Substratum

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In linguistics, a substratum (lat. sub: under + stratum: layer => lower layer) is a language which influences another one while that second language supplants it. The term is also used of substrate interference, i.e. the influence exerted by the substratum language on the supplanting language. According to some classifications, this is one of three main types of linguistic interference: substratum interference differs from both adstratum, which involves mutual borrowing between languages of roughly equal prestige and no language replacement, and superstratum, which refers to the influence a socially dominating language has on another, receding language.

In a typical case of substrate intereference, a language A occupies a given territory, and another language B arrives in the same territory (brought, for example, with migrations of population). Then language B begins to supplant language A: the speakers of language A abandon their own language in favour of B, generally because they believe that it is in their best (e.g. economic, political, cultural, social) interests to do so. During the language shift, however, the receding language A still influences language B (for example, through the transfer of loanwords, place-names, or grammatical patterns from A to B).

For example, Gaulish is a substratum of French. A Celtic people, the Gauls, lived in the current French-speaking territory before the arrival of the Romans. Given the cultural, economic and political prestige which Latin enjoyed, the Gauls eventually abandoned their language in favour of Latin, which evolved in this region until eventually it took the form of Modern French. The Gaulish speech disappeared, but it remains detectable in some French words (approximately ninety) as well as place-names of Gaulish origin.

Another example is the influence of the North Germanic Norn language, extinct since the 18th century, in the Scots dialects of the Shetland and Orkney Islands.

Linguistic substrata may be difficult to detect, especially if the substratum language and its nearest relatives are extinct. For example. the earliest form of the Germanic languages may have been influenced by a non-Indo-European language, purportedly the source of about one-quarter of the most ancient Germanic word-stock; see Germanic substrate hypothesis.

[edit] Other uses

The word also has some other uses, referring to something underlying, something supporting. In horticulture: materials allowing the binding of roots of a plant. In metaphysics, the substratum is the real "thing-in-itself" or hypokeimenon which lies "beneath" or "beyond" appearances and perception of the thing.