Media Lengua

Media Lengua (ML ) is a hybrid language that is spoken in Salcedo, a canton of zentralecuadorianischen Cotopaxi province, of about 1000 people. It was accidentally discovered by the Dutch linguist Pieter Muysken, as this field research operation in the 1970s to Ecuadorian Quechua. Media Lengua includes the grammar of Quechua and the entire nominal and verbal vocabulary of Spanish. 6

• 3.4.1 phrase position
• 3.4.2 The comparative

History of language contact between Spanish and Quechua

Quechua was the traffic and trade language of the Incas and was originally spoken in Peru, however, spread to Bolivia, Chile and northern Argentina from: . 367Gegen end of the 15th century, the Quechua came by the Inca to Ecuador. 481

Under the rule of the Spaniards who in Ecuador, the country of origin of Media Lengua, lasted from the early 16th century to 1830, the use of Quechua was originally funded to advance the missionary work among the Native American population. During the colonial period, Quechua has developed to the mother tongue of the majority of the Indian population. In the 17th and 18th centuries, but then took a change in the Spanish Language. The Native American languages ​​were suppressed and the Spanish subordinate. 15

Even after the independence of Ecuador in 1830, the Quechua were excluded from public life. 17

When at the beginning of the 20th century Native American artisans and farmers in search of work from their villages, where the Quechua often remained native language, moved to the capital, Quito, where they were confronted with the Spanish language, the proportion of bilingual increased population. The Quechua increasingly lost prestige and soon became associated with backwardness and ignorance. Today, Spanish is the language that is spoken by most residents of Ecuador. 368

The Quechua today has approximately 12.5 million speakers, including 4.4 million in Peru, 2.2 million in Ecuador, 1.5 million in Bolivia, as well as 120,000 in Argentina, Colombia and in 4400, about 1000 in Chile and Brazil. (. Cerrón - Palomino zit n Shappeck ): 13

Dissemination of Media Lengua

Muysken assumes that the Media Lengua 1920-1940 was because as he ran in the 1970s, his field studies in Salcedo, most of the inhabitants who were over 50, only Quechua languages ​​and only the middle-aged people in the Media Lengua communicated. 374

The Media Lengua is both mother and second language of the Indian peasants and artisans who from the beginning of the 20th century " railway (...) from the highlands to Quito came ": 6, as well as the mother tongue of the population, which in the villages lives that are speaking between the "white" world of the Spanish people in the valleys and the habitat of the only Quechua -speaking native population are in the higher mountain regions. 121 Muysken calls this Media Lengua speaking population group as " Obreros. ": 374

Since the 1970s, the demographic and linguistic situation to Salcedo, however, has changed significantly. 35 An improved infrastructure makes it easier for the inhabitants of the higher areas to travel to the cities. Although there are great efforts to preserve the Quechua in this region, and the Spanish - Quechua to promote bilingualism, more and more people talk in and around Salcedo only Spanish. 35f.

Structure of Media Lengua considering the typological characteristics of the Spanish and Quechua

Distinction Spanish - Quechua

Phrase position

The standard Spanish has a SVO phrase position, the verb is therefore before the object. In Quechua, in turn, the object precedes the verb, the sentences have an SOV structure. 10

Morphology

The Quechua is a synthetic agglutinative language, that is, each affix is ​​exactly a carrier grammatical information and has a certain position in the morphological structure of the lexeme. Spanish is a synthetically merging language. An affix is ​​winner of several grammatical functions. 11

The suffix " imos " in the Spanish verb " comimos " ( We had ) expresses that it is the first -person plural present active indicative of the verb is "comer ". The same information is expressed by various suffixes in Quechua. 11 ​​This will be illustrated by the following example:

Quechua: " miku - ra - u - chu ": 12 ( We ate )

The affix " miku " stands for the verb "eat", "ra" for the past tense, "u" for the first person and " chu " for the plural. 12

Phonology

The sound system of Quechua has three phonemic vowels: / i / ( forward, closed) / u / ( rear, solid ) and / a / ( forward, open. ) ( Cerrón - Palomino zit n Shappeck. ): 12 In Peru and Bolivian Quechua enter the semi-closed vowels [e ] and [o ] often referred to as allophones of the two closed vowels / i / and / u / when / u / limits i / or / a uvular consonants. However, this rule does not apply to the Ecuadorian Quechua. 380

Spanish on the other hand has five phonemic vowels: / i /, / e /, / o /, / a /, and / u /. (. Cerrón - Palomino zit n Shappeck ): 12

Morphological features of Media Lengua

A special feature of Media Lengua is that a large majority - around 90 % - of the root words of Quechua was replaced by Spanish forms without thereby morphology, syntax and semantics of the Quechua change significantly: 37 This process is referred Muysken as Relexifikation: .. 366

The fact that so many Spanish words have been incorporated into the Quechua and the Relexifikation could take place to this extent, can be explained by the agglutinative structure of Quechua, as well as the fact that the grammatical information contained in Quechua in the suffixes and not in the word stems are. The removal of root words from Spanish, therefore, had no significant influence on grammatical processes. 31

