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Andrei A. Avram
Kolonial-Deutsch and Français Tirailleur
A comparative overview
Abstract: The present paper looks at two pidginized varieties of German and French, respectively. Kolonial-Deutsch is a planned pidgin, which has never come into being, while Français Tirailleur is at least in part the outcome of deliberate language policies. Kolonial-Deutsch and Français Tirailleur share a number of structural features, which are comparatively analyzed. The paper focuses on the analysis of the morphology, syntax and vocabulary of Kolonial-Deutsch and Français Tirailleur. The findings are discussed within the wider framework of pidgin and creole linguistics as well as of the German and French colonial language policies. It is shown that the structural similarities between Kolonial-Deutsch and Français Tirailleur are, to some extent, a rather expected outcome, given that both varieties reflect the racist stereotypes typical of the prevailing colonialist ideology of the time.
Keywords: language policies, planned pidgin, word formation, syntax, vocabulary
1 Introduction
The present paper aims to compare the structures of two pidgins, Kolonial-Deutsch and Français Tirailleur, with a focus on their morpho-syntax and vocabulary, and on their ideological underpinnings.
A major difference between the two pidgins at issue should be mentioned from the very outset. Kolonial-Deutsch was an artificially constructed pidgin (Gerhardt 1985, Mühlhäusler 1997: 260–261, Perl 2001, Mühleisen 2005, 2009), which never got to the point of being actually used. Français Tirailleur was a “patois Évolutif” (Clayton 1994: 414), i.e. subject to depidginization via a more or less permanent contact with French, its lexifier language. This has made it necessary to operate a selection in the examples used to illustrate its structure. Thus, all examples are exclusively from “non-depidginized” Français Tirailleur, i.e. from the variety exhibiting in the least the influence of French.
In the case of Kolonial-Deutsch all examples are taken from the only available source, namely Schwörer (1916). As for Français Tirailleur, the examples are not limited to the data in Delafosse (1904) and Anon. a. (1916), on which most previous work (e.g. Manessy 1978, Houis 1984, Corne 1999) almost exclusively relies. The corpus of Français Tirailleur includes letters (Dupratz 1864), travel accounts (Barret 1888, Béchet 1889, Mandat-Grancey 1900, Colrat de Montrozier 1902), diaries (Augouard 1905, Desjardins 1925), memoirs (Marceau 1911, Baratier 1912), articles (Leymaire 1898, Cantilly 1909, Marie-Victoria 1921), a monograph on the languages spoken in Côte d’Ivoire (Delafosse 1904), and two textbooks (Anon. a. 1916, Anon. b. 1918). All examples appear in the orthography used in the sources; relevant portions are highlighted in boldface. The examples from Français Tirailleur include the date of the attestation whenever there are discrepancies between the year of publication of the source and the year of the attestation: the latter is a date explicitly mentioned in the source. The length of the quotations has been kept to a reasonable minimum. Relevant items appear in boldface.
The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 outlines the socio-historical context in which Kolonial-Deutsch was constructed and in which Français Tirailleur was formed. Particular attention is paid to the prevailing colonialist ideology of the time, to the widely popular artificial languages as well as to the then recently introduced direct methods of teaching foreign languages. The following sections, 3 through 5, are concerned, in turn, with the main characteristics of word formation, the syntax, and the vocabulary of Kolonial-Deutsch and Français Tirailleur respectively. The findings are summarized and discussed in section 6.
2 Socio-historical context
2.1 Colonialism and language issues
As shown by e.g. Van den Avenne (2005), Mühleisen (2005, 2009), the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century witness, among others, four strands which prove relevant to the topic at issue: the numerous attempts at theorizing the justification of European colonialism in terms of the so-called “mission civilisatrice” of the European colonial powers of the time; the popularity of artificial languages, such as Esperanto, Ido, Volapük, etc.; the newly introduced direct methods of teaching foreign languages, in particular the Berlitz method; the different language policies pursued by the European colonial powers, including in “language wars”.
Obviously, there are varying degrees in which these particular strands mix as ingredients, depending on the particular socio-historical context in particular countries.
2.2 Germany
Col...
