Article published In:
Asia-Pacific Language VariationVol. 9:1 (2023) ► pp.59–82
Variability or its loss in creole endangerment
The case of Baba Malay
A language’s endangerment is said to be typified by variation accompanied by some degree of unpredictability. This paper examines if this characterization is appropriate of Baba Malay, an endangered creole, as it is spoken in Singapore. Recent work suggests that the language is much less variable than one expects of a creole. A comparison between historical Baba Malay material and newer Baba Malay material, focusing on the language’s pronominal system, and aspectual and tense system, demonstrates that this is indeed the case. Such variation or an increasing lack of it is not unpredictable, stemming not only from natural language change, but also from changes in the language’s socio-environment. Increasing lack of proficiency in the component languages and a desire among speakers to distinguish themselves from speakers of the lexifier variety may explain some loss in Baba Malay’s variability.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Sociological background of Baba Malay then and now
- 3.Data
- 4.Variability or the lack of it
- 4.1Variability in Baba Malay’s pronominal system
- 4.2Variability in Baba Malay’s aspectual and tense system
- 5.Discussion
- Notes
-
References
References
Ansaldo, Umberto, Lim, Lisa, & Mufwene, Salikoko S.
(2007) The sociolinguistic history of the Peranakans: What it tells us about “creolization.” In Umberto Ansaldo, Stephen Matthews, & Lisa Lim (Eds.), Deconstructing Creole. Typological Studies in Language,
73
1 (pp. 203–226). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 
Ansaldo, Umberto, & Matthews, Stephens
(1999) The Minnan substrate and creolization in Baba Malay. Journal of Chinese Linguistics,
27
(1), 38–68.
Bavin, Edith L., & Shopen, Tim
(1991) Walpiri in the 1980s: An overview of research in language variation and child language. In Suzanne Romaine (Ed.), Language in Australia (pp. 104–117). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bickerton, Derek
(1973) The nature of a creole continuum. Language,
49
1, 640–669.
Bleaman, Isaac L.
(2022) Minority language maintenance and the production-prescription interface: Number agreement in New York Yiddish. Journal of Sociolinguistics,
26
(2), 221–245.
Bodman, Nicholas C.
(1955) Spoken Amoy Hokkien, Volume 1. Kuala Lumpur: The Government of the Federation of Malaya.
(1958) Spoken Amoy Hokkien, Volume 2. Kuala Lumpur: The Government of the Federation of Malaya.
Campbell, Lyle
(2020) Historical Linguistics: An introduction (Fourth edition). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Campbell, Lyle, & Muntzel, Martha C.
(1989) The structural consequences of language death. In Nancy Dorian (Ed.), Investigating obsolescence: Studies in language contraction and death (pp. 181–196). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chan, Kenneth
(2018) Mari Chakap Baba: A comprehensive guide to the Baba Nyonya language. Singapore: Gunong Sayang Association.
Chan, Philip
(2007) Speak Baba Malay: The easy way. Singapore: Baba Nyonya Sayang.
Corcoran, Chris, & Mufwene, Salikoko
(1998) Sam Matthew’s Kittinian. What is it evidence of? In Philip Baker & Adrienne Bruyn (Eds.), St Kitts and the Atlantic Creoles: The texts of Samuel Augustus Mathews in perspective (pp. 75–102). London: University of Westminister Press.
DeCamp, David
(1971) Toward a generative analysis of a post-creole speech continuum. In Dell Hymes (Ed.), Pidginization and Creolization of Languages (pp. 349–370). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Department of Statistics Singapore
(2020) Singapore Census of Population 2020, Statistical Release 1: Demographic Characteristics, Education, Language and Religion. Retrieved from [URL]
Donohue, Mark, & Smith, John C.
(1998) What’s Happened to Us? Some Developments in the Malay Pronoun System. Oceanic Linguistics,
37
(1), 65–84.
Dorian, Nancy C.
(1977) The problem of the semi-speaker in language death. International Journal of the Sociology of Language,
12
1, 23–32.
Dressler, Wolfgang U.
