The Emergence of Pidgin and Creole Languages


Book Description

This book examines the emergence of pidgins and creoles and the controversies surrounding current theories about them. Among the questions considered are why their grammars are simple, at the pidgin-creole-postcreole life cycle, and the causes of grammatical innovation. The analysis is supported with detailed examples and case studies.




An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles


Book Description

A clear and concise introduction to the study of how new languages come into being.




Pidgins and Creoles and Their Emergence


Book Description

Seminar paper from the year 2015 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Leipzig, language: English, abstract: TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. DEFINITIONS 2 2.1 PIDGINS 2 2.2 CREOLES 3 3. THEORIES OF ORIGINS OF PIDGINS 4 3.1. BABY-TALK-THEORY 4 3.2. NAUTICAL JARGON THEORY 6 3.3. PARALLEL DEVELOPMENT THEORY 6 3.4. MONOGENETIC/RELEXIFICATION THEORY 7 4. THE DEVELOPMENT FROM PIDGIN TO CREOLE 8 4.1. JARGON STAGE 8 4.2. STABILIZATION PHASE 9 4.3. EXPANSION PHASE 9 4.4. CREOLIZATION 10 5. THE LIFE CYCLE OF CREOLES 11 5.1. DE-CREOLIZATION AND THE POST-CREOLE CONTINUUM 11 5.2. RE-CREOLIZATION 13 6. CONCLUSION 15 REFERENCES 16 PLAGIARISM DISCLAIMER 17 1. INTRODUCTION “Chrismus time ah de time ob gladness, and de time ob goodwill, when de goodwill pirit tek hold ob we, we feget ebery libing ting bout de grudge we gat against wen ex doah neighbour; an we begins fe wish him all kinda nice something, cause we feel nice weself. [...]” (Todd, 2006: 100) This sequence of Jamaican Creole is only one of the diversity in the creole-speaking world. In my term paper I will examine the emergence of a Creole. I start with an outline of the definitions of Pidgins and creoles and how they relate to each other. I continue with the most known origins of Pidgins, which is followed by the four phases of development from a Pidgin to a Creole. Finally, I will introduce the topic of De- and Re-creolization. 2. DEFINITIONS 2.1. Pidgins Defining what is a pidgin and what is not is a challenging undertaking. Generally, a Pidgin is “any combination and distortion of two languages as a means of communication.” (Sebba, 1997: 1) Pidgin English is defined as “any lingua franca consisting of English and another language.” (Sebba, 1997: 1) It is a reduced language that arises through extensive contact between different groups of people who do not share a common language (Holm, 1988: 4). The Pidgin is strengthened because there is a need for these stated groups to communicate (for example for trade) but none of these groups learns the mother tongue of the other group (Holm, 1988: 4). Speakers of these groups can be divided into at least two groups: Speakers with less power are speakers of the substrate language. Mostly, they are accommodating by adