The lexicon of the mixed language Ma’á/Mbugu

Abstract Ma’á/Mbugu is commonly considered a clear example of a mixed language, arguably as a result of an extreme form of identity expression through expanding a parallel lexicon in the context of a nearly completed language shift to a Bantu language (Mous 2003). The identity is linked to the lost language. The analysis leading to this conclusion involved a study of the structure of the lexicon and in particular of its far-reaching parallelism. This chapter attempts to provide more details of the linguistic history of this parallel-lexicon formation through an in-depth analysis of the lexicon, its parallel structure, deviations, and various etymological sources. It is concerned with correlations between the various sources of this lexicon’s words and their semantic fields, taking a diachronic perspective, as well as of the words that are not parallel, their origin, and their semantic fields. The chapter uses the World Loanword database for a fine-grained assessment.