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Article published In:
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
Vol. 32:2 (2017) ► pp.263–303

On the origin of some Northern Songhay mixed languages

| Payap University |
| Edge-Hill University |

This paper discusses the origins of linguistic elements in three Northern Songhay languages of Niger and Mali: Tadaksahak, Tagdal and Tasawaq. Northern Songhay languages combine elements from Berber languages, principally Tuareg forms, and from Songhay; the latter provides inflectional morphology and much of the basic vocabulary, while the former is the source of most of the rest of the vocabulary, especially less basic elements. Subsets of features of Northern Songhay languages are compared with those of several stable mixed languages and mixed-lexicon creoles, and in accounting for the origin of these languages the kind of language mixing found in Northern Songhay languages is compared with that found in the (Algonquian) Montagnais dialect of Betsiamites, Quebec. The study shows that Tagdal and the other Northern Songhay languages could be construed as mixed languages, although the proportion of Berber and Songhay elements varieties somewhat between these languages, and also indicates that the definition of ‘mixed language’ is labile because different mixed languages combine their components in different ways, so that different kinds of mixed languages need to be recognized. NS languages seem to belong to the category of Core-Periphery languages with respect to the origins of more versus less basic morphemes.

Keywords: mixed language, Northern Songhay, Tagdal, Tadaksahak, Tasawaq, Korandje, Tabarog
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Overview, sociolinguistic history of the sub-region
    • 1.2Previous literature on NS languages
  • 2.A comparison of several typologically salient grammatical structures and a note on basic lexicon
    • 2.1Aspects of inflectional morphology
      • 2.1.1Pronouns
      • 2.1.2Negation
      • 2.1.3Tense, Aspect, Mode
    • 2.2Issues in derivational morphology
      • 2.2.1Causative (nomadic Tagdal, Tadaksahak)
      • 2.2.2Causative (sedentary Tasawaq)
      • 2.2.3Reflexive prefix (nomadic varieties only)
      • 2.2.4ʃarayen construction
      • 2.2.5Passive (Nomadic varieties only)
      • 2.2.6Syntactic construction with same function as Passive voice
    • 2.3Basic lexicon in Northern Songhay languages
  • 3.Comparison with other contact languages
  • 4.Review of the data and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.32.2.03ben
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