LINGUIST List 15.1822

Wed Jun 16 2004

Qs: Immigrant Lang; Zipf Law

Editor for this issue: Andrea Berez <andrealinguistlist.org>

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Directory

  • Lars Anders Kulbrandstad, Names of Foreigner or Immigrant Varieties
  • Rania Voskaki, The Zipf Law Cross-Linguistically

    Message 1: Names of Foreigner or Immigrant Varieties

     Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 10:50:50 -0400 (EDT)
    From: Lars Anders Kulbrandstad <lars.kulbrandstadluh.hihm.no>
    Subject: Names of Foreigner or Immigrant Varieties


    In an ongoing research project I explore what varieties spoken by foreigners and immigrants are called in various languages. I am interested in different kinds of designations: names of learner language in general, of immigrant varieties in particular groups or in general, of mixed varieties in multiethnic milieus and of more permanent varieties in groups with a background in given first languages. The purpose of the study is to develop a typology of such names and to analyse what ideas and attitudes might lay behind them.

    In Scandinavia GEBROKKEN ('broken�Euro') is the traditional general label in Danish and Norwegian for more or less faulty attempts to speak a foreign language; in Swedish it's BRUTEN ('broken'). Then there are less common appellations like KAUDERVELSK (Kauder Welsh in origin probably used about the language spoken by Italian merchants in southern Germany) and LABBELENSK (possibly a corruption of lapplandsk 'Lapplandish'). Among the more recent names I have registred so far are KEBABNORSK (''Kebab Norwegian''), PAKKISNORSK (''Pakistani Norwegian''), JALLANORSK (''Yalla Norwegian'' - most likely from the Arabic injection yalla 'hurry up'), VOLLANORSK (''Wallah Norwegian" from Arabic wa-ll (I swear) by Allah), RINKEBYSVENSKA (''Rinkeby Swedish'' - Rinkeby is a suburb in Stockholm) and PERKERDANSK (''Perker Danish'' - probably formed from per(ser) 'Persian' and tyr(ker) 'Turk'').

    I would now like to broaden the scope and include names and epithets from other languages and would be grateful for any help with the data collection. Please include as much information about each item as possible (sense, emotive value, origin, distribution etc.).

    I will post a summary of our contributions.

    Lars Anders Kulbrandstad Hedmark University College Norway

    Message 2: The Zipf Law Cross-Linguistically

     Date: Mon, 14 Jun 2004 15:01:24 +0000
    From: Rania Voskaki <rvoskakihotmail.com>
    Subject: The Zipf Law Cross-Linguistically


    Dear colleagues,

    I would be grateful to you if you could let me know whether there are any studies on the Zipf low cross-linguistically? I am very much interested in studies using developmental data.

    Thank you, Best wishes, Rania Voskaki PhD student Aristotle University of Thessaloniki