16 - Mixed languages

Summary

While in most languages in the world the pair {lexicon, grammar} has the same historical origin (e.g. Romance or Turkic), there are a few dozen at most of recalcitrant linguistic varieties, in which significant parts of the grammar and the lexicon have different origins. These are called mixed, intertwined, or relexified languages. They very often show asymmetries in the origin of their lexical versus their functional categories. This is the reason for dedicating a chapter to them here.

Issues of definition and delimitation

I will define mixed languages as (a) more or less stable languages, (b) with substantial parts of their grammar and/or their basic lexicon from specific, historically different sources. This still includes a wide variety of language systems, with different types of community status as daily vernaculars. However, it excludes:

• Languages which have undergone extensive borrowing, because ordinarily large parts of their basic lexicon and their grammar will still be derivable from one source

• Bilingual code-mixed speech, since it is not stable

• Relexicalised street languages, jargons, etc., since these are not stable

• Pidgins with a mixed lexicon, because their grammar is often not traceable to specific sources.

There are always borderline cases and grey areas, but an analysis of mixed languages has to start somewhere. I will begin my discussion of mixed languages with what one might call the ‘classical type’, exemplified by Media Lengua.