English on Croker Island

The Synchronic and Diachronic Dynamics of Contact and Variation

Robert Mailhammer

• Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9783110707946
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Idiomas

Existing accounts of Australian Aboriginal English do not investigate the significant degree of variation found across the continent. This book presents the first description of English spoken on Croker Island, Northern Territory, Australia, in terms of its history, linguistic features and connections to local Aboriginal languages. It demonstrates that English on Croker Island shows an extremely high degree of intra- and inter-speaker variation and embedding in a longstanding multilingual contact situation, both of which challenge existing models of variation and language contact. These results have significant ramifications for how variation is modelled, for our understanding of how postcolonial Englishes develop, as well as for the dynamics of complex contact situations. The book also puts English on Croker Island into a typological context of World Englishes by establishing a profile according to the parameters of the World Atlas of Varieties of English (WAVE). It is of interest to academics interested in Australian Aboriginal English, language contact, World Englishes and Australian Aboriginal languages.

1 Overview and context

1.1 Introduction

The goal of this book is to identify features in the English spoken on Croker Island, Northern Territory, Australia, whose origin could be explained as resulting from contact with local Aboriginal languages. The two key challenges that form the underlying theme of this book are the variation found in the data and the elusive nature of the effects of language contact, both in terms of features and source languages. In both respects English on Croker Island has remained a “moving target” (thanks to Brett Baker, p. c., for suggesting this term, see also Schmid 2020). There are two main conclusions the book draws from trying to deal with these challenges. First, English on Croker Island has not stabilised into one variety, and this is most likely because of long-term fluidity in input and usage patterns. Second, contact features are so difficult to pin down because of a historical layering of contact situations and a synchronic co-existence of contact situations and contact patterns, and all of this in various multilingual settings. These diachronic and synchronic layers all soak up contact features to various degrees, so that effects of contact are effectively dispersed and thus diluted. As a result, contact is not only difficult to diagnose and ascertain, but it is often unclear whether features are actually part of the repertoire of English(es) on Croker Island.

These conclusions have more general implications for language contact theory, because it is expected that the case described here is not a singular case. Aboriginal English in general, and other, similar cases are expected to share the same phenomena. It is for instance questionable whether Aboriginal English is really so homogenous as e.g. described in Malcolm (2018), and whether non-standard features actually are generally explainable through contact with Aboriginal languages, as e.g. Butcher (2008) thinks. More generally, the variability of English on Croker suggests that language shift scenarios and creolisation may have similar outcomes, which is supported by similar conclusions from other studies. Furthermore, the elusiveness of contact as a result of diachronic and synchronic layering in multilingual settings is likely to be found elsewhere, and it may be a reason for the elusive nature of “substratum influence” more generally (see e.g. Matras 2009).

The book lays out these considerations as follows. The remainder of this introduction supplies the context this study has to be seen in, namely English in Australia, Aboriginal English as a label and as a linguistic phenomenon, as well as the theoretical context of language contact and variation. In chapter 2, I present the sociohistorical background of English on Croker Island. Chapters 3 to 5 provide a linguistic description of English on Croker Island, especially against the backdrop of the World Atlas of Variation in English (WAVE), which is one of the standard typologies of varieties of English. Where possible, I make connections to substrate features. In chapters 6 to 8, I elaborate on the diachronic, synchronic and theoretical dimensions of English on Croker Island, with special focus on variation and contact-induced change. In chapter 9, I summarise the main results of the book and draw conclusions with more general relevance to theories of language contact and language variation.

1.2 Macro context: Linguistic processes affecting English in Australia

The history of English in Australia begins in 1788 with the arrival of the so-called First Fleet in what is now Botany Bay in Sydney. The linguistic effects of this arrival and subsequent developments can be summarised with the following three words: loss, restructuring, koinésation. The first term applies to Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages, the second to ethnolectal varieties of English in Australia, including Aboriginal English, as well as creoles and pidgins, and the third to Australian English, which developed through the interactions among the invaders, Aboriginal people and subsequent immigrants from diverse backgrounds. In the following I will make a terminological difference between varieties of English, restructured or contact Englishes and contact languages.

The first can either refer neutrally to all varieties of English or specifically to varieties of English that have not been influenced by other languages through imposition (see Coetsem 2000 and 2.3 below), e.g. Standard Australian English. The second refers to varieties of English that have been influenced by other languages through imposition, e.g. Irish English (e.g. Hickey 2007). The third refers to languages that are the result of contact between English and other languages, but which would not be seen as a variety of English, e.g. creoles, such as Kriol in parts of the Northern Territory (see e.g. Munro 2004). The distinction between the second and the third type has been the subject of some debate. However, this is largely irrelevant to this book (see chapters 8 and 9 for some discussion). ­Nevertheless, I will differentiate between Kriol and English, because English on Croker Island is clearly neither Standard Australian English nor Kriol, but nevertheless a variety of English that clearly has been affected by contact.

