of words that are perceived as offensive. Their behavior is comparable to that of dialect - speakers who have also learned also in the default language ( here: the high-level language ) to articulate. In the course of their schooling, many migrant children and youth ethnolektale shapes and standard shapes learn to use situational and context-specific. It has been proven that these young people have on the grammatical, lexical and discursive level through standard close German. However, the " code-switching " succeed in the default language is not all ethnolect speakers.

Ethnolect and accent

People who have not learned a language as their mother tongue tend even after prolonged use of the target language to speak other languages ​​with an accent, that is, the sounds of the target language and their speech melody of the debate in their native language to adapt. In all Ethnolekten certain phonemes of the target language are pronounced systematically different, even if the speaker can produce the sound.

Simplification of grammar

In all living languages ​​, there is a trend towards the simplification of grammar. This is reinforced by a high number of immigrants who need to learn the target language. People with a migration background often forgo learning a correct declension endings and more accurate because it "eats coding energy that is needed more urgently elsewhere, for example to compensate for deficits in the vocabulary " (Uwe Hinrichs ). For example, since the difference between " a " and is hard to hear " one " anyway, are also in the written language phrases such as "I had no hunger " more often, and not only in ethnolect speakers. The " easing grammatical restrictions " of the standard language is often an act of rebellion.

Primary, secondary and tertiary ethnolect

The category ethnolect can be divided into the sub-

The acquisition ethnolektaler expressions by different ethnic spokesman, especially by native speakers of the target language is a tendency to "de- ethnicization " of Ethnolekten. A methodological problem is for students and language researchers who want to collect empirical data on ethnolects, is that they often do not realize it, whether it is a primary ethnolect or its parody in the way of speaking of specific speakers.

Ethnolects in the German language

In the German language the non- German origin of the speaker can be recognized based on various special features ethnolektaler ways of speaking, if it speaks a primary ethnolect and not only ethnolect spokesman mimics.

In multilingual environments ethnolektale forms of Germans have emerged as the lingua franca in the German-speaking countries. Speakers of this language forms they refer to as ' ghetto long '. Here some characteristics occur consistently and others only occasionally.

Consistently occur:

Occasionally occur:

Special cases

Spokesman Polish native speakers usually do not distinguish between the German short and long vowels. German short vowels are usually open, while long vowels are closed. Since the Polish knows no closed vowels, they talk all the vowels from open.

Italian mother tongue speakers are often at the most consonant ending words appended lowercase e recognizable as in the phonological structure of the Italian vowels form a word boundary and Italian nouns therefore usually end in a vowel.

Ethnolects in other target languages

" Kiez languages ​​" there is not only in German-speaking countries. In Europe there are, inter alia, the " Rinkebysvenska " ( in Sweden), the " Copenhagen multiethnolect " ( in Denmark) and the " Straattaal " ( in the Netherlands).

Review of Ethnolektgebrauchs

On the one hand strengthen ethnolects the cohesion of groups who use these varieties. For outsiders they solve, however, often from prejudice. So reacts in the book Churchill times, Mrs. Friday, a bus driver on the ethnolect of " Emre ", a ninth-grader with a "bio- German mother " ( original wording in the text), with the question: " Do you understand German? Are you proficient in German? "

If ethnolects are referred to as " ghetto long " or " migrants Long", then it is İnci According Dirim a case of Linguizismus, that is, to " a specific form of racism [ ... ], in which people on the basis of their language or accent are marginalized ". Ethnolects have nothing funny in itself. You are in the case of Ethnolekten the German language " adaptation forms the German by migrants and signs of belonging to the German-speaking environments. Ethnolects show that the German not only taken a supplement, but is appropriated creatively and have a link with the already dominated languages. Should Ethnolekten same acceptance and appreciation be brought against, as called for dialects, "says Dirim.

The long-term consequences of such a tolerant attitude describes Uwe Hinrichs: The " error " of the migrants were gradually imitated by the German native speakers, and it will eventually be no longer tell who just right or wrong lies. At the same time let the willingness of native speakers to perceive the error as error and to correct spontaneously after. The grammar would be reduced, loosened the internal cohesion of sentence parts and many rules would be simplified or dissolve completely, the language will be simpler and more English -like.

Language nurses reject the development described by Hinrichs as " decay of language " from. Also, for the evaluation of Ethnolekten occasionally the category of " restricted codes " used, which was introduced by the sociolinguists Basil Bernstein as a term for the " deficient " language of the English underclass.

Jürgen Trabant criticized both the " romantic " fascination with Ethnolekten that would explain their defenders to "popular dialects ", as well as the wholesale rejection of Ethnolekten. The real danger for the German standard language lies in the fact that it would become a " sociolect modernization losers" by the English language increasingly replaced the German.