Media Lengua

Media Lengua
Native to	Ecuador
Native speakers	2,600  (2005, 2011)[1][2]
Language family	mixed Quechua–Spanish
Language codes
ISO 639-3	mue (Salcedo Media Lengua)
Glottolog	medi1245[3]

This audio clip is a brief sample of the Media Lengua language spoken in Pijal, Imbabura, Ecuador. The recording was produced during an elicitation session where the speaker was asked to orally translate Spanish sentences. This audio clip contains subtitles in: English, Quichua, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. Media Lengua is also available, but Wiki subtitles currently has no a language code for this language.

Media Lengua, also known as Chaupi-shimi, Chaupi-lengua, Chaupi-Quichua, Quichuañol, Chapu-shimi or llanga-shimi,^{[nb 1][4]} (roughly translated to "half language" or "in-between language") is a mixed language that consists of Spanish vocabulary and Quichua grammar, most conspicuously in its morphology. In terms of vocabulary, almost all lexemes (89%^[1][5]), including core vocabulary, are of Spanish origin and appear to conform to Quichua phonotactics. Media Lengua is one of the few widely acknowledged examples of a "bilingual mixed language" in both the conventional and narrow linguistic sense because of its split between roots and suffixes.^[6][7] Such extreme and systematic borrowing is only rarely attested, and Media Lengua is not typically described as a variety of either Quichua or Spanish. Arends et al. list two languages subsumed under the name Media Lengua: Salcedo Media Lengua and Media Lengua of Saraguro.^[8] The northern variety of Media Lengua found in the province of Imbabura is commonly referred to as Imbabura Media Lengua^[2][9] and more specifically, the dialect varieties within the province are known as Pijal Media Lengua and Anglas Media Lengua.^[1]

Geographical distribution

Media Lengua was first documented in Salcedo, Cotopaxi about 100 km south of Quito, Ecuador by Dutch linguist Pieter Muysken during fieldwork on Ecuadorian Quichua.^[5] During Muysken's surveys of the language, he also described other highly reflexified vareties of Quichua including Amazonian Pidgin, Quichua-Spanish interlanguage, Saraguro Media Lengua, and Catalangu.^[5] A 2011 investigation of Salcedo Media Lengua, however, suggests that the language is no longer spoken by the locals in and around Salcedo.^[10] Little is known about the current status of the other reflexified varieties of Quichua described by Muysken. Several investigations from 2005, 2008 and 2011, however, now show that a variety of Media Lengua is currently spoken in the northern province of Imbabura.^[1][2][9] These investigations estimate that Imbabura Media Lengua is spoken by 2,600 people, 600 in the community of Pijal aged 35 and roughly 2,000 in and around the community of Angla, typically 25–45 years of age, making Media Lengua an endangered language and moribund in Pijal.^[1][2] The variety of Media Lengua spoken in Pijal appears to have emerged at the beginning of the 20th century and had its first generation of L1 speakers in the 1910s.^[1] Pijal Media Lengua then spread to the nearby community of Angla in the 1950s and 60s through intercommunity marriages ^[1] and commerce.^[9] The current status of Media Lengua in Angla appears to be slightly healthier than in Pijal with the Angla variety having been passed on, to an extent to the 2008 generation of school aged children.^[2]

Origins

Several theories exist concerning the origins of Media Lengua. According to Muysken, Salcedo Media Lengua emerged through ethnic self-identification for indigenous populations who no longered identified with either the rural Quichua or urban Spanish cultures.^[5] Gómez-Rendón claims Angla Media Lengua arose through prolonged contact between the Quichua speaking indigenous populations with the Mestizo Spanish speaking populations.^[9] Dikker believes Media Lengua was created by men who left their native communities to work in urban Spanish speaking areas. When these men returned to the communities they had acquired a fluent level of Spanish and had been using Quichua on an infrequent basis. Media Lengua then served as a link between the older monolingual Quichua speaking generation and younger monolingual Spanish speaking generations.^[11] Finally, Stewart claims that Media Lengua was either brought to Pijal from Salcedo or vice versa. He bases these claims on the "striking resemblance" between the Pijal and Salcedo varieties at both the phonological and morphological level. This claim also includes testimonies of a large migration from Cotopaxi to Pijal at the beginning of the 20th century, which can be seen in the many Cotopaxi surnames in community.^[1] Most researchers agree, however, that Media Lengua developed linguistically through various processes of lexification (relexification,^[5] adlexification^[10] and translexification^[12]) in a relatively short period of time.

Phonology

Consonants

Words of Spanish origin often appear to conform to Quichua phonotactics. However, voiced obstruents, which only exist phonologically as stops in a post-sonorant environment in Quichua,^[13] appear phonemically as minimal pairs or near minimal pairs in Media Lengua through Spanish borrowings:

Quichua [-sonorant] → [+voice]/[+sonorant]___

Another phonological difference between Media Lengua and Quichua is that Media Lengua oftentimes does not take into account the voicing rule.^[1][2][5]

However, in certain instances, especially regarding verbal infections, the Quichua voicing rule is preserved.^[2]

Other Spanish borrowings

• Labial [+/-continuant] contrast (/f/ vs. /p/)^[1]

(1) /fueɾʃte/ fuerte "Strong" vs. /pueɾʃta/ puerta "door"

Quichua influences

• Spanish intervocalic /s/ becomes /z/ in Media Lengua.^[1]

(2) Spanish /kasa/ casa "house" becomes Media Lengua /kaza/ casa "house"

• Spanish /r/ and /ʎ/ becomes Media Lengua /ʒ/.^{[1][nb 3]}

(3) Spanish /poʎo/ pollo "chicken" and /karo/ carro "car" become /poʒo/ and /kaʒo/ respectively.

