Early language contact varieties in South Australia

Abstract

This paper discusses contact languages used in the colony of South Australia up until about 1850. The jargon English probably derived in the first place from South Seas Jargon and the pidgin English developing in Tasmania and New South Wales (NSW). In the second place it would have been influenced by the colonists’ ideas of how to talk to foreigners (which were in turn influenced by pidgin Englishes and South Seas Jargon). The jargon Kaurna is mostly broken Kaurna, perhaps influenced by English foreigner talk, but there is some suggestion of conventions of Kaurna ‘foreigner-talk’. Neither the jargon Kaurna nor the Kaurna language itself lasted very long after the invasion, due to the death of many of the speakers, the movement of other groups into the country, and the impact of English and the culture of monolingualism. Show more