The birth of a language

Linguists are rarely able to observe or document the ‘birth’ of a language, or even to pinpoint its precise time of emergence. Languages are transmitted from one generation to another and even phases in the history of a single language, let alone the breaking away of varieties to form new idioms, are a result of a gradual accumulation of changes over many generations. The exception are languages that emerge as a result of language contact. Such languages have been referred to as ‘contact languages’ (see Thomason 1997c and 1997e, Sebba 1997, Bruyn 1996). By this definition we exclude from the notion of ‘contact languages’ cases of heavy borrowing that are a result of prolonged contact over many generations and so of gradual accumulation of change, and concentrate on those where the rise of a new idiom is relatively abrupt – often within just one or two generations (cf. Bakker 1996, 2000a, Bakker and Muysken 1995).

A defining feature of contact languages is their function as a new medium of communication, the need for which arises in a situation of cross-language interaction among population groups in a variety of settings, ranging from minimal social contact and just occasional encounters for the purpose of trade, on to regular interethnic communication in a common socio-economic framework, and on to intense social contacts among groups speaking different languages within the same community and even within the same household.