Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 1027
Part of Session 160: Languages in contact in Brazil (Other abstracts in this session)
Sociolinguistics analysis of language contact: Comparison of a case of maintenance and linguistic replacement in Espírito Santo
Authors: Schaffel Bremenkamp, Elizana
Submitted by: Schaffel Bremenkamp, Elizana (Federal University of Espirito Santo, Brazil)
The massive immigration flow of the nineteenth century allowed the state of Espirito Santo, Brazil, receiving thousands of immigrants of different nationalities, mainly European, and among them were the Pomeranians and the Dutch. The first immigrants were 2,224, while the latter were 323 individuals (APEES, 2010). These foreigners were trying to escape the economic crisis ravaging their country. But in the capixaba’s soil, immigrants of both nationalities, who were attracted by the promises they have received, have gone through many difficulties, especially economic and political. Despite the similarity in the stories, the Pomeranians and the Dutch have distanced themselves from a fundamental aspect of their ethnic identity: the Pomeranians maintained their language, and the Dutch replaced Zeeuws by others. About the Dutch, it is known that the language has very few speakers, and that young people heard less and less the dialect of their ancestors. Given the statistics and as the Language Vitality and Endangerment, UNESCO (2003), the language is critically endangered, and this is due to several factors, such as the small number of Dutch who came to Espírito Santo, the isolation of the Dutch community ; mixed marriage, especially with Pomeranians, the permanent character of Dutch immigration to the state, the large number of descendants of other European nations than the Dutch, internal migration, which isolated many immigrants, the linguistic prejudice, the change of religion , of Calvinism to Lutheranism, the integration policy, which occurred in the 1930s, which aimed at the destruction of allochthonous languages and thus prohibited the use of any other language that was not the Portuguese; and formal education. As for Pomeranians we know that some of these situations were also present in its history, in Espirito-santense’s lands, such as discrimination, isolation, prohibition of language immigration, formal education in the Portuguese language, mixed marriage, etc.. These circumstances, however, did not cause the disappearance, on the contrary, some of which made possible the preservation of language. Our goal is therefore to assign a degree of vitality to the Pomeranian language, to analyze the factors involved in this maintenance and compare them to those who are related to the replacement of the language of Dutch immigration. To this end, we will compare our previous research, which interviewed 76 (seventy-six) of Dutch ancestry living in the communities of Espírito Santo, with interviews of 80 (eighty) descendants of Pomeranians residents in the municipality of Santa Maria de Jetibá, known as the most Pomerano of the state. With this research, we intend to answer the following questions: how the same situation can lead to two opposing phenomena, language maintenance and replacement? What extralinguistic factors influence them? In light of these issues, we will discuss the language attitudes of speakers in relation to the Pomeranian and Dutch languages, the areas of use of both languages mentioned above and to the factors involved in the maintenance/linguistic replacement.
Keywords: Language Contact, Dutch Immigration, Pomeranian Immigration, Maintenance / Linguistic Replacement.