A number of lexical items in both the Salcedo and Imbabura varieties maintain Spanish preservations from the Colonial period; most notably word initial /x/. Archaic Spanish preservation of /x/

(*)=reconstruction

IPA Chart (Imbabura Media Lengua)^[1] Common allophones are marked in brackets([]).

Vowels

There are several competing views regarding the number and types of vowels in Media Lengua. One theory suggests Salcedo Media Lengua, like Quichua, maintains three vowels [i], [u] and [a], with the occasional Spanish preservation of [e] and [o] in names, interjections and in stressed positions.^[5] Under this theory, all other Spanish borrowings assimilate to the Quichua system. Another theory suggests that Imbabura Media Lengua passes through a three-step process of assimilation where words can maintain Spanish phonotactics [kabeza] cabeza ‘head’, undergo partial assimilation [kabisa] cabeza ‘head’ or (3) undergo complete assimilation [kabiza] cabeza ‘head’. This theory also suggests that high frequency words also tend to undergo complete assimilation whereas low frequency do not.^[9] Finally, acoustic evidence supports the claim that Media Lengua could be dealing with as many as eight vowels: Spanish-derived [i, a, u], which exist as extreme mergers with Quichua-derived [i, a, u], and Spanish-derived [e] and [o], which exist as partial mergers with Quichua [i] and [u] respectively.^[14]

Spanish diphthongs also exist with various degrees of assimilation in both Media Lengua dialects. The diphthong /ue/ is sometimes pronounced as /u/, /wi/ or /i/; Spanish /ui/ is pronounced /u/; Spanish /ie/ is pronounced as /i/; and Spanish /ai/, is maintained from Quichua.^[1][5]

Stress

In Media Lengua, like Quichua, stress is penultimate.^[5]

Morphology

Media Lengua, like Quichua, is a highly agglutinative language. Its normal sentence order is SOV (subject–object–verb). Their large number of suffixes changes both the overall significance of words and their subtle shades of meaning. Of the 63 particles which exist in Quichua, Imbabura Media Lengua makes use of 49;^[9] an estimated 80% of the original Quichua morphemes. These derivation and infectional particles appear to be in complete functioning order in the same way they are found in Ecuadorian Quichua.^[9]

(1) y mientras trabaja-shpa-ndu primer año estudia-rka-ni^[9]

and while work-GER-GER first year study-PRET-1s

"And while I worked the first year, I studied."

Writing

Jilana in Media Lengua, Spanish, and English:^[15]

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Backus Ad. 2003. Can a mixed language be conventionalised alternational codeswitching? in Matras & Bakker (eds) The Mixed Language Debate: theoretical and empirical advances Mouton de Gruyter Berlin: 237-/270.
• Dikker, S. (2008). Spanish prepositions in Media Lengua: Redefining relexification. Hispanisation: the impact of Spanish on the lexicon and grammar of the indigenous languages of Austronesia and the Americas (pp. 121–146). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Gómez-Rendón, J. (2005). La Media Lengua de Imbabura. ncuentros conflictos biling ismo contacto de lenguas en el mundo andino (pp. 39–58). Madrid: Iberoamericana.
• Gómez-Rendón, J. A. (2008). Mestizaje lingüístico en los Andes: génesis y estructura de una lengua mixta (1era. ed.). Quito, Ecuador: Abya-Yala.
• Muysken, P. (1981). Halfway between Quechua and Spanish: The case for relexification. Historicity and variation in Creole studies (pp. 57–78). Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers.
• Muysken, Pieter (1997). "Media Lengua", in Thomason, Sarah G. Contact languages: a wider perspective Amsterdam: John Benjamins (pp. 365–426)
• Pallares, A. (2002). From peasant struggles to Indian resistance: the Ecuadorian Andes in the late twentieth century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
• McConvell, P. and Meakins, F. (2005). Gurindji Kriol: A Mixed Language Emerges from Code-switching. Quatro Fonologias Quechuas, 25(1), 9-30.
• Shappeck, Marco (2011). Quichua–Spanish language contact in Salcedo, Ecuador: Revisiting Media Lengua syncretic language practices (dissertation)
• Stewart, J. (2011). A Brief Descriptive Grammar of Pijal Media Lengua and an Acoustic Vowel Space Analysis of Pijal Media Lengua and Imbabura Quichua. (thesis)
• Stewart, J. (2012). An acoustic vowel space analysis of Pijal Media Lengua and Imbabura Quichua. In P. Caxaj 2012 CLA Conference Proceedings. Paper presented at Canadian Linguistics Association (CLA) 2012. Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo.
• Stewart, J. (2013). Stories and Traditions from Pijal: Told in Media Lengua. North Charleston: CreateSpace
• Thomason, S. G., & Kaufman, T. (1988). Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

External links

• Georg Bossong on mixed languages, including Media Lengua (in German)
• Article by Pieter Muysken on Root/Affix asymmetries in contact transfer including Media Lengua
• Marco Shappeck's PhD dissertation on Quichua-Spanish contact in Salcedo
• Jesse Stewart's MA thesis describing Imbabura Media Lengua and an acoustic analysis of vowel production in Quichua and Media Lengua
• Conference proceeding on vowel production in Media Lengua and Quichua by Jesse Stewart
• Stories and Tradictions from Pijal: Told in Media Lengua by Jesse Stewart
• LA MEZCLA DE QUECHUA Y CASTELLANO El caso de la "media lengua" en el Ecuador by Pieter Muysken (in Spanish)
• La Media Lengua de Imbabura by Jorge Gómez-Rendón (in Spanish