16 August 2021

Pidginized Kazakh, or Calqued Chinese?

From Winter Pasture, by 李娟 (Astra Publishing, 2021), Kindle p. 247:

OTHER THAN THIS, what else did I contribute to the family? Only things like collecting snow, herding calves, herding sheep, embroidering, mending clothes, explaining TV shows … things that anyone could have done. In other words, the presence of someone like me had almost no impact on the family. On the other hand, I was deeply impacted. Especially when it came to speaking. Before I knew it, I was picking up Kazakh speech habits:

When studying Kazakh, I’d say, “Difficulties so many!” (“This is hard.”)

At mealtimes: “Food to eat!”

Asking for help: “A help give to me!”

Announcing that I hadn’t seen the sheep: “Sheep not seen!”

Meaning to say “neither hot nor cold”: “Cold, it’s not, hot, it’s not.”

I am not sure whether these expressions translate the pidginized Kazakh of a new language learner or Kazakh influence on simplified Chinese word order. It is probably the latter, since the author (Li Juan) was writing in Chinese for Chinese readers. Turkic languages like Kazakh are verb-final, and negatives are suffixed to verbs, while Chinese verbs usually occur in medial position (like English) and negatives are preverbal. 

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