The arrival of English has had three major effects in Australia, language loss and shift, koinésation and restructuring. Of these three, restructuring is most directly relevant for this book, though the other two play a part. I will give brief summaries of relevant backgrounds to all of them beginning with loss, followed by koinésation and ending with restructuring, as this will lead into section 3, which covers Aboriginal English.

1.2.1 Language loss as a consequence of English arriving in Australia

The impact of English on the Indigenous languages and, in fact, any other language in Australia, has been devastating (see e.g. Mühlhäusler 1996a: 11–12 for an overview). Most of the about 250 languages spoken in Australia before European contact have become extinct or are severely endangered (Karidakis and Kelly 2018). Despite some efforts to maintain and revitalise Indigenous languages, perhaps 20–25 languages are in a healthy state and will make it into the next generation and possibly beyond (see data in Karidakis and Kelly 2018: 116). Generally, languages in more remote areas are healthiest. Among the most viable languages with relevance to this book are Kunwinjku (a dialect of Bininj Gunwok), Yolngu Matha and Mawng, spoken in Arnhem Land; see Map 1 for languages ­traditionally spoken in Northwestern Arnhem Land, which are particularly relevant for this book.

Map 1: Traditional languages in Northwestern Arnhem Land (Mailhammer and Harvey 2018: 330).

There are two main reasons for this steep decline over a relatively short period of time (less than 250 years). First, there is the decimation of the speaker base as a result of annihilation by war or disease, which has directly contributed to the loss of languages. This decline in the speaker base is all the more serious as speaker numbers in Australian languages have traditionally been rather small. Many languages were probably stable for millennia with speaker bases of less than 500 people (Evans 2010: 7). For example, the Northern Australian language Gurr-Goni probably never had more than around 70 speakers (Green 2004).

The reported number of Iwaidja speakers in 1938, at a time when the language was still viable, was estimated to be around 50 (Capell 1962: 129). In several cases, such as Tasmania, extermination of the local population was systematic and resulted in the almost traceless loss of languages (Bowern 2012). As a result, very little is known about Tasmanian languages (Bowern 2012: 4591). Many other languages vanished leaving nothing but their name behind, such as Manangkari on North Goulburn Island off the Arnhem Land coast, and it is likely that a considerable number of other languages have vanished without any record at all. On Croker Island, decline in speaker numbers is a significant factor that contributes to language shift, especially if key community leaders pass away. Such is the case for Iwaidja, where key elders have passed away in a relatively short amount of time over the past ten years, leaving the community vulnerable to language shift.

Second, languages have ceased to be spoken as a result of language shift. Patterns of shift are somewhat diverse (see e.g. Fishman 2001; Clyne 2003; Hickey 2010; and more generally see Winford 2003; Thomason 2008; Thomason and Kaufman 1988). Often the process of shift is gradual and slow, taking multiple generations, but sometimes it is very quick. For instance, the shift to English in Australia by recent immigrants can be almost instantaneous, i.e. within one generation, but it can be slower, taking more than three generations (see Clyne 2003). In some cases, shift takes centuries, as e.g. in the case of the shift from Punic to Latin after the demise of the Carthaginian empire or in the case of local languages in Italy after Roman conquest (Adams 2003). In Australia, language shift probably started soon after the arrival of the First Fleet and continues today. Sometimes the shift was rapid, e.g. in the case of displacement (see for example the case of Kayardild related in Evans 2010), but in other cases it is ongoing, e.g. in Iwaidja.

In the context of Croker Island, shift is a significant factor. Iwaidja has gone from a relatively safe language 15 years ago to an endangered language, as acquisition by children is uncertain. The traditional language of Croker Island, Marrku, has ceased to be spoken, and it is unclear what knowledge is still accessible. ­Basically, the same can be said for Ilgar, a language formerly spoken on neighbouring islands to the east, and its sister language Garig, traditionally spoken on the Cobourg Peninsula opposite Croker Island to the south-west. Other languages spoken on Croker Island are endangered or critically endangered. For example, Amurdak, a language further to the south is spoken by a handful of people, two of whom live on Croker Island. However, there are also Indigenous languages that are targets of language shift, and which have actually increased in terms of speaker numbers, e.g. Kunwinjku and Mawng (Karidakis and Kelly 2018: 112). In fact, Kunwinjku and Mawng are probably the strongest Indigenous languages on Croker Island at the moment, and some Iwaidja families show a degree of shift to these languages in addition to English. The shift to English is, as in most parts of Indigenous Australia, an ongoing process. This has to be seen in the context of the dominance of English in Australia more generally, with 79% of the population speaking only English at home, according to census data (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2017).

However, as this book argues, it is not clear what the result of this shift is. It is not obvious that children now speak a more st...