Ethnolect

An ethnolect is generally defined as a language variety that marks speakers as members of ethnic groups who originally used another language or distinctive variety. According to another definition, an ethnolect is any speech variety (language, dialect, subdialect) associated with a specific ethnic group. It may be a distinguishing mark of social identity, both within the group and for outsiders. The term combines the concepts of an ethnic group and dialect.

The term was first used to describe the monolingual English of descendants of European immigrants in Buffalo, New York. The term ethnolect in North American sociolinguistics has traditionally been used to describe the English of ethnic immigrant groups from non-English speaking locales. Linguistically, the ethnolect is marked by substrate influence from the first language (L1), a result of the transition from bilingualism to English monolingualism.

Overview

The idea of an ethnolect relates to linguistic variation and to ethnic identity. According to Joshua Fishman, a sociologist of language, the processes of language standardization and nationalism in modern societies make links between language and ethnicity salient to users.

Ethnicity can affect linguistic variation in ways that reflect a social dimension of language usage. The way in which ethnic groups interact with one another shapes their usage of language. Ethnolects are characterized by salient features that distinguish them as different from the standard variety of the language spoken by native speakers of the particular language. These features can either be related to the ethnolect's lexical, syntactic, phonetic or prosodic features. Such linguistic difference may be important as social markers for a particular ethnic group. Subscribing to language features commonly associated with a particular ethnic group works to either affiliate or distance themselves from a particular ethnic group. Second-generation Italian Canadians in Toronto have been recorded to participate in a vowel shift that resembles both Italian and Canadian pronunciations.

Facilitating communication

Ethnolects can also serve a communicative purpose in the intergenerational context. Common in new migrant families of non-English language background, ethnolects can be used by the younger generation to communicate with their elders. This usage of ethnolects may be concurrent or in replacement of the community language.

::*Prosodic

::**Prosody that is similar to the syllable-timed Spanish

::*Phonological

::**Vowel contraction: Chicano English is more monophthongal than American English, especially in monosyllabic words.

::::: cub may sound identical to cup

:::*Metathesis in lexical items

::::: aks for ask

:::::graps for grasp

::*Syntactical

::**An optional tense system that differs from the tense-marking system in English

:::::He been done workin 'he finished work a long time ago'

:::::He done been workin 'until recently, he worked over a long period of time'

:::*Negative concord, also known as double negative or "double negation"

:::::I didn't go nowhere 'I didn't go anywhere'

::::: If the sentence is negative, all negatable forms are negated.

Greek Australian English (Greek ethnolect)

Greek Australian English refers to the English spoken by Greek immigrants in Australia. It is known and used by the Greek Australians during the last 170 years of settlement. Some salient features of Greek Australian English include:

::*Phonological In reference to ethnolects, crossing refers to speakers using ethnolects that do not formally belong to them. Considering the inherent connection between ethnolect and ethnicity, crossing is highly contentious as it involves a movement across ethnic boundaries.

Criticism of the "ethnolect" approach

Some twenty-first century linguists object to broader application of the term ethnolect to describe linguistic differences that are believed to reflect ethnic group affiliation. According to these scholars, this may inaccurately posit ethnicity as the central explanation for linguistic difference, when in fact there may be other variables which are more influential to an individual's speech.

Some scholars also point out that the common use of ethnolect is used to compare the "ethnolects" of ethnic minorities with the "standard" speech of ethnic majorities, which is designated as the regional dialect instead of as a majority ethnolect.