Past Event

Contact features in Michif and Inuktitut

Timothy Di Leo Browne
Carleton University

This presentation will focus on linguistic contact as it pertains to two Indigenous languages of Canada: Michif, in which contact has been central the language’s identity (Bakker 1997), and Inuktitut, which has been conservative even with respect to the borrowing of technical vocabulary (Penney and Sammons 1997). Contact influence – the influence of one language or dialect on another – is an important motivator of linguistic change, but until recently it took something of a back seat to genetic lineage in discussions of historical linguistics. Along with coincidence and onomatopoeia, contact is among the linguistic phenomena that historical linguists often hoped to “rule out” when assessing similarities between languages; demonstrating genetic relationship remains, to a large extent, the gold star of the discipline.

Furthermore, without clear proof of contact, linguists have tended to prefer explanations involving internal or “natural” change over those that appeal to external influence because of the apparent simplicity of the former. Contact has received considerably more attention in the past 20 years (Thomason 2001, Hickey 2010, Chamoreau and Léglise 2012). If genetic lineage is the “nature” in language, contact influence is the equally important “nurture”. In considering the different situations of Michif – a mixed language combining Cree verbs and French nouns – and Inuktitut, I hope to demonstrate that contact has played an important role in both. I will argue, as well, that prescriptivism and other deliberate manipulations of language (Thomason 2007) are themselves a form of contact, and that the line between what one considers “natural” and “unnatural” change may need to be reexamined.

About the Presenter

Timothy Di Leo Browne is a Ph.D. candidate and contract instructor in Carleton University’s School of Canadian Studies and School of Linguistics and Language Studies (SLALS). His current work focuses on linguistic contact, particularly between Indigenous and European languages.