Languages in contact often exchange segmental, lexical or phrasal items through the process known as ‘borrowing.’ The universal phenomenon usually entails phonological or syntactic reconstruction of linguistic items that are being ‘borrowed’ from a ‘donor’ language. This is rather significant in the inequitable history of contact between different European and African languages. Does the politics of language contact become critically important; especially the terminological challenges for a lending process in which the ‘on-loan’ items are seldom returned? Furthermore, how does language contact contribute to the expansion of the ‘recipient’ language? Are there notable sociolinguistic and phonological effects of the contact on the ‘borrower’ language? Also, is there any transfer or ‘borrowing’ of phonological sounds and grammatical structures in cases involving continuous contact?

 

Language Contact and Word Integration: a Sociolinguistic and Phonological Analysis of English Words in Yoruba proposes a terminological transformation of the process of ‘borrowing’ into ‘word integration.’ The book addresses some of the questions arising in language contact situations involving a colonizing language and a language of the colonized. It explores the effects that continuous contact with the English has had and is having on the Yoruba language and the speaking community in Southwestern Nigeria. It highlights contributions to the expanded Yoruba lexicon but also identifies some of the challenging realities that the contact has created for Yoruba and its speakers. Significantly, the book provides empirical data on the Yoruba – English contact, bringing together new data and findings from other works. In addition to the sociolinguistic analysis of the contact and the changes in Yoruba vocabulary, the book provides a contrastive analysis of the phonological structure of Yoruba integrated words with English sources. A tabulated listing of over seven hundred integrated words in the Yoruba language is provided as data for researchers and scholars in the addendum to the book.

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Akinloyè Òjó is an assistant professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the African Studies Institute at the University of Georgia. He teaches Yorùbá language and culture classes and courses in African Studies. He has published articles on African language pedagogy and programming, Yoruba language acquisition, Yoruba onomastics, and the issues of language, culture and society in Africa. His co-edited book, “Ìlò-Èdè àti Èdá Ède Yorùbá” (Yoruba Linguistics and Language Use) was published in 2005 by the Africa World Press, New Jersey. Earlier in 2000, his collection of poems, In Flight, was published by Kraft Books, Nigeria.