Yuker language
| Yuker | |
|---|---|
|
Jykerška kuta Jykerška lann | |
| Pronunciation |
/dʒikerɕka kuːta/; /dʒikerɕka lan/; |
| Native to | Yukerey Islands |
| Ethnicity | Yuker people |
Native speakers | c. 9,000 (2012 estimate) |
Standard forms |
Standardized Yuker
|
| Dialects |
|
| Official status | |
Official language in | Yukerey Islands |
| Regulated by | Yuker language committee |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
Yuker language or Yuker tongue (Jykerška kuta or Jykerška lann), colloquially known as just Yuker, is a English-based creole language with strong Yaghan influence in the form of loanwords. It was formed during the 18th and 19th century as Traditional Yuker, following the mutineers that settled Yukerey social isolation. The vulgar British English of the mutineers slowly mixed with the Yaghan language that their consorts spoke. Many prominent phrases and words in Yuker are of Yaghan origin, the word Yukerey is an Anglicization of Jykerška, which in turn originates from the Yaghan words Ukea(r) for rough sea, and yeška for island. By the 20th century, Yuker continued evolving and changing following the fishing and whaling industries controlled by British companies. This exposure to contemporary English led to the modern Yuker language, which uses a somewhat larger amount of English vernacular.
The geographic isolation of Yukerey has allowed for Yuker to flourish and, contrary to other creoles, is not associated with a lower prestige when used. Yuker is the official language of Yukerey, and as such is legally protected, and its use encouraged. Despite this however, linguists still consider the language to be vulnerable due to the geographic isolation and small amount of speakers. Yuker is a culturally critical part of Yukerey society, and is often cited as a source of pride for the population. The opening of the Yukerey-Mount Brooker Alpine Ski Resort in 1978 has led to a new exposure to contemporary English. This, in combination with the widespread availability to the internet, made the Yukerey government draft and implement a new bill to further protect the language of the island, citing a concern of Anglicization of Yuker.
There are currently six officially recognized dialects of Yuker, which are found throughout Yukerey island. The local culture of Yukerey has led to many disagreements, debates, and disputes regarding how Yuker should be standardized. In response to this, the Yuker language committee was set up by the Island Council in 1956 to research, categorize, protect, and standardize Yuker. Because Yuker is so linguistically diverse, a standardized Yuker, devoid of most dialectal differences, has been developed at the request of the Government of Yukerey. It is used in formal and judicial contexts, but many speakers choose to abstain from using it as a form of protest, or as a form of display of tribal pride. The linguistic disputes have led to public works delays, cost overruns, and naming disputes, issues that are repeatedly criticized by citizens and government officials alike.
Phonology
Vowels
Vowels are identical to English, but are used differently when pronouncing words of Yaghan origin, for example the vowel /a/ may be pronounced as a schwa [ə] in syllables in pretonic or post-tonic position. Yuker also frequently implements morpheme and syllable breaks, primarily in words of English origin.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Open | æ | a |
Consonants
Consonant phonemes are identical to English, with the addition of three Yaghan phonemes, the voiceless velar fricative, voiced alveolar tap and flap, and voiced retroflex approximant. These are only present in Yaghan words, and are seldomly used in words with English origin.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||
| Stop | p | b | t | d | k | ɡ | ||||||||
| Affricate | tʃ | dʒ | x | |||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | θ | ð | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | h | |||||
| Rhotic | ɾ | ɻ | ||||||||||||
| Approximant | l | ɹ | j | w | ||||||||||
Yuker has a tendency to replace the close front unrounded vowel (i:) and the near-close near-front unrounded vowel (ɪ), with a glottal stop, or shortening the close front unrounded vowel into a near-close near-front unrounded vowel. Consonants like voiced labial–velar approximant are also often replaced with glottal stops. Both dental fricatives are also frequently replaced with alveolar stops. Several scholars and linguists believe that this is a conscious change in order to make English words more distinct, or to simplify them.
Grammar
Despite a large amount of Yaghan vocabulary, Yuker still follows the accusative morphosyntactic alignment that is typical of both English and other Indo-European languages. Some changes compared to regular English have occurred, however. The wh-movement of interrogative words that are found in all English languages are absent in Yuker, and are instead replaced with 'att, 'o, 'om, 'ere, 'ay, 'en, for what, who, whom, where, why, and when, respectively. Because of the large discrepancy found between the different dialects, establishing a universal set of grammar rules is difficult. In some dialects, the strong inflections stems inflected through ablaut (i.e. changing the vowel of the stem, as in the pairs speak/spoke and foot/feet), are absent or dampened, whilst other dialects retain the strong inflections.
This variety in grammar has been the source of the nickname "six-in-one-language" for Yuker. The grammar of Yuker is sometimes cited as being "almost intentionally difficult", especially the tendency to replace strong consonants with glottal stops. This increases the reliance of context in determining the difference between words, such as the identical 'en (when) and 'en (men; plural man). Plurals are however, seldom denoted, the reader must instead often rely on context, for example, in uan auer (one hour) and den auer (ten hours) the word for hour is identical regardless of plurality. Like English, possession can be expressed either by the possessive enclitic -s (also traditionally called a genitive suffix), or by the preposition of. But unlike English, the possessive enclitic -ses is sometimes applied in order to emphasize possession, 'e wum'nses wuši (the woman-ses child) as an example. Like English, Yuker language has no grammatical gender, excluding pronouns.
Vocabulary
| Yuker word | Yaghan word | English equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| wuši | wuxai | child |
| mola, molaly | mola | day, daily |
| tan | tan | earth, land |
| eška | yeška | island |
The vocabulary of Yuker features both English and Yaghan words, but English serves as the backbone of the language in terms of grammatical rules and general linguistic structure. Almost all English and Yaghan words are corrupted versions of their ancestors. Determining a lexifier has proven difficult, as different speakers may use either Yaghan or English variations of words, complicating the process of determining English as the language dominant. Some speakers may also deliberately use Yaghan derived words as a way to distance themselves from English. Some scholars instead consider Yuker to be a mixed language, with English being the adstrate that serves as a lexifier.
The difficulty of mapping and subsequently standardizing Yuker has led to several disputes and debates over what the universal standard of Yuker should look like. Because of the geographic isolation and tribal nature between each of the settlements around the island, many differences exist in both pronunciation and in daily vocabulary. An example of this is the dispute of language versus tongue. Most northern settlements argue that the language should be addressed as Jykerška kuta (Yuker Language), whilst most southern settlements instead argue that it should be addressed as Jykerška lann (Yuker tongue). Slang and idioms also vary between settlements, with many abstaining from using expressions from settlements other than their own. As a way to reconcile and cooperate to create a standardized Yuker language, the Yuker government and it's language committee has for the most part opted to simply exclude all regional variations of slang, idioms, and pronunciation. The standard variation of Yuker, often shortened to just "the Standard", is taught at some schools, with the community being responsible for instilling the respective regional differences, but in most cases local dialects are taught and preferred. The standard is seldom spoken in daily interactions, and has therefore become a formal variation, associated with government or judicial use. Despite this more prestigious status, refusal to use the standard has occurred several times as a form of protest or community pride.
Several similarities to English are relatively easy for both scholars and laymen alike to spot when compared side by side with English, but Yaghan loanwords inhibit any mutual intelligibility between the two. Spoken Yuker is generally considered to be easier understood than the written form, as many words sound similar to their English origin.
A comparison of the Lord's Prayer, in the English standard, and the Standardized Yuker form:
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False friends
Because Yuker is a Creole language, words are of both English and Yaghan origin, with English inflections on almost all words. Some Yaghan words are similar to English words, but in fact mean something entirely different, and therefore often lead to confusion with English speakers. This has resulted in the phenomena ters't lann (tourism-tongue), wherein Yuker speakers converse with English speakers without using words of Yaghan origin. For some dialects however, such as the Western dialect, this is difficult or impossible to do, because Yaghan words are used entirely instead of most words with English origin.
| English | Yuker | Meaning in Yuker |
|---|---|---|
| tan | tan | Land |
| tuna | tuna | Stab |
| tier | tiar | Expensive |
| chicks | šix | Thing |
Orthography
Yuker spelling differs from dialect to dialect, and as such standardizing it has proven both difficult and controversial. Despite this however, during the last 40 years standardized spelling has become less disputatious in Yukerey, in light of a more unified national identity. However, because pronunciation is traditionally regarded as a tribal hallmark, not spelling, there has been less stigma surrounding it than standardizing the phonology. The most widely used orthography is currently xipi-lann (literally we-tongue) and was created throughout the 1970s and 80s to solve the increasingly difficult task of governing the island under a sole government, as traditional Yuker society is administered through a matriarchal structure, each community on their own. Xipi-lann remains the only officially recognized orthography of Yuker for all Yukerey government agencies, excluding the Yuker language committee.
