Article published in:
Creativity in Language
Edited by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald, Andrea Hollington, Nico Nassenstein and Anne Storch
[International Journal of Language and Culture 6:1] 2019
► pp. 83–94

Secret language and resistance to borrowing in Chini

| University of California Santa Barbara
In Chini, a language of northeastern New Guinea, speakers rely on principles of semantic extension including metonymy, metaphor, and other types of association to create new terms using material from the vernacular. They do so in a special sociolinguistically marked register referred to here as ‘secret language’, a linguistic practice not unheard of in New Guinea. The same principles at work in secret language can also be seen in the creation of terms for new, modern concepts in the sociolinguistically unmarked register of the language. There is additionally some degree of overlap between the two registers, since what were originally secret language terms have entered into use in the unmarked register. This suggests that secret language has been a resource for resistance to borrowing and brings into focus the larger point that any understanding of borrowability should be rooted in the local sociolinguistic context, to the locally relevant ideologies at work and the particular creative principles of language use that speakers employ.
Keywords: Papuan languages, secret languages, lexical borrowing, language and creativity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background on Chini
    • 2.1Cultural background
  • 3.Secret language in Chini
  • 4.Resistance to lexical borrowing in Chini
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 01 February 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.00017.bro
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