THE LANGUAGES OF A BILINGUAL COMMUNITY JANUA LINGUARUM STUDIA MEMORIAE NICOLAI YAN WIJK DEDICATA edenda curai C. H. YAN SCHOONEVELD INDIANA UNIVERSITY SERIES PRACTICA 77 1970 MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS THE LANGUAGES OF A BILINGUAL COMMUNITY by J. R. RAYFIELD YORK UNIVERSITY 1970 MOUTON THE HAGUE • PARIS © Copyright 1970 in The Netherlands. Mouton & Co. N.V., Publishers, The Hague. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 73-106457 Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague. TABLE OF CONTENTS NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION 7 1. INTRODUCTION 9 1.1 Introduction 9 1.2 Definition of Terms 11 1.3 Methods 11 2. SPEECH HABITS AND ATTITUDES OF THE COMMUNITY 14 2.1 The Community — Socio-Cultural Background 14 2.2 The Languages of the Community 19 2.2.1 Yiddish and English 19 2.2.2 Hebrew 21 2.2.3 Russian 22 2.2.4 Polish 24 2.2.5 German 25 2.2.6 Other Languages 26 2.3 Categories Based on Speech Behavior and Attitudes towards Language 26 2.3.1 The Yiddish Intellectuals 28 2.3.2 The Yiddish Monolinguals 35 2.3.3 The English Speakers 36 2.3.4 The Bilingual Majority 40 2.4 Factors Influencing the Speech Behavior and Attitudes of the Com- munity 42 2.4.1 Summary of Characteristics of Categories 42 2.4.2 Factors Determining Membership of Categories . . .. 43 2.4.3 Conclusion 52 3. THE LANGUAGES OF THE BILINGUAL MAJORITY 53 3.1 Introduction 53 3.2 Switching 54 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS 3.2.1 In Response to the Immediate Social or Speech Situation . 55 3.2.2 As a Rhetorical Device 56 3.3 Interference 58 3.3.1 Lexical Interference 58 3.3.2 Lexical-Structural Interference 62 3.3.3 Structural Interference 64 3.3.4 Structural-Phonic Interference 71 3.3.5 Phonic Interference 78 3.3.6 Summary: Interference Between Yiddish and English . .. 85 4. FACTORS DETERMINING INTERFERENCE BETWEEN THE LANGUAGES OF A BILINGUAL COMMUNITY 86 4.1 Comparison of Bilingual Situations 86 4.1.1 Yiddish and the Slavic Languages 86 4.1.2 Yiddish and Hebrew 89 4.1.3 Yiddish and English 93 4.1.4 Norwegian and English 94 4.2 Conclusions 99 4.2.1 Current Hypotheses Regarding Interference 99 4.2.2 Factors Influencing Interference 103 4.2.3 Summary 107 APPENDIX A: List of Informants 108 APPENDIX B: Recollection Test 110 APPENDIX C: Questionnaire 112 BIBLIOGRAPHY 114 INDEX 117 NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION In transliterating Yiddish words from a written text, I have used the system devised by Yivo (the Yiddish Scientific Institute) and used by Uriel Weinreich. (U. Weinreich, 1954: vii). 1 3 « -<— a 1 -<— y (as glide) ts o -<— i (as vowel) P k 3 -s- b <- k i -«- r 2 -<- v kh •«- sh a 1 g h Ü -«- s D n d m -s- t -<— n n h 2 -<— n -e- s 0 u s •I>S•> -<— ey * -<— z S e ay n -<— kh 2 P ••1 -e- oy B -<— t S •*- f Hebrew words in Yiddish are spelled with the consonants only. In transliterating them I have supplied appropriate vowels. In their spelling, Yiddish writers sometimes indicate and sometimes ignore the major dialectical variations, which consist mainly of changes in vowels. Thus the word for 'come' is always written kumen, though speakers of Polish dialects pronounce it kimen. But the word for 'cow' is usually written ku or ki according to the pronunciation. In transcribing oral texts I have transliterated phonemically in accordance with the pronunciation I heard. Thus the word for 'use' appears sometimes as nutsn, sometimes as nitsn. The Hebrew characters in which Yiddish is written make no distinction between small and capital letters. In transliterating I have used a capital letter for names of persons but not for the beginning of a sentence. 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 INTRODUCTION The object of this study is to contribute to knowledge of the processes by which a language changes under the influence of contact with another language. The material for the study is the speech of a community of Jewish immigrants who came to the United States from eastern Europe forty or fifty years ago. It was found that most members of the community speak both Yiddish and English, each language being subject to a high degree of interference from the other. These mixed languages are taken as typical of the language of one type of bilingual, i.e., the speaker who has learned his second language as a young adult and used it for a long time. They are described in Part 3 of the study with special attention to the amount and nature of interference in each direction. Part 2 consists of background material necessary to justify the use as prototypes of the languages described in Part 3. It deals with the speech habits of all sections of the community, including the minority who do not speak the mixed languages described in Part 3. Speech habits are correlated with social, cultural and psychological factors which may have influenced them. Special attention is given to (1) the situations in which the native language and English are used; (2) the attitudes of speakers to the native language and to English; and (3) the relative proficiency of speakers in the languages they use. In Part 4 the data obtained by observation of the community is used in conjunction with the work of other linguists to formulate hypotheses about factors determining the amount and nature of interference between languages in contact. Comparisons are made between: (1) the interference situation between the two languages of the present community; (2) the interference situation between the immigrants' primary language and other languages with which it has been in contact in the past; and (3) the interference situation between English and the primary language of another immigrant group in the United States. Since language is both a part of a culture and a reflection of the whole of a culture, a study of the languages of an immigrant group should illustrate the process of 10 INTRODUCTION acculturation, indicating the features of the old culture most persistently retained and the features of the new most readily adopted. The differences in language behavior of various categories within the immigrant community might be expected to reflect difference in degree and manner of acculturation. A language is a system, or rather a system of sub-systems, such as the phonemic system, the morphological system, and the syntactical system. Therefore an examination of the changes in the sub-systems of a language under the influences of the corresponding sub-systems of another language should yield information about the relative stability of the various sub-systems of a language system and the processes of second language learning. The questions to be posed, therefore, are both linguistic and cultural. Linguistic questions are: (1) What kinds of interference — lexical, structural and phonic — occur in each direction? What is the relative strength of each kind of interference in each direction? (2) How does the pattern of interference between the primary language and English compare with that between the primary language and other languages with which it has been in contact ? (3) How does the pattern of interference compare with that between English and another immigrant language ? It will be found that the answers to these questions relate closely to cultural as well as linguistic factors. The following questions regarding the cultural background of the speakers will be considered: (1) In what situations is each language, i.e., the primary and the secondary, used? (2) What are the attitudes to the use of each language in various situations? (3) What are the relative degrees and kinds of proficiency in the two languages? (4) How do the answers to the above questions vary according to the background of the immigrants in the old country and their experiences in the new ? Similar questions have been treated by Einar Haugen (1953) and Uriel Weinreich (1953b). In the present study, advantage will be taken of the situation in the community being studied, in which the constant factors, age and length of residence, provide a background against which variables may more easily be studied. With few exceptions, the immigrants studied are all old people who came to the United States as young adults about forty or fifty years ago. Their speech behavior is described in relation to certain variables, of which the most important are: (1) Experiences in the old country: languages spoken in the home, learned in school or elsewhere; attitudes of parents, children and neighbors to languages and to Jewish and non-Jewish culture. (2) Experiences in America: opportunities for and attitudes towards education in English-language culture; degree and nature of contact with general American culture.

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