Cover not available
Part of
Language Contact, Continuity and Change in the Genesis of Modern Hebrew
Edited by Edit Doron, Malka Rappaport Hovav, Yael Reshef and Moshe Taube
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 256] 2019
► pp. 257–286

Can there be language continuity in language contact?

| The Ohio State University
The paper argues that contact-induced change is no more unusual or “inorganic” than any sort of language change, and that it does not affect the basic continuity that language transmission across generations ensures. Language continuity depends on an unbroken line of transmission, which may be preserved not only in cases of system-internal changes, but also in changes induced by language contact, even in creoles and mixed languages. The paper illustrates these points by examining three cases of language contact: Judezmo (Judeo-Spanish spoken by Jewish communities in the Balkans before World War II); the Constantinople Judeo-Greek dialect of the 16th century; the diglossia in 19th century Greece between Demotic and Katharevousa.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Case study #1: Judezmo
  • 3.Case study #2: Judeo-Greek of Ottoman Constantinople
  • 4.Case study #3: Greek diglossia
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 18 September 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.256.10jos
References (41)
References
Andersen, Henning. 1973. Abductive and deductive change. Language 49(4): 765–793. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baldissera, Valeria. 2013. The Griko Dialect of Salento: Balkan Features and Linguistic Contact. PhD dissertation, Ca' Foscari University of Venice.Google Scholar
. 2015. Dissertation Summary – The Griko dialect of Salento: Balkan features and linguistic contact. Journal of Greek Linguistics 15(2): 171–179. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Belléli, Lazare. 1890. Une version grecque du Pentateuque du sixième siècle. Revue des Etudes Grecques 3: 1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Björck, Gudmund. 1940. Ἦν διδάσκων: Die periphrastischen Konstruktionen im Griechischen. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Blass, Friedrich & Debrunner Albert. 1961. A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Cambridge: CUP .Google Scholar
Brown, Christopher G. 2011. Review article – Doing without the Fez: Greek Language Questions. Journal of Greek Linguistics 11: 249–257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bunis, David M. 1999. Voices from Jewish Salonika. Jerusalem-Thessaloniki: Misgav Yerushalayim, National Authority for Ladino Culture, Ets Ahaim foundation of Thessaloniki.Google Scholar
Chambers, John & Trudgill, Peter. 1980. Dialectology. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Clogg, Richard. 1992. A Concise History of Greece. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Crews, Cynthia. 1935. Recherches sur le judéo-espagnol dans les pays balkaniques. Paris: E. Droz.Google Scholar
Ferguson, Charles. 1959. Diglossia. Word 15: 325–340. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feuillet, Jack. 1986. La linguistiqaue balkanique [Cahiers Balkaniques 10]. Paris: INALCO.Google Scholar
Friedman, Victor A. 2003. Evidentiality in the Balkans with special attention to Macedonian and Albanian. In Studies in Evidentiality [Typological Studies in Language 54], Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald & Robert M. W. Dixon (eds), 189–218. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Victor A. & Joseph, Brian D. 2014. Lessons from Judezmo about the Balkan Sprachbund and contact linguistics. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 226: 3–23.Google Scholar
to appear, 2020. The Balkan Languages. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Hesseling Dirk C. 1897. Les cinq livres de la loi (Le pentateuque), Traduction en néo-grec publiée en caractères hébraïques à Constantinople en 1547 transcrite et accompagnée d’une introduction, d’un glossaire, et d’un fac-simile. Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Joseph, Brian D. 1983. The Synchrony and Diachrony of the Balkan Infinitive: A Study in Areal, General, and Historical Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
1990. Morphology and Universals in Syntactic Change: Evidence from Medieval and Modern Greek [Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics Series]. New York NY: Garland. (Expanded and updated version of Harvard University PhD dissertation, 1978.)Google Scholar
1992. Diachronic explanation: Putting speakers back into the picture. In Explanation in Historical Linguistics [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 84], Garry Davis & Gregory Iverson (eds), 123–144. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000. Processes of spread for syntactic constructions in the Balkans. In Balkan Linguistik: Synchronie und Diachronie, Christos Tzitzilis & Charalambos Symeonidis (eds), 139–150. Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.Google Scholar
2001. Is there such a thing as “grammaticalization”? Language Sciences 23(2–3): 163–186. Special issue Grammaticalization: A Critical Assessment, Lyle Campbell (ed.).Google Scholar
2011. Children rule, or do they (as far as innovations are concerned)? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14(2): 156–158. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Joseph, Brian D. & Janda, Richard D. (eds.). 2003. The Handbook of Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krivoruchko, Julia G. 2008. The Constantinople Pentateuch within the context of Septuagint studies. In XIII Congress of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Ljubljana, 2007, Melvin K. H. Peters (ed.), 255–276. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.Google Scholar
2014. Medieval and Early Modern Judaeo-Greek biblical translations. A linguistic perspective. In The Jewish-Greek Tradition in Antiquity and the Byzantine Empire, James K. Aitken & James Carleton Paget (eds), 152–170. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mackridge, Peter. 2009. Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766–1976. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Markopoulos, Theodoros. 2009. The Future in Greek. From Ancient to Medieval. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Meillet, Antoine. 1904–5. Comment les mots changent de sens. L’Année Sociologique 9: 1–38.Google Scholar
. 1929. Le développement des langues. Continu et discontinu, 119ff. Paris: Bloud et Gay.Google Scholar
Oz, Amos & Oz-Salzberger, Fania. 2012. Jews and Words. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Pappas, Panayiotis & Joseph, Brian D. 2002. On some recent views concerning the development of the Greek future system. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 26: 247–273. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rohlfs, Gerhard. 1958. La perdita dell’infinitivo nelle lingue balcaniche e nell’Italia meridionale. Omagiu lui Iorgu Iordan cu prilejul împlinirii a 70 de ani, 733–744. Bucuresti.Google Scholar
Sala, Marius. 1971. Phonétique et phonologie du Judéo-Espagnol de Bucarest [Janua Linguarum Series Practica 142]. The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slobin, Dan I. 2016. Thinking for speaking and the construction of evidentiality in language contact. In Exploring the Turkish Linguistic Landscape: Essays in Honor of Eser Erguvanlı-Taylan [Studies in Language Companion Series 175], Mine Güven, Didar Akar, Balkız Öztürk & Meltem Kelepir (eds), 105–120. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah G. 2001. Language Contact. An Introduction. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah G. & Kaufman, Terrence. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Thumb, Albert. 1964. A Handbook of the Modern Greek Language. Grammar, Texts, Glossary. Chicago IL: Argonaut (reprinting of 1912 edn.).Google Scholar
Varol, Marie-Christine. 2001. Calques morphosyntaxiques du turc en judéo-espagnol: Mécanismes et limites. Langues de diaspora, langues en contact (Faits de Langues 18), Anaïd Donabédian (ed.), 85–99. Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar
Wexler, Paul. 1981. Jewish interlinguistics. Language 57(1): 99–149. DOI logoGoogle Scholar