Abstract for the Merchants of Innovation: The Language of Traders conference, 7-8 April 2014, Cambridge, England.
Samuli Kaislaniemi
University of Helsinki
The language of merchants involved in international trade is known to be rich in evidence of linguistic contact, being peppered with code-switches and lexical borrowings. At the same time, personal correspondence is known to be a genre in which linguistic changes arising in spoken language first manifest in writing. Accordingly, merchant letters can provide excellent evidence of borrowing as it occurs – of language contact in action.
This paper looks at lexical borrowing and choices in early correspondence of English East India Company merchants (1600-1630). The findings are placed in their sociohistorical context, and the overall implications of the linguistic behaviour of the community of practice are discussed.