by Doctor Science
This is a re-blog of something I submitted to Language Log back in early November, about some historical references to new languages forming in groups of children.
I happened to be reading (parts of) Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (Chambers, 1844) and I came across his discussion of language change and evolution. Chambers wrote:
The able and self-devoted Robert Moffat, in his work on South Africa, states, without the least regard to hypothesis, that amongst the people of the towns of that great region, “the purity and harmony of language is kept up by their pitchos or public meetings, by their festivals and ceremonies, as well as by their songs and their constant intercourse. With the isolated villages of the desert it is far otherwise. They have no such meetings; they are compelled to traverse the wilds, often to a great distance from their native village. On such occasions, fathers and mothers, and all who can bear a burden, often set out for weeks at a time, and leave their children to the care of two or three infirm old people. The infant progeny, some of whom are beginning to lisp, while others can just master a whole sentence, and those still farther advanced, romping and playing together, the children of nature, through the live-long day, become habituated to a language of their own. The more voluble condescend to the less precocious, and thus, from this infant Babel, proceeds a dialect composed of a host of mongrel words and phrases, joined together without rule, and in the course of a generation the entire character of the language is changed.” [317 - Missionary Scenes and Labours in South Africa; p10-11] I have been told, that in like manner the children of the Manchester factory workers, left for a great part of the day, in large assemblages, under the care of perhaps a single elderly person, and spending the time in amusements, are found to make a great deal of new language.Italics in original.
I haven't been able to find an obvious source for the info about Manchester day care, in a superficial search. It's also unclear to me which languages Moffat is talking about in the quoted excerpt: whether they're Bantu or Khoisan.
Language Log readers may be interested in this quote, and also in considering what other day-care-type situations might encourage rapid language change. Orphanages? Child labor gangs? Refugee camps? … the Internet?
Rodger C. commented:
I've read somewhere of such a language once spoken by breaker boys in the anthracite region of Pennsylvania. Its remaining speakers are elderly and are divided among those who want to preserve its memory and those who despise it as "broken English" and a product of a bad time.Various Language Loggers tried, but so far no-one has been able to track down the reference.
Joyce Melton said:
When I was about three, my parents worked in the cotton fields in Casa Grande, Arizona. There were no babysitters, the pay was so good that anyone who could drag a cotton sack around was making so much money they would not take any other job. Even the guys who owned the field were picking cotton.All us littles were corralled under the water wagons, English speakers, Spanish speakers, local Indian language speakers, hemmed in by boxes, tanks and big wooden spools. In less than two weeks we were all jabbering away at each other in who knows what pastiche.
I only remember one word from that gumbo: pronounced "kitty" it meant, "want". It was years later that I realized it was from the Spanish "quiere".
Too bad I didn't take notes.
When I read the bits from "Vestiges", I immediately thought of Nicaraguan (and other) sign languages, and of creoles — but both the examples I found, and the breaker boys language, imply that the process might take place even when all the children are starting with the same birth language.
I think whatever is going on with African urban youth languages (anyone have a good summary link?) may also be related, though I'm not sure how much input they have from pre-adolescent speakers. Similarly with language change on the Internet, which is dominated by 15-22 year-olds, with little input from pre-adolescents.
Research on Nicaraguan Sign suggests that the natural development of a true language (with its own grammar) requires some number of pre-adolescent human brains, so groups of teenagers are likely to develop all kinds of jargon, but not really grammar.
On the other hand: my experience on the internet, especially tumblr, shows that a population with very few pre-adolescents *can* develop a grammatically fluid language, to some extent.
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