After Muysken is " word roots and affixes (...) greatly. " Differ: 31 In Quechua the word stems are preceded by the affixes in principle, prefixes and infixes not exist:. 31 The word stems usually consist of two syllables, affixes only one. Furthermore, the affixes have a much more abstract meaning. Muysken denotes the affixes as " separate units": 31, which could also be subjected to a process of Relexifikation. It can be found in the Media Lengua individual cases in which Spanish suffixes are used, such as the affixes " ndu " ( gerund ) or " you " ( Resultativ ). 31 For the most part, however, the Relexifikation relates only to the strains, because most affixes were taken from the Quechua. 387

Due to the agglutinative structure of Quechua Spanish verbs can be easily converted into Quechua verbs, " trabajar " ( work ), for example, to " trabaxana " and " entender " (understand) to " intindi ". 384 Irregular Spanish verbs are in the Media Lengua treated as regular verbs. 383

Furthermore, takes place in the Media Lengua a combination of Spanish words in a single word instead of Media Lengua. This process is called Freezing:. 384Das Spanish "a mí " ( me), for example, is in the Media Lengua to "ami ". 384

Another process that can run in the adaptation of Spanish vocabulary in the Media Lengua, the reduplication. 384 Individual words in the Media Lengua are here doubled, as in the sentence "yo -ga -bin 'm Tixi -y -da Pudi -ni. ": 384 In Spanish, enters the " good "only once ". Yo puedo tejer muy bien ": 384 (I can well knit )

Phonological features of Media Lengua

A large part of the Spanish vocabulary is added to the Media Lengua, while phonologically adapted to the Quechua. The half-closed vowels [e ] and [o ], which does not exist as phonemic vowels in Ecuadorian Quechua, in the Media Lengua often replaced by the closed vowels [i ] and [u ], retained in name or interjections however. 366; 381 The verbs frequently occurring in the Media Lengua dizi " say " azi " make ", bini - "come" and Pudi - "may" are always pronounced with closed vowels, the pronoun yo ' I " bos " you " and el " he / she " but only in rare cases. 381

Syntactic features of Media Lengua

Phrase position

In the Media Lengua, there are mainly a SOV phrase position as in Quechua. While shows about 1 /5 of the examined by Muysken sentences whose verb phrases contain a verb and an object or an adverbial, a Spanish resembling SVO sentence structure, but this is also the case with other varieties of Quechua. 397

The comparative

In Quechua the comparative with the non- inflected verb " Yalli " ( excel ) is formed and the object with which something is compared receives the accusative " there." In the Media Lengua is " Yalli " by the form " gana " ( from the Spanish " ganar " / win ), which must always be inflected replaced. 397

Reasons for the emergence of Media Lengua

Muysken considers that the Media Lengua of the population in the region Salcedo is the possibility of their cultural identity, which is not in the pattern = Quechua Indian and Spanish = white suits to express. He refers to this as "sense of cultural indeterminacy. ": 377 try The Media Lengua Speaker " with the help of language to create its own identity that is congruent with neither the Spanish nor the ancestral Quechua. ": 6

Criticism of Muysken (after Dikker )

Muyskens representation of the structure of Media Lengua implies that this process of Relexifikation of other "normal" cases where language change due to language contact ( "contact induced language change": 123 ) take place, very different. 123

Dikker however disagrees and says that the Media Lengua not of standards or restrictions that apply to other situations of language contact deviates. 132

In her remarks she makes Sarah G. Thomason's borrowing scale: 129 before and placed the Media Lengua on the third step of this scale, in which mixed languages ​​can be classified. She based her decision that the spokesman for the Media Lengua have close contact with the Spanish and the latest generation of mainly Spanish, the oldest generation mostly speaks Quechua. 132

It is characteristic for the first stage of the borrowing scale that only an insignificant vocabulary from the source language (the language, were taken from the words) in the recipient language (the language, to be introduced in the new words) is borrowed. In the second stage, in addition to a minor vocabulary and phonological features or prepositions, and conjunctions are taken. In the third stage, here is loud Dikker the Media Lengua, almost all the features of a language can be borrowed. In the fourth stage finally complete bilingualism is reached. Either dominates the source language, or are both languages ​​equally. 129

Dikker is of the opinion that the features of Media Lengua using the borrowing scale Thomason to be explained. 132 Basic vocabulary and affixes " ndu ", " -itu/-ita " and " do" were from Spanish into Media Lengua taken. 131 does not share the view Muyskens that the Media Lengua significantly different from other mixed languages ​​. 132

Muysken, however, claims that the fact that more than 90 % of the Spanish vocabulary borrowed in the Media Lengua were - these are more than twice as many words as in other cases of items borrowed Spanish vocabulary is the Quechua proof that in the process of developing the Media Lengua not just a normal case of borrowing ( "regular borrowing ": 130) may have worked, but Relexifikation must have taken place. 130 Dikker however sees as the cause of the large number of items borrowed rather the special social conditions under which the Media Lengua arose. The language did not develop due to a communicative need of the people, but because of the desire for its own identity. 130