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How did slaves learn languages? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| chucknorrisman Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5452 days ago 321 posts - 435 votes  Speaks: Korean*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, Mandarin, Lithuanian, French | Message 1 of 5 29 December 2010 at 3:33am | IP Logged |
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When the first African slaves came to the New World, how did they learn the new languages like English, French, Spanish, etc? The slaves mostly came as adults, so they wouldn't have been able to just "absorb" the languages like children do. There weren't any books or other sources in their native languages to teach them to speak the languages, either. Did the first generation of slaves actually learn the masters' languages, or did they just passively understand? Please enlighten me on this topic.
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5385 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 5 29 December 2010 at 4:01am | IP Logged |
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The idea that previous generations of immigrants came to America and learned local languages with ease
and to proficiency is misguided. They had a hard time learning it and most of them stayed within their community and never really learned the language. I can't imagine how that could have been any different for slaves, especially since they probably had very limited access to English. On a different note, I'm always surprised to see how African-Americans have a different accent than other members of the same cities. Where I live, Aboriginals also have a different accent. We still live in separate communities within the same cities. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 budonoseito Pro Member United States budobeyondtechnRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5809 days ago 261 posts - 344 votes Studies: French, Japanese Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 5 29 December 2010 at 4:07am | IP Logged |
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Some absorption is done. Also, pidgin languages were created. Some turned into Creoles.
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker discusses how we learn languages in different environments. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| BobbyE Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5251 days ago 226 posts - 331 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin | Message 4 of 5 29 December 2010 at 9:38am | IP Logged |
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Some of my coworkers are immigrants and have learned English to a basic level without any kind of lessons. One told me that he started off just seeing how people used the language with body language. He said it took him about 6 years to really be able to use it. He's been here 10 years, and his English is still very far from fluency, perhaps maybe not even considered proficient. His L1 is Spanish by the way, a much easier transition I'd imagine than from an original African language.
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| nebojats Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5200 days ago 89 posts - 120 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Thai Studies: French, Arabic (Written), Mandarin, Italian | Message 5 of 5 09 January 2011 at 2:32pm | IP Logged |
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Language Instinct! Yes, budonoseito!
Amazing book. Yeah, I think Pinker would say that for those adults living with a bunch of new languages, pidgins developed... more cumbersome then a full-blown language, but they filled the purpose of basic communication. And then for the kids who grew up surrounded by the various languages, they would develop a fully functioning language of their own which might be recognized as more of a creole or extreme dialect (lots of different influences, but way more functional and expressive than a pidgin... just as much as the standard languages, basically). Those in turn would probably blend with the standard language over the generations and be left as accents, if at all? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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