The Origins of Fanagalo
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14860477 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Rajend Mesthrie (0000-0001-6338-6076, University of Cape Town, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 211-240 |
| Publication date | 1989-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0920-9034 • E-ISSN: 1569-9870 |
| Publisher | John Benjamins Publishing Company (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1075/jpcl.4.2.04mes |
| OpenAlex | W2045099337 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
This paper examines, and refutes, the currently most popular hypothesis concerning the origin of Fanagalo, namely, that it arose on the plantation fields of Natal among indentured East Indian migrants who arrived there from 1860 onwards. Can a pidgin be initiated by a group of migrants from differing linguistic backgrounds in a plantation situation, and still remain in widespread use without showing any substrate influences? If the Indian origin hypothesis is correct, this would indeed be the case: a "crystallized" southern African Pidgin, stable for about a hundred years, would have been created in the sugar plantations of Natal by migrant indentured Indian workers without any tangible influences from any of the five or so Indic and Dravidian languages involved. However, structural and lexical evidence indicates otherwise. Written sources (a first-hand account by an English settler from about 1905, and two published accounts by an English missionary) suggest that the use of Fanagalo in Natal predated the arrival of Indian immigrants by at least ten years. Regarding the origins of Fanagalo, one other viable alternative is examined — the Eastern Cape in the early 1800s. The conclusion is that the most likely site for Fanagalo's genesis was Natal in the mid-nineteenth century
Archaeology · Creole language · Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Immigration · Linguistics · Pidgin · African history and culture studies · History · Legal Issues in South Africa · Philosophy · South African History and Culture
The Cambridge Handbook of African Linguistics
African Linguistics in North-Eastern and So-Called Anglophone Africa
Interview with Rajend Mesthrie
Subordinate immigrant languages and language endangerment
Why are you Learning Zulu
Did the butler do it
Fanakalo as a mining language in South Africa
Resistance to creolization
Contacts and contexts
Imagint excusations
Words across worlds
English in India and South Africa
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 1990 - 2023 (34) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |