Personal names in language contact situations: A case of Cross River State, South-eastern Nigeria
Loading...
Date
2015
Authors
Mensah, Eyo
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of the Free State
Abstract
In Cross River State, South-eastern Nigeria, languages incorporate a number
of loanwords as personal names as a result of increasing contact with other
languages and cultures. Such words are, therefore, borrowed wholesale or adapted
phonologically into the onomasticon of the recipient languages, thus gaining wideranging
acceptance, currency and usage. This paper examines the phenomenon of
language contact and naming in three linguistic communities along the Cross River
Basin – Agwagune, Ejagham and Lokaa – in relation to Efik, a dominant language
and culture, which itself is in constant contact with English. The paper seeks to show
the intricate interrelationship and direction of influence between personal names in
the donor and recipient languages, taking into account ethnic hierarchies, and social
formations that are found in the context where personal names are given and used.
The study relied on Thomason and Kauffman’s (1988) integrated theory of language
contact as its theoretical plank, which maintains that there is a strong tendency for speakers of less powerful languages to borrow from the economically and politically
powerful languages to enhance their internal resourcefulness. Since names are lexical
items in a language, they are not immune to this contact influence. Audio-video data
and text materials were elicited from sampled respondents who were contact names
bearers and their community members through an ethnographic qualitative approach.
The paper concludes with the claim that the interplay of forces like trade, religion
and other socio-cultural factors are the main vectors of name borrowing, which are
social praxis for negotiating cultural boundaries and relationships as well as indexing
the notion of power, personhood and sociocentrism, given the effect of contact. The
paper, therefore, sheds some light on ethnic mechanisms of shared social behaviour
signalled by shared personal names, as it attempts to understand local settings in
greater depth.
Description
Keywords
Language, Efik, Personal names, Cross River Basin – Agwagune, Ejagham, Lokaa
Citation
Mensah, E. (2015). Personal names in language contact situations: a case of Cross River State, South-eastern Nigeria. Acta Academica, 47(2), 102-138.