Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T17:52:05.406Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language in Ethiopia: implications of a survey for sociolinguistic theory and method1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

M. L. Bender ,
R. L. Cooper  and
C. A. Ferguson
M. L. Bender
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University
R. L. Cooper
Affiliation:
San Diego State College
C. A. Ferguson
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Work of the Language Survey of Ethiopia is drawn on to illustrate that social surveys can contribute to scientific theories and methods as well as to policy making. Findings with regard to four general problems are indicated: a metric of linguistic distance (considered here in terms of selection of diagnostic traits for linguistic areas, subgrouping of related languages, and dialect variation within a language; measurement of basic cognate frequencies; and testing of mutual intelligibility, a typology of the processes of language spread (lingua franca, mother tongue, superposed variety); verbal deference behavior (in use of Amharic second person pronouns); and pidginization (Simplified Italian of Ethiopia). Some comparisons to findings in sociolinguistics research elsewhere are made. (Language surveys; measurement of linguistic distance; language spread; social meaning and mode of address; pidginization.)

Type
From Sociolinguistic Research in East Africa
Information
Language in Society , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , October 1972 , pp. 215 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1972

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bender, M. L. (1971). The languages of Ethiopia: a new lexicostatistic classification and some problems of diffusion. AL 13. 165–288.Google Scholar
Bender, M. L. & Cooper, R. L. (1971). Mutual intelligibility within Sidamo. Lingua 27. 32–52. [Also ch. 4, Mutual intelligibility and classification: Sidamo languages. In Bender et al., Language in Ethiopia.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bender, M., Bowen, J. D., Cooper, R. L. & Ferguson, C. A. et al. , In press. Language in Ethiopia. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bohannon, P. (1964). Africa and Africans. New York: American Museum Science Books.Google Scholar
Brown, R. & Gilman, A. (1960). The pronouns of power and solidarity. In Sebeok, T. A. (ed.), Style in language. Cambridge and New York: MIT Press and John Wiley. 253–76. [Also in J. A. Fishman (ed.) (1968). Readings in the sociology of language. The Hague: Mouton. 252–75.]Google Scholar
Chrétien, C. D. & Kroeber, A. L. (1937). Quantitative classification of the Indo-European languages. Lg 13. 83–104.Google Scholar
Cooper, R. L. & Carpenter, S. (1969). Linguistic diversity in the Ethiopian market. JAFrL 8 (3). 160–8. [Revised as ch. 18, Language in the market. In Bender et al., Language in Ethiopia.]Google Scholar
Cooper, R. L. (in press). The spread of Amharic. In Bender, et al. , Language in Ethiopia. Ch. 23.Google Scholar
Cooper, R. L., Singh, B. N. & Ghermazion, A. (in press). Mother tongue and other tongue in Kefa and Arusi. In Bender et al., Language in Ethiopia. Ch. 17.Google Scholar
Dyen, I. (1965). A lexicostatistical classification of the Austronesian languages. (Memoir 19 of IJAL). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. A. (1965). Directions in sociolinguistics. Items 19 (1). 1–4.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. A. (1966). On sociolinguistically oriented language surveys. Linguistic Reporter 8 (4). 1–3.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. A. (1971). Absence of copula and the notion of simplicity: a study of normal speech, baby talk, foreigner talk and pidgins. In Hymes 1971.Google Scholar
Ferguson, C. A. (forthcoming). Toward a characterization of English foreigner talk.Google Scholar
Fishman, J. A. (1964). Language maintenance and language shift as a field of inquiry; a definition of the field and suggestions for its further development. Linguistics 9. 32–70.Google Scholar
Fishman, J. A. (1969). A sociolinguistic census of a bilingual neighborhood. AJS 75. 323–39.Google Scholar
Fishman, J. A. & Cooper, R. L. (1969). Alternative measures of bilingualism. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 8. 276–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, J. H. (1957). Essays in linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J. H. (1965). Urbanism migration, and language. In Kuper, H. (ed.), Urbanization and migration in West Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. 50–9, 189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reprinted in Cohen, Y. A. (ed.) (1968). Man in adaptation, the biosocial background. Chicago: Aldine. 259–67.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J. H. (1966). The languages of Africa. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.Google Scholar
Gudschinsky, S. C. (1955). Lexico-statistical skewing from dialect borrowing. IJAL 21. 138–49.Google Scholar
Guxman, M. M. (1960). Voprosy formirovanija i razvitija nacionalnyx jazykov. Moscow: Akademija Nauk.Google Scholar
Habte-Mariam, M. (in press). Italian. In Bender, et al. , Language in Ethiopia. Nairobi: Oxford University Press. Ch. 13.2.Google Scholar
Hailu, F., Haile, G. & Cowley, R. (in press). Dialect variation. In Bender et al. , Language in Ethiopia. Ch. 6.2.Google Scholar
Heine, B. (1970). Status and use of African lingua francas. Munich: Weltforum Verlag.Google Scholar
Hetzron, R. (forthcoming). Ethiopian Semitic: studies in classification. Journal of Semitic Studies Monograph Series.Google Scholar
Hoben, S. J. (in press). The meaning of the second-person pronouns in Amharic. In Bender, et al. Language in Ethiopia. Ch. 22.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (1960). Lexicostatistics so far. Current Anthropology 1. 3–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hymes, D. (1968). Linguistic problems in defining the concept of ‘tribe’. In Helm, J. (ed.), Essays on the problem of tribe. Seattle: University of Washington Press. 23–48.Google Scholar
Hymes, D. (ed.) (1971). Pidginization and creolization of languages. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P., Glick, R. & Criper, C. (1971). Language in Uganda. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lieberson, S. (1966). Language questions in censuses. Sociological Inquiry 36. 262–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberson, S. (1969). How can we describe and measure the incidence and distribution of bilingualism? In Kelly, L. G. (ed.), Description and measurement of bilingualism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 285–348.Google Scholar
Lieberson, S. (1970). Language and ethnic relations in Canada. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Ohannessian, S. & Kashoki, Mubanga E. (forthcoming). Language in Zambia. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rubin, J. (1968). National bilingualism in Paraguay. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Schuchardt, H. (1909). Die lingua franca. Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie 33 441–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Voegelin, C. F., Voegelin, F. M., Wurm, S., O'Grady, G. & Matsuda, T. (1963). Obtaining an index of phonological differentiation from the construction of non-existent minimax systems. IJAL 29. 4–28.Google Scholar
Weinreich, U. (1957). Functional aspects of Indian bilingualism. Word 13. 203–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolff, H. (1959). Intelligibility and inter-ethnic attitudes. AL 1 (3). 34–41.Google Scholar
Wurm, S. A. & Laycock, D. C. (1961). The question of language and dialect in New Guinea. Oceania 32. 128–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar