Invent Yourself: 4: Language Barriers New Zealand IYNT 2017 Zuni Preece

Original Question: Speakers of related but different languages or dialects can sometimes understand each other, without any prior intentional study. Propose an interesting study of such a mutual intelligibility. Investigate it experimentally for the pairs of dialects or languages of your choice. Introduce and determine quantitative parameters.

Research Question Speakers of two related but different languages may experience some degree of mutual intelligibility. Investigate this phenomenon theoretically and experimentally.

Languages I have chosen Samoan Tongan The languages that we have chosen to research are Samoan and Tongan. One reason that we chose these languages is their popularity- Samoan is the 3rd most commonly spoken language in New Zealand, with about 86,000 speakers, and Tongan has around 30,000 speakers. This means that it would be relatively easier to find native speakers of these languages to carry out a quantitative study.

IPA i u e o a Bilabial Labiodental Alveolar Velar Glottal voiceless p Front Central Back Close i u Mid e o Open a Bilabial Labiodental Alveolar Velar Glottal Stop voiceless p t (k) ʔ voiced g Fricative f s (h) v Nasal m n ŋ Lateral l Rhotic (r) Before we begin, in order to remove any possible ambiguity between pronunciations, for non-English words I will be writing in standard IPA. These are the sounds present in Samoan and Tongan languages. As the languages have only recently begun to have been written in the Latin alphabet, changes in spelling may not show changes in pronunciation, which is our focus when we consider spoken language. Characters that are important to know are /ŋ/, pronounced /ŋ/, and the glottal stop /ʔ/. Luckily, most pronunciation of Tongan and Samoan uses sounds whose IPA characters are exactly what you’d expect.

Our Father, who is in heaven, may your name be kept holy. Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, si þin nama gehalgod. Languages constantly change as their speakers start to use new expressions. Certain changes are accepted by the speech community as a whole and eventually become stable parts of the language. For example, take a look at the first line of the Lord’s Prayer, in modern English and old English from around 1000 AD: Contemporary English: Our Father, who is in heaven, may your name be kept holy. Old English (c. 1000): Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum, si þin nama gehalgod. (/fæder u:ra θu θi e:t on heofonum, sia θin nama jehalxod/)

A B C D Suppose there was a speech community A which split into three groups B, C, and D, which were no longer able to communicate with each other. All of the groups would be initially speaking the same language, as they came from the same place. But as each group’s language evolved differently, they would eventually find it difficult or impossible to understand each other. Eventually, with more and more branches breaking off, you end up with a tree of mutually unintelligible languages, much like biological evolution with species.

In the case of Polynesian languages, they fall into two branches, Tongic and Nuclear Polynesian. Tongan and Niuean constitute the entire Tongic branch; other Polynesian languages are part of the Nuclear Polynesian branch. Samoan is part of the Samoic Nuclear Polynesian Branch, along with Tokelauan.  

All Polynesian languages had a common ancestor language called Proto-Polynesian around 1.5k to 2k years ago around the Tonga-Samoa area. As such, they have a large level of similarity in many ways, including vocabulary. Polynesian languages have generally very small phoneme inventories with simple phonotactics, which means that they are more mutually intelligible than other language groups which split around the same time. Also, they have not had much influence from any non-Polynesian languages until colonial times, and contact is likely to induce language change.

Tongan Samoan English kafa ʔafa Strong fefine fafine Woman vaka vaʔa Canoe hina sina Grey-Haired feke feʔe Octopus Many changes between Polynesian languages are easily predictable. For example, the tongan /k/ changes to samoan /ʔ/ (vaka -> vaʔa, meaning canoe) and /h/ to /s/ (hina -> sina, meaning gray haired) While most speakers won’t be able to understand each other’s languages, some will be able to infer these sets of rules and consonant changes, giving a way to, at a basic level, decode the other language.  

OUR STUDY In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship that means that speakers of different languages (or dialects) can understand each other without prior knowledge or special effort. Our question asks us to investigate to what degree the Samoan and Tongan languages are mutually intelligible. I decided to study this by having 10 sentences translated into both languages by a native speaker, and then have native speakers of the other language attempt to translate back into English. Some of my sentences were specifically chosen to be difficult for even an English speaker to understand. I had two speakers of each language attempting to translate, and they were allowed to discuss ideas with each other.

How do you feel about the fishing industry? Original Sentence Tongan Group Translation Samoan Group Translation I’m hungry. “I’m hungry” - I want to go to sleep. “I want to sleep” “want to sleep” Do you like bees? “go toilet” Which do you like more, sheep or cows? “happy”… ”bad” “where are you walking” later became -> “where are you from” How do you feel about the fishing industry? I love swimming, but I don’t like the sea. “happy” Because I live in a nice city, I enjoy going home in the evening. “we are happy that family is coming over (to our home) tonight” “evening” or “night” I ate a disgusting candy that tasted like soap, but I was still polite and said “thank you”. “respect” The boy that the girl trusted ran away from her. “sorry”… “girl” “girl” The rat the cat the dog bit chased escaped. “cat”… “scratching” Here are my results. The sentences that were completely accurately translated have been bolded. ((say something depending on time))

Conclusion Speakers of two related but different languages may experience some degree of mutual intelligibility. Investigate this phenomenon theoretically and experimentally. Studied the Samoan and Tongan languages There is some level of intelligibility between the two languages as they are closely related Didn’t write a conclusion

Acknowledgements Team Leaders: Jack Trigonometry & Murray Chisholm Physics Teachers: Kerry Parker & Murray Chisholm Team Members: Sai August, Tristan Harris, Anna Liu, Luke Roeven, Ethan Wu Our Minions: Zoe, Ryan, Riley, Ella, Liam Others: DJ Nomeme