Norfuk

1
Norfuk

• The language of Norfolk Island
• Ling1010 Unit 10
• http//emsah.uq.edu.au/linguistics/teaching/norfol
  k/

2
What is Norfuk?

• A variety of English?
• Has been variously labelled a dialect of
  English, mixed language, a cant, pidgin,
  creole
• The linguistic situation on Norfolk Island has
  always defied classification.
• A unique case study in language contact,
  development, language death, and language revival?

3
Goals of this class

• Outline the linguistic history of Norfuk.
• Present a time-snap of Norfuk circa 1960.
• Pose the question as to what was Norfuk then and
  what has it now become?
• What factors shaped the development of Norfuk up
  to the mid 20th century?
• What implications can be drawn from a case study
  of language change on Norfolk Island?
• But first a little background on the data I will
  present, from the Elwyn Flint archive.

4
Elwyn Flint

• Linguist, University of Queensland.
• Figure of legendary eccentricity.
• Collector and preserver of endangered and
  minority languages.
• Field work on Norfolk Is. 1959-60.

5
A sample of the Norfuk dialogues

• Elwyns field method.
• Documentation and archiving of the recordings.
• Selection of the current sample from the 17
  dialogues.
• Dialogue 1
• Is this a variety of English?
• An antiquated variety of English?
• With recognizable regional features?
• Or is it another language? Perhaps a creole?
• If so, what are its progenitors?

6
Linguistic situation Norfolk Island in 1950s

• Flint characterised as a stable diglossia
• What is diglossia?
• Ferguson originally defined diglossia (1959) as
  
• DIGLOSSIA is a relatively stable language
  situation in which, there is a very divergent,
  highly codified superposed variety, the vehicle
  of a large and respected body of written
  literature, which is learned largely by formal
  education and is used for most written and formal
  spoken purposes but is not used by any section of
  the community for ordinary conversation.
• Norfolk Is. language situation was neither
  strictly diglossic nor stable at the time.

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Two major varieties used on Norfolk Is. at the
time.

• (The Kings) English Norfuk
• Used with strangers used with fellow Islanders
• Used in school used at home
• Used in official transactions for intimate
  communication
• Prestigous stigmatized
• Acrolect basilect
• Norfuk in the 1960s was loosing ground (fluent
  speakers).
• What was the origin of Norfuk? Where did it get
  its features?

8
Norfuk derives from Pitkern

• The language of Pitkairn Islanders
• Descendants of Bounty mutineers and their
  Tahitian women.
• Re-settled from Pitcairn to Norfolk Is. 1856.

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The Pitcairn settlement

• Discovery by Europeans 1767
• "It is so high that we saw it at a distance of
  more than fifteen leagues, and it having been
  discovered by a young gentleman, son to Major
  Pitcairn of the marines, we called it PITCAIRN'S
  ISLAND".
• Settlement by the mutineers 1790
• Fletcher Christian, son of the Coroner of
  Cumberland, a gentleman.
• Midshipman Edward Young well connected, devoted
  to Christian, succeeded as leader.
• "reckless Jack" Adams, later to become Patriarch
  of Pitcairn, a Cockney orphan.
• Mills, Brown, Martin and Williams were killed
  within four years of arrival.
• the Scotsman William McCoy and the Cornishman
  Matthew Quintal
• 12 Tahitian women and 4 Tahitian men treated
  more as slaves than as fellow human beings

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Why is the background and identity of the
mutineers relevant?

• By 1794 only Young, Adams, Quintal and McCoy
  remained of the male settlers,
• leading households of ten women and children.
• By 1799, Quintal had been killed by Young and
  Adams in self defence and McCoy had drowned
  himself.
• 1800, Young died of asthma, leaving John Adams as
  the sole male survivor of the party that had
  landed just ten years before.

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1790-1824 Virtual (linguistic) isolation

• John Adams and his flock 1800 leader of the
  community of ten Polynesian women and
  twenty-three children
• He read with difficulty, could hardly write, all
  took pleasure in obeying his example, which he
  patterned on virtue and piety and regulated by
  the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer, on
  Sunday services, family prayers and grace before
  and after every meal.
• The women had brought their own utensils from
  Tahiti. Food cooked in Polynesian stone-lined
  ovens, consisting mainly of yams, taro and
  bananas with coconut cream and an occasional pig,
  bird or goat was in Polynesian style, served
  twice a day, at noon and nightfall.  Clothes were
  at first made out of sail cloth from the Bounty,
  but they were later replaced by loin cloths and
  skirts of tapa, the traditional Polynesian
  fibrecloth. 
• In brief, European and Polynesian ways mingled in
  complete isolation from the rest of the world.  

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1790-1824 Virtual (linguistic) isolation

• An end to isolation 1808 and 1814
• 1808 discovered by Captain Mayhew Folger, an
  American sealing captain.
• Very surprised to be greeted in canoe by
  polynesian-looking youths who spoke English.
• H.M.S. Briton and Tagus rediscovered the
  settlement on 17 September 1814.
• End of isolation.
• Arrival of first schoolmaster 1824
• The first was John Buffett, a shipwright from
  Bristol who landed with John Evans, a Welshman,
  in 1823

13
Resettlement on Norfolk Is.

• Unsuccessful emigration to Tahiti 1831
• A time of tranquillity 1838-1848
• Population outgrew Pitcairn Is. resources
• 1856 Relocated to Norfolk , total population 194
  islanders.
• Some returned to Pitcairn a few years later.
• The majority remained.

14
Subsequent history of Norfolk settlement

• An imperfect autonomy under British, N.S.W.
  colonial, and later Australian government
  protectorate.
• Pitcairners promised land title self
  government. But was it delivered?
• The official perspective
• Another perspective
• Bloodless Genocide A Political History of the
  Pitcairn People in Norfolk Island from 1856 to
  1996.
• Language as a mirror of societal relations.

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Conditions for language change

• Massive external contact unbalanced the stable
  diglossia.
• The welcoming of outsiders to the Island.
• War in the Pacific (WWII).
• Economic interdependency and an island economy.
• Boarding school and youth migration.
• Dependency on tourism.
• Pitcairn descendents now number 48 of the
  population, a stable proportion.
• Even in the 1960s Norfuk was probably not being
  acquired as a first language by the majority of
  kids.

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Changed status of Norfuk

• Then Now
• Acquired as first language as a second language
• Discouraged at school promoted at school
• Broad range of usages restricted usage
• Unstandardised, unregulated normalised,
  prescribed
• Norfuk no longer has its own sound system.
• Some examples from our language, the official
  website

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In conclusion

• Norfuk has died and been revived, but the new
  Norfuk is quite different from the old.
• Its sound system is parasitic on that of standard
  English. The words may be different from those of
  English, but they conform to the sound pattern of
  Australasian (Aust-NZ) English. (see Ingram
  Muhlhausler, 2004)
• Norfuk is no longer the language of the hearth,
  but a badge of cultural-political identity for
  public statement, rather than private
  communication.
• It is no longer perjorarized in polite circles
  but actively promoted by the pillars of Norfolk
  society.
• (including probably, those affluent
  non-Pitcairner residents who support autonomy of
  the Island to preserve its romantic historical
  identity and tax-free status)