(1972) On the phonology of language death. Chicago Linguistic Society Papers,
8
1, 448–457.
Dressler, Wolfgang U., & Wodak-Leodolter, Ruth
(1977) Language preservation and language death in Brittany. International Journal of the Sociology of Language,
12
1, 33–44.
England, Nora C.
(1996) The role of language standardization in revitalization. In Edward F. Fischer & R. McKenna Brown (Eds.), Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala (pp. 178–194). Texas: University of Texas Press.
Fei, Hsin
(1436) Hsing-ch’a sheng-lan: The overall survey of the Star Raft. (Republished in South China and Maritime Asia. 4. Translated by John Vivian Gottlieb Mills. Edited and annotated by Roderich Ptak.). Wiedsbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
Gwee, William T. H.
(2006) A Baba Malay Dictionary: The First Comprehensive Compendium of Straits Chinese Terms and Expressions. Singapore: Tuttle Publishing.
Kasstan, Jonathan
(2017) New speakers: Challenges and opportunities for variationist sociolinguistics. Language and Linguistic Compass,
11
(8), e12249.
(2019) Emergent sociolinguistic variation in severe language endangerment. Language in Society,
48
(5), 685–720.
Le Page, Robert
(1960) Jamaican Creole. London: Macmillan.
Lee, Gwyneth A. M.-E.
(1999) A descriptive grammar of spoken Peranakan (Honour’s thesis). National University of Singapore, Singapore.
Lee, Nala H.
(2014) A grammar of Baba Malay with sociophonetic considerations (PhD dissertation). University of Hawai’i, Manoa.
(2019) Peranakans in Singapore: Responses to language endangerment and documentation. Language Documentation & Conservation. Special Issue on Documentation and Conservation of Contact Languages in Southeast Asia and East Asia: Current Issues and Ongoing Initiatives,
19
1, 123–140.
(2020) Utilizing the matched-guise as a method of examining perceptual change in an endangered creole. Applied Linguistics,
42
(2), 207–229.
(2022) A grammar of modern Baba Malay. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
forthcoming). The early Baba Malay continuum. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages.
Lim, Boon-Keng
(1899) Straits Chinese Reform IV: Religion. The Straits Chinese Magazine,
3
(12), 163–166.
(1917) The Chinese in Malaya. In W. Feldwick (Ed.), Present day impressions of the Far East and prominent and progressive Chinese at home and abroad; the history, people, commerce, industries and resources of China, Hong Kong, Indo-China, Malaya and Netherlands India (pp. 875–882). London: Globe Encyclopedia Co.
Lim, Joo-Hock
(1967) Chinese female immigration into the Straits Settlements 1860–1901. Journal of the South Seas Society,
22
1, 58–110.
Lim, Lisa
(2016) Multilingual mediators: The role of the Peranakans in the contact dynamics of Singapore. In Wei, Li (Ed.), Multilingualism in the Chinese diaspora world-wide (pp. 216–236). New York: Routledge.
Ma, Huan
(1416) Ying-yai sheng-lan: The overall survey of the ocean’s shores. Republished by the Hakluty Society, London in 1970, and reprinted by the White Lotus Press in 1997. Translated by J. V. G. Mills.
Meyerhoff, Miriam
(2015, October 22). Keeping a foot in the door: Variation and language documentation. Presented at the New Ways of Analyzing Variation 44.
Nagy, Naomi
(2009) The challenges of less commonly studied languages: Writing a sociogrammar of Faetar. In James N. Stanford & Dennis R. Preston (Eds.), Variation in indigenous minority languages (pp. 397–417). Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Nance, Claire, McLeod, Wilson, O’Rourke, Bernadette, & Dunmore, Stuart
(2016) Identity, accent aim, and motivation in second language users: New Scottish Gaelic speakers’ use of phonetic variation. Journal of Sociolinguistics,
20
(2), 164–191.
Nathan, J.
(1922) The Census of British Malaysia. London: Waterloo & Sons.
Pakir, Anne
(1986) A linguistic investigation of Baba Malay (PhD dissertation). University of Hawai’i, Manoa.
(1994) Educational linguistics: Looking to the East. In James Alatis (Ed.), Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics (pp. 370–383). Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
Paliwala, Adam A. H. B.
(2020) Language contact and Tok Pisin. In Anthony P. Grant (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Language Contact (pp. 606–626). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Palosaari, Naomi, & Campbell, Lyle
(2012) Structural aspects of language endangerment. In Peter K. Austin & Julia Sallabank (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages (pp. 100–119).
Purcell, Victor
(1980) The Chinese in Southeast Asia. Issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs [by] Oxford University Press. Retrieved from [URL]
Rickford, John R.
(1987) Dimensions of a Creole Continuum. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Salmon, Claudine
(1977) La littérature en malais romanisé des Chinois de Malaisie, première enquête. Archipel,
14
(1), 79–109.
Shellabear, William G.
(1913) Baba Malay: An introduction to the language of the Straits-born Chinese. Attached as appendix in John R. Clammer (1980). In Straits Chinese Society (pp. 153–165). Singapore: Singapore University Press.
Siah, U-Chin
(1848) General sketch of the numbers, tribes and avocations of the Chinese in Singapore. Journal of the Indian Archipelago,
2
1, 283–289.
Skinner, G. W.
(1996) Creolized Chinese Societies in Southeast Asia. In Anthony Reid & Kristine Aililunas-Rodgers (Eds.), Sojourners and settlers: Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese (pp. 51–93). Hawai’i: University of Hawai’i Press.
Soh, Poh-Thong
(1907) Concerning Our Girls. The Straits Chinese Magazine,
11
(4), 139–143.
Song, Ong-Siang
(1967) One hundred years’ history of the Chinese in Singapore. First published in 1923. Singapore: University of Malaya Press.
Tan, Bonny
(2007) A Baba Malay Bibliography: A select annotated listing of sources on the Peranakan Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia. Singapore: National Library Board.
Tan, Chee-Beng
(1979) Baba and Nyonya: A study of the ethnic identity of the Chinese Peranakan in Malacca. Cornell University, New York.
(1988) The Baba of Melaka: Culture and identity of a Chinese Peranakan Community in Malaysia. Petaling Jaya: Pelanduk Publications.
Thurgood, Elzbieta
(1998) A description of nineteenth century Baba Malay: A Malay variety influenced by language shift. University of Hawai’i, Hawai’i.
Vaughan, J. D.
(1879) Manners and customs of the Chinese in the Straits Settlements. Singapore: The Mission Press.
Wade, Geoff
(2015) Chinese Engagement with the Indian Ocean during the Song, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties (Tenth to Sixteenth Centuries). In Michael Pearson (Ed.), Trade, Circulation, and Flow in the Indian Ocean World. Palgrave Series in Indian Ocean World Studies (pp. 55–81). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wang, Gungwu
(1964) The opening of relations between China and Malacca, 1403–5. In John Bastin & R. Roolvink (Eds.), Malayan and Indonesian Studies: Essays presented to Sir Richard Windstedt on his 85th birthday (pp. 87–104). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Whaley, Lindsay J.
(2011) Some ways to endanger an endangered language project. Language and Education,
25
(4), 339–348.
Widodo, Johannes
(2002) A celebration of diversity: Zheng He and the origins of the pre-colonial coastal urban pattern in Southeast Asia. Journal of Southeast Asian Architecture,
6
1, 11–22.
Wu, Degang, Li, Peter Y., Bangfen, Pan, Tiang, Zenia, Dou, Jinzhuang, Williantarra, Ivanna, … Chaolong, Wang
(2021) Genetic Admixture in the Culturally Unique Peranakan Chinese Population in Southeast Asia. Molecular Biology and Evolution,
38
(10), 4463–4474.
Yoong, S. K., & Zainab, A. N.
(2002) Chinese literary works translated into Baba Malay: A bibliometric study. Malaysian Journal of Library & Information Science,
7
(2), 1–23.
Yusoff, Radiah
(2007) Translating kinship terms to Malay. Language and Communication Translation Journal,
11
(3).