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Namibian Black German, also NBG, (German: Küchendeutsch, "kitchen German") is a pidgin language of Namibia that derives from standard German.[1] It is nearly extinct.[2] It was spoken mostly by Namibians who did not learn standard German during the period of German rule. It was never a first language. It is currently spoken as a second language by people generally over 50 years old, who today usually also speak Standard or Namibian German, Afrikaans, or English.[3] Along with general learning in the metropolitan environments of Southern Namibia where Namibian German is spoken, NBG may be preserved nominally through parent-to-child or in-house transmission.
| Namibian Black German | |
|---|---|
| Namibian Kiche Duits | |
| Kiche Duits | |
| Native to | Namibia |
| Ethnicity | Black Namibians, generally Herero and Nama |
Native speakers | None, possibly with some minor transmission to youth |
German-based creole | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | None (mis) |
| Glottolog | None |
History
Colonial acquisition of German in Namibia often took place outside of formal education and was primarily self-taught. Like many pidgin languages, Namibian Black German developed through limited access to the standard language and was restricted to the work environment.
Currently several hundred thousand Namibians speak German as a second language – many, but not most of them Black, and while Namibian German often does not adhere to standard German, it is not pidgin.[4]
Prepositions
English and Afrikaans have left an influence on the development of NBG, leading to three primary prepositional patterns:[5]
- adding a preposition where Standard German would use the accusative
- dropping prepositions which are usually present in Standard German
- changing the preposition that is required by the verb
Examples
Examples of phrases with Standard German equivalents:
- Lange nicht sehen - long no see ("Lange nicht gesehen")
- Was Banane kosten? - How much does the banana cost? ("Was kostet die/eine Banane?")
- spät Uhr - 'late hour', meaning 'it's late' ("es ist spät")
- Herr fahren Jagd, nicht Haus - "Master went hunting and he's not at home" ("Der Herr ist zur Jagd gefahren und ist nicht zu Hause")
References
- ^ Deumert, Ama (2003). Markedness and salience in language contact and second-language acquisition: evidence from a non-canonical contact language. Language Sciences. Vol. 25. Elsevier Ltd. pp. 561–613. doi:10.1016/S0388-0001(03)00033-0.
- ^ Maitz, Péter; Volker, Craig Alan (2017-12-04). "Documenting Unserdeutsch". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages. 32 (2): 365–397. doi:10.1075/jpcl.32.2.06mai. ISSN 0920-9034.
- ^ Deumert, Ana (2018-11-09). "Settler colonialism speaks". Language Ecology. 2 (1–2): 91–111. doi:10.1075/le.18006.deu. ISSN 2452-1949. S2CID 135407958.
- ^ Maitz, Péter; Németh, Attila (March 2014). "Language Contact and Morphosyntactic Complexity: Evidence from German". Journal of Germanic Linguistics. 26 (1): 1–29. doi:10.1017/S1470542713000184. ISSN 1470-5427. S2CID 44022622.
- ^ Shah, Sheena (2007). "German in a contact situation: The case of Namibian German". EDUSA. 2 (2): 20–44.
Further reading
- Deumert, A (2003). "Markedness and salience in language contact and second-language acquisition: evidence from a non-canonical contact language". Language Sciences. 25 (6): 561–613. doi:10.1016/S0388-0001(03)00033-0.
- Deumert, A. (2010). Historical Sociolinguistics in a Colonial World, Methodological Considerations [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://hison.sbg.ac.at/content/conferences/handoutsslides2010/Deumert3.pdf
- Deumert, A (2009). "Namibian Kiche Duits: The Making (and Decline) of Neo-African Language". Journal of Germanic Linguistics. 21 (4): 349–417. doi:10.1017/s1470542709990122.
- Langer, N., McLelland, N. (2011). German Studies: Language and Linguistics. The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies, 71, 564–594. JSTOR 10.5699/yearworkmodlang.71.2009.0564
- Shah, Sheena (2007). "German in a contact situation: The case of Namibian German" (PDF). EDUSA. 2 (2): 20–44. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-07-13.
- Stolberg, D. (2012). When a standard language goes colonial: Language attitudes, language planning, and destandardization during German colonialism. 25th Scandinavian Conference of Linguistics, Workshop 2: Foundations of Language Standardization. Retrieved from http://conference.hi.is/scl25/files/2012/06/Stolberg.pdf
