The influence of Jola Eegima'a on french in Senegal

3- REPORTING THE FINDINGS

After the analysis of all the thirty words composing our corpus, we discovered that the influence exerted by Eegimaa on French is mostly noticeable on the words borrowed from that language. During their integration within the Eegimaa language they are subjected to various transformations. These transformations are materialized through different phonological and morphophonological processes such as lexicalization, cluster simplification, vowel or consonant intrusion/insertion, deletion/omission, alveolarization etc. Apart from that major discovery others are also to be reported hereafter.

We have discovered that:

· The French sound [y] is not part of the Eegimaa phonological alphabet. When it occurs in this variety it is substituted for ['] as in [yniv?rsite] and [yn] which becomes respectively ['niversite] and ['n]. Any word in which it is found is undoubtedly a borrowing from French or other languages.

· Eegimaa does not have nasal vowel sounds but nasalized ones such as [an] in

[depande], [a?] in [ta?] and [??] in [l??s??].

· Nasal vowels are not allowed in word final position. If a nasal is to happen, it is either denasalized as in [k?p:?rt?ma] or nasally unpacked as in [l??s??] and

[ta?].

· Words in Eegimaa do not or rarely end with the central vowel [??]. French borrowed words and most precisely verbs ending with this sound are simplified or deleted as in [k?^Þ p??^Þd?] which becomes [k?mpr?ne] and

[dep?^Þd?] which becomes [dep?nde].

French words with a [CCV] cluster are simplified either by means of deletion as in [pa?sk?] which becomes [pask ?] or by vowel intrusion as in [b?us] which becomes [burus].

· In most of the cases, when a consonant is deleted for the sake of simplification, the following vowel is lengthened to fill the gap left as in [s?tadi?] which becomes [sa:dir] and [s?iv?] which becomes [siive].

GENERAL CONCLUSION

Almost a set of twenty local languages are spoken in Ziguinchor (Djola, Mandingo, Fulani, Portuguese Creole, Mandjak etc.) on which is superimposed the official language: French. The Djola language is, in Casamance, more than a vehicular language and enjoys a prestigious status. It is at the same time the language of the Djola people, the language of the South and the language of unification.

Our main objective in this work was to study, as clearly as possible, the relationship between Djola and French, particularly the influence exerted by the former on the latter. In so doing, we decided to focus mainly on the educated native speakers of Eegimaa a variety of Djola spoken in the Ancient kingdom of Mof çvi. This choice was motivated by the fact that they were the fringe of the society most closely in contact with the official language French.

To achieve the goal we had set ourselves, a methodology was designed consisting in first travelling to the south side of the country, the centre of the Djola language and civilization, in order to meet native speakers whose fifty were chosen to compose our sample. Then, we proceeded to the conversation recordings from which, the raw material for data analysis was taken. And at last, those collected data were analyzed and interpreted so as major conclusions could be drawn.

After a deep analysis of all the data, we came up with the major conclusion that Eegimaa, contrarily to what people may think, exerts a great influence on French which is not only the official language but above all the most prestigious in the community. That influence is mostly felt on the borrowed words, as they are integrated into Eegimaa; it mostly affects, as we have studied, the fields of morphophonology, syntax, vocabulary and even grammar, morphophonology being the most affected of all.

We discovered that:

· Eegimaa do not have nasal vowel sounds, contrarily to French, but nasalized ones.

· Whenever a word with nasal v owel is borrowed from French, it is denasalized when integrating the Eegimaa dialect. Concrete examples for that are words such as «comportement» [k?^Þ p??t?m?^Þ] and «commencer» [k?m?^Þ se] etc. which become

respectively «copportema» [k?p:?rt?ma] and «kumasi» [kumasi].

Illustrations: [?Þ

] [?]

[?] [a]

· French words ending with a nasal vowel sound are nasally unpacked because nasal vowel sounds are not allowed in word final position, in Eegimaa. Examples in point will be found in words such as «temps» [tã] and «lecon» [l?s?^Þ ] which

become respectively [ta?] and [l?s??] Illustrations: [ã] [a?]