Yuker spelling was made to be as consistent with the phonology as possible to maximize the ease of learning. An example of this is the Yuker word rait, derived from the English word "right". They are pronounced identically, but whereas the "gh" in "right" is silent, Yuker orthography avoids silent letters. Xipi-lann and all Yuker languages use the Latin alphabet with all English letters, plus the letter s with a caron (Š) instead of using -ch to symbolize the voiceless post-alveolar fricative and the voiceless alveolar-palatal fricative, and the letter c with caron (Č) to represent the voiceless postalveolar affricate. This was chosen as it was used in Yaghan with the same purpose. Because Yuker descends from British English, the few written records that were found on the island were written with older British spelling. This was put out of use when Yuker orthography was first standardized for being taught at boarding schools, as the spelling differed significantly from the pronunciation. This complicated spelling, leading to an elongated learning process, and spelling was therefore reformed. The apostrophe has several uses in Yuker. It indicates a long vowel if placed after it, as in a' (aa). It can also symbolize both the glottal stop, morpheme breaks, and syllable breaks, which are frequent in Yuker. In some instances it serves a similar purpose as the circumflex in French, in that it symbolizes a strong consonant that was deleted from the original word in either English or Yaghan, such as in o'foli, where the apostrophe symbolizes the deleted "p" in hopefully. The deleted strong consonant will therefore instead be replaced with either a glottal stop, or a morpheme or syllable break. The letter X is does not represent "/ɛks/" (ks) as it does in English, instead the letter X is used to represent the voiceless velar fricative in place of "ch".
History
The Yuker language is believed to have started forming as early as the same year that settlers disembarked on Yukerey. Because written sources are rare to nonexistent, linguists have been forced to largely rely on diachronic linguistics studies on the different modern dialectal variants of Yuker. It is theorized that Yuker started forming as a result of the social status increase that Yaghan consorts experienced, as they guided the English, Welsh, and Scottish mutineers on how to survive the harsh climate. Given their wide knowledge on the fauna and flora found on the island, being similar to Tierra del Fuego, the Yaghan had terms in the Yaghan language for everything from the local plants to building techniques. These words became widely used by the Britons, who adapted and learned to survive the conditions on the island. Genealogy and genomics conducted in modern times on Yukerey reveal that essentially all of the Yuker people have some amount of Yaghan genetics, being evidence for interracial relations. This is also likely to have occurred given that a majority of the women were Yaghan consorts. As such, children of the earliest families on the island would have been raised in a multilingual household. These children would as adults pass on a mixture of common British English, Welsh, Scots and Yaghan language, leading to the predecessor to modern Yuker, the Traditional Yuker. Due to the extremely low standards of living, shorter generations in turn led to a faster, constant mixture of languages into Yuker.
As a tribal society formed in the 19th century, the population grew rapidly and splintered off into diverse groupings across the island. Traditional Yuker culture values connection and pride for a persons own community or village, which in turn slowed the evolution of Yuker once more permanent groups were determined. This explains why Northeastern Yuker is the most similar to English, as the conserving one's language became important in the face of local feuds. Northeastern Yuker remained closer to English, given that the first settlers lived around the area where it is spoken today. As groups spread out along the various patches of tussac grasslands across the island, the Yuker would have become increasingly different to the original Northeastern dialect. Scholars largely agree that the first major splinter between Yuker occurred somewhere between 1795-1805, when the first major splinter and migration south began. The Northeastern dialect is generally attributed to as "Progenitor #1", and Central Yuker as "Progenitor #2", as ancestors to Northern and Southern dialects respectively. The youngest form of Yuker is considered to be Western Yuker, splintering from Far Northern Yuker around 1870-1880.
Ernest Shackleton is credited with having first accurately documented the Yuker language around 1912. Discoveries had been made about the language in the years prior, but none had documented it with the detail and academic language that provided a good insight for linguists. A 30-page compilation of notes were sent by Shackleton to the Royal Geographical Society for closer inspection. Early theories suggested that Yaghan Indians had crossed the sea to eventually land at Yukerey and develop the language from there, but those theories were rapidly disproved. The information was passed to the Royal Society of Literature, then passed again to the Chartered Institute of Linguists. Ultimately, the Royal Geographical Society was deemed the appropriate publisher for the first study of Yuker language, in cooperation with the Chartered Institute of Linguists. It would take until the 1950s for domestic interest regarding the language to truly blossom, and all of the earlier attempts to map and categorize the language were made by Britons. As a gesture of gratitude, they are honored as the first members of the Yuker language committee, some posthumously.
There was no official alphabet for Yuker until it was established by the Island Council in 1956. The absence of an unified alphabet is mainly attributed to as a result of the highly primitive society that Yukerey was until the 1960s. Most people lived in stone and mud huts with dirt floors and with no formal education. There was therefore little to need to write down information, as literacy was seldomly practiced in daily life. It is well documented that several of the mutineers that disembarked on Yukerey were literate, and some scholars believe that the ability to write was passed down through the generations. Evidence of this is text written in the founding stones of some houses in Far Southern Yukerey, these villages were not established until the 1850s, if not later. British whalers also attest to the fact that locals could write their names in the sand on the beaches near the whaling stations. Literacy skyrocketed following the establishment of boarding schools in the 1960s, and in the 1980s the modern day communal school system was initiated. The alphabet chosen was identical to that of English, with the addition of the s with a caron (Š), chosen in favor writing -ch to symbolize the voiceless post-alveolar fricative and the voiceless alveolar-palatal fricative.
