Mengkommen

Mengkommen is a term used in sociolinguistics to describe a hypothesized process in which linguistic features from multiple languages involved in long-term contact merge into a single shared repertoire within a community. Proponents use the term to refer to gradual structural convergence—phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexical patterns—that persist across generations, yielding varieties that cannot be easily ascribed to any single source language.

Etymology and coinage: The term is a neologism whose name is described as metaphorical rather than tied to a specific language. It is sometimes framed as a blend of a prefix associated with Indonesian verb formation (meng-) and the German verb kommen, chosen to evoke "languages coming together." The etymology is not standardized and usage varies between scholars.

Definition and scope: Mengkommen emphasizes long-term, stable integration of features across languages, distinguishing it from short-term code-switching and from borrowing that remains tied to a single language. It can involve phonological changes, shared affixes, or syntactic constructions that become common in the community.

Evidence and examples: Support comes from observational studies in multilingual communities with high contact intensity, including urban centers and diasporic networks. Researchers often employ comparative methods, corpus analysis, and sociolinguistic interviews to document convergent patterns.

Reception and debates: Some linguists view mengkommen as a useful umbrella for describing convergence phenomena, while others warn that the term risks conflating distinct processes or becoming a catch-all without clear criteria.

See also: language contact, code-switching, language convergence, pidgin and creole, borrowing.