[?

] [??]

· The standard French sound [y] does not occur in Eegimaa. So, all words in which it is found are borrowings from other languages. When [y] occurs in Eegimaa, it is substituted by ['] in words such as «université» [yniv?rsite] and «une» [yn] which become respectively «iniversite» ['niv?rsite] and «'n» ['n].

Illustration: [y] [']

Some difficulties can be mentioned: the major one was concerned with finding works dealing with a scientific description of Eegimaa. We succeeded, however, in finding some (Bassène 2003, Bassène 2006 and Sambou 1989) that helped us to achieve the goals we set ourselves from the beginning. Another one is that almost all the documents used in this work were written in French so as we were obliged to translate some part where needed.

Despite the problem of documentation, we found that Eegimaa was, linguistically speaking, a virgin land. This made our desire to keep on working on this variety grows up. Our interest, in future researches will surely be turned towards studying the influence of Eegimaa on English and why not comparing the results with the ones already found for French.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MAIN BOOKS

+ BERANGER, Ferraud. 1879. Les Peuplades de la Sénégambie. Paris : F. Leroux. + BOYER, Henri. 2001. Introduction à la Sociolinguistique. Paris : Dunod.

+ DIOUF, Makhtar. 1999. Sénégal : les Ethnies et la Nation. Dakar : NEAS

+ DONEUX, Jean Louis. n.d. Les Systèmes Phonologiques des Langues de Casamance. Dakar: CLAD.

+ DUMONT, Pierre. 1983. Le Francais et les Langues Africaines au Sénégal. Karthala.

+ GUMPERZ, J-J. 1989. Sociolinguistique Interactionnelle. Paris: L'Harmattan et l'Université de la Réunion.

+ JUILLARD, Caroline. 1995. Sociolinguistique Urbaine: la Vie des Langues à Ziguinchor (Sénégal). Paris : Editions du C.N.R.S.

+ MBAYA, Mawéja. 1999. Exploring Primary and Secondary Research. Dakar: ELU.

+ MBAYA, Mawéja. 2005. Pratiques et Attitudes Linguistique en Afrique d'Aujourd'hui: Le Cas du Sénégal. Munich: LINCOM Europa Gmbh.

+ PALMERI, Paolo. 1995. Retour dans un Village Djola de Casamance:

Chronique d'une Recherche Anthropologique au Sénégal. Paris: l'Harmattan. + PELISSIER, Paul. 1966. Les Paysans du Sénégal. Fabregue, Saint-Yrieix.

+ ROCHE, Christian. 1976. Conquête et Résistance des Peuples de Casamance.

Dakar-Abidjan : Nouvelles Editions Africaines.

+ THOMAS, Louis Vincent. 1958-1959. Les Djola. Essai d'analyse fonctionnel1e sur une population de Basse Casamance. Tomes I et II. IFAN, Dakar.

+ TRUDGILL, P. 1996. Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. Penguin Books.

+ WEINREICH, Uriel. 1963. Languages in Contact. La Hayes : Mouton.

MASTER DISSERTATIONS AND THESES

+ BASSENE, Alain Christian. 2001. Ç Phonologie du Djola Eegimaa È. Mémoire de Maitrise, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de linguistique générale.

+ BASSENE, Alain Christian. 2003. Ç Les Nominaux en Djola Eegimaa È. Mémoire de DEA, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de linguistique générale.

+ BASSENE, Mamadou. 2003. «Some Aspects of Djola Eegimaa Phonology». Master Thesis. Saint-Louis: Gaston Berger University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, English Department.

+ HOPKINS, Bradley Lynn. 1995. Ç Contribution à une Etude de la Syntaxe Djola Fogny È. Thèse de doctorat de 3^ème cycle, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de linguistique générale.

+ KEBE, Moustapha. 2006. Ç La Domination Coloniale Francaise en Basse Casamance 1836-1960 È. Thèse de doctorat de 3eme cycle, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département d'histoire.