Dialects
Yuker is highly diverse in both pronunciation and spelling, depending on where on the island it is spoken. Indexing and categorizing Yuker has proven difficult, but following roughly 60 years of continuous research by the Yukerey language committee, six main dialects have been established. All dialects are believed to have originated from Northeastern Yuker, as it is prevalent where the mutineers first settled. As the population spread out and settled around the island, their dialects changed drastically, in part due to both geographic isolation between communities, and tribal pride. Despite relatively apparent similarities within dialects, differences are still evident from community to community. Slang and idioms are often entirely unique to each village. As mountain crossings were both difficult and dangerous, geographic proximity does not always correlate to dialect likeness. An example of this phenomena is the Central dialect compared to the Western dialect. Despite being geographically closer to the Central dialect, the Western dialect is linguistically closer to the Far Northern dialect, as the ridges isolate dialects from each other.
Because the Central dialect is spoken around where British whaling was highly prevalent, it usually features more English derived words as a result. More recent Anglicization has occurred in the Southeastern dialect, due to its proximity to the alpine resort center. Because of Anglicization of some Yuker dialects, more remote dialects are frequently studied in order to garner more information about the historic migration throughout the island. In many cases on Yukerey, linguistics are considered far more reliable as a tool for mapping the evolution of culture and the migration patterns of the early population, since few on the island could read or write. Due to its extreme geographic isolation, the Western dialect is sometimes cited as the "true" Yuker language, a definition which scholars have repeatedly questioned on the basis of accuracy. The Western dialect is the most diverse between communities, as it is spoken in fishing and herding villages that are greatly isolated from each other. Trade and travel between these villages have kept the dialect from completely splintering, however. A unifying trait in the Western dialect is the higher abundance and frequency of Yaghan loan words, it is therefore also cited as the most difficult to understand as an English speaker. The Western dialect also uses longer Yaghan words in favor of English words, a linguistic aspect unique to the dialect. In other dialects, generally only shorter or easier pronounced words in Yaghan than those of English origin words are used, in all other cases English-originated words are otherwise usually preferred. The most distant dialects are the Western dialect to the Far Southern dialect, whilst the closest dialects are the Northeastern to the Far Northern dialects. Mutual intelligibility exists between all dialects exists, but pronunciation usually varies far more than spelling.
| English language | Western dialect | Far Northern dialect | Northeastern dialect | Central dialect | Southeastern dialect | Far Southern dialect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| "I am walking to the store today" | "Em u'e 'e e št'r mod'e" | "Em un'e 'e e šter mole" | "Yem une te e štor mole" | "Ye'm une tu e štor mola/a'dai" | "Yem une tu e štor a'dai" | "Ye' uve de' e štor e'dei" |
| "Hopefully the weather will be nice tomorrow" | "Ofoli e ed'r all b' lisa šašana/'r'ow" | "O'foli e edder wil b' gett omorrow" | "O'foli e eder wil b' gedd emorrow" | "O'folli e etter wil b' gedd emorro" | "Ofolli e ett'r wil b' gedd emorr'n" | "Efeli e et'r ell b' gadd emor'n" |
Education
Yuker is taught in all Yukerey schools and is a mandatory subject. Although the Standard is used in government and law, it is not taught by most school districts. Instead, the local dialect is often preferred. Because most students in Yukerey finish their education following vocational schooling, a majority of the population does not speak or use the Standard. The autonomy provided to communities, and in turn, their school districts, have led to several disputes and discussions about how Yuker should be taught, and whether dialects should be taught at all. Georgetown, the capital and international hub of Yukerey, is one of the few communities where the Standard is taught instead of the local dialect, in this case the Central dialect. In higher education, such as universities, the Standard is always used. Because the Falklands has a small Yuker community, Yuker language is used in a few villages on west Falkland.
Culture
One's language and pronunciation is considered a key part in showing respect to one's community or village in Yuker culture. The various regional differences in Yuker are therefore often exacerbated or underlined as a form of local pride of one's heritage. Scholars believe that this is a result of the lack of written history in Yuker society. The language itself instead becomes a tool for cultural expression, and this is highly prevalent in all dialects. Evidence of this is for example found in the great variation of idioms and expressions used. These vary greatly, and oftentimes villages will have idioms or slang that are completely unique to the people of the village. The dialectal importance is evident in all aspects of society, when someone moves to another village, it is often expected of them to switch to the dialect of that village as a sign of courtesy. In marriages between two individuals from different villages or that speak different dialects, it is customary for the husband to switch to the dialect of his wife, as a sign of respect and gratefulness toward the family of the wife for allowing the wedding to take place. In the 21st century, some of these practices have come under scrutiny as problematic.