+ NDAO, Papa Alioune. 1996. Ç Contact de Langues au Sénégal, Etude du Code-Switching Wolof-Francais en Milieu Urbain: Approche Linguistique, Sociolinguistique et Pragmatique È. Thèse de doctorat d'Etat, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de Lettres Modernes.

+ SAMBOU, Pierre-Marie. 1979. Ç Djola Kaasaa Esuulaalur: Phonologie,

ème

Morphophonologie et Morphologie È. Thèse de doctorat de 3 cycle, Dakar: Université de Dakar, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de Linguistique générale. 211 pages.

+ TENDENG, Antoine. 1974. Ç Les Sources de lÕHistoire de la Casamance aux Archives du Sénégal 1816-1920 È. Thèse de doctorat, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département d'histoire.

+ TENDENG, Odile. 1984. Ç Contribution à une Phonologie du Djola Edungo È. Mémoire de Maitrise, Université Cheikh Anta DIOP, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de linguistique générale.

+ THIOUNE, Adja Khady. 2006. «The Influence of Wolof on African French and African English: a Comparative Study». M.A Thesis. Saint-Louis: Gaston Berger University. English Department.

ARTICLES

+ BILOA, Edmund. <<L'influence du Francais sur l'Anglais CamerounaisÈ in Sudlangues numéro 2, Juin-Juillet 2003.

+ DONEUX, Jean Louis. << Hypotheses pour la Comparative des Langues Atlantiques È in Annales du Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale. n° 88, 1975, pp. 43-129.

+ DUMONT, Pierre. Ç Les Nouveaux Rapports entre le Francais et les Langues Nationales au Sénégal È in Réalités Africaines et Langue Francaise numéro 8, Octobre 1978.

+ JOB, A. << Une Analyse Sociolinguistique de l'Emprunt dans le Contexte Multilingue GambienÈ in Plurilinguismes numéro 9-10, juin-décembre 1995 C.E.R.P.L (Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches en Planification Linguistique).

+ JUILLARD, Caroline, <<Répertoire et Acte de Communication en Situation Plurilingue : le cas de Ziguinchor au SénégalÈ in Langage et Société numéro 54, décembre 1990.

+ MARZOUK, Yasmine, << Du côté de la Casamance: Pouvoirs, Espaces et Religions È, in Cahiers d'études africaines, 1993, XXXIII (3), 131 : 485.

+ SAMBOU, Pierre Marie,<< Approche Phonologique du Djola EegimaaÈ in Annales de la Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, numéro 19, 1989. pp 191-205

WEBLIOGRAPHY

+ http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=SN 14^th, May, 2007 at 07:09

+ visited on 03 ^rd

http://www.freedomfaith.org , June, 2008 at 18:08

+ http://www.sudlangues.org visited on 20^th, May, 2008 at 16:55

+ http://www.uquebec.ca/diverscite visited on 24^th, June, 2007 at 16:45

APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Portrait of Affiledio Manga the last «King - priest-of -the-rain»

Portrait by: Louis Eketbo Bassène (1992)

Appendix 2: The questionnaire

IDENTIFICATION

Nom :

Prénom(s)

Adresse :

Age : ans

Sexe : MASCULIN FEMININ

Pays de naissance : ..

QUESTIONS

+ Quelle est votre langue maternelle?

+ Quelle(s) autre(s) langue(s) parlez-vous et comprenez-vous?

+ Parmi ces langues y- a-t-il une que vous connaissez mieux que votre langue maternelle?

OUI NON

Primaire Secondaire Supérieur

Si oui

laquelle ?

Pourquoi ?

+ Avez-vous étudié le francais?

OUI NON

+ Si oui, jusqu'à quel niveau?

Appendix 3: List of the informants

FAMILY NAME	FIRST NAME(S)	AGE /SEX	ADDRESS	LEVEL OF STUDY
1- BADJI	Serghinho D.	Male / 25	Saint-Louis	Tertiary		2- BASSENE
Amiral Trésor	Male / 25	Banjal	Tertiary	3- BASSENE
Bienvenu Missa	Male / 24	Cite Conachap	Tertiary	4- BASSENE
Charlotte A.	Female / 18	Kameubeul	Secondary	5- BASSENE
De Gonzag Louis	Male / 23	Fass Delorme	Tertiary	6- BASSENE
Dembo	Male / 26	Grand Yoff	Tertiary	7- BASSENE
Djibril Michel	Male / 22	Niary Tally	Tertiary	8- BASSENE
Erik	Male / 25	Thiaroye	Tertiary	9- BASSENE
Erikol	Male / 65	Séléki	Primary	10- BASSENE
Etienne	Male / 54	Séléki	Primary	11- BASSENE
Florence D.	Female / 17	Séléki	Secondary	12- BASSENE
Florent F.	Male / 23	Grand Dakar	Tertiary	13- BASSENE
Frédéric	Male / 29	Sicap rue 10	Tertiary	14- BASSENE
Jean Christophe	Male / 17	Essil	Secondary	15- BASSENE
Juliette	Female / 18	Essil	Secondary	16- BASSENE
Louis Eketbo	Male / 55	Séléki	Primary	17- BASSENE
Mamadou Vieux	Male / 27	Thiaroye	Tertiary	18- BASSENE
Marius	Male / 25	Grand-Dakar	Tertiary	19- BASSENE
Sandrine Butai	Female / 24	Fass Delorme	Tertiary	20- BASSENE
Martin	Male / 24	Saint-Louis	Tertiary	21- BASSENE
Djibril Gachili	Male / 20	Saint-Louis	Tertiary	22- BASSENE
Ibra	Male / 66	Séléki	Primary	23- DIATTA
Barthélemy Josué	Male / 19	Essil	Secondary	24- DIATTA
Diouma	Female / 17	Kameubeul	Secondary	25- DIATTA
Félicité Nadège	Female / 18	Badiatte	Secondary	26- DIATTA
Pascaline	Female / 26	Sicap rue 10	Tertiary	27- DIATTA
Simplice	Male / 24	Grand Médine	Tertiary	28- DIEME
Ababacar Mbaye	Male / 15	Kameubeul	Secondary	29- GOUDIABY
Aliou	Male / 25	Dieuppeul	Tertiary	30- MANE
Berthe Awa	Female / 21	Parcelles Ass.	Tertiary	31- MANGA
Fansou	Male / 15	Enampor	Secondary	32- MANGA
Ndella Edith	Female / 18	Enampor	Secondary	33- MANGA
Robert Ousmane	Male / 17	Enampor	Secondary	34- MANGA
Eugénie A.	Female / 23	Saint-Louis	Tertiary	35- SAGNA
Amadou	Male / 17	Enampor	Secondary	36- SAGNA
Ibrahima	Male / 16	Banjal	Secondary	37- SAGNA
Moussa	Male / 17	Banjal	Secondary	38- SALL
Ousmane	Male / 25	Guédiewaye	Tertiary	39- SAMBOU
Assane Kassén	Male /26	Parcelles Ass.	Tertiary	40- SAMBOU
Léna	Female / 21	Guédiawaye	Tertiary	41- TENDENG
Charlotte	Female / 19	Batighère	Secondary	42- TENDENG
Danfa	Male / 41	Séléki	Secondary	43- TENDENG
Donat	Male / 26	Fass Casier	Tertiary	44- TENDENG
Gérard Ampa-B.	Male / 17	Batighère	Secondary	45- TENDENG
Madeleine	Female / 18	Enampor	Secondary	46- TENDENG
Malang	Male / 16	Séléki	Secondary	47- TENDENG
Souadou Dialika	Female / 17	Banjal	Secondary	48- TENDENG
Théodore	Male / 24	Sacré-Coeur	Tertiary	49- TENDENG
Youssouph	Male / 27	Ouakam	Tertiary	50- TENDENG
Ndèye Léna	Female / 26	Saint-Louis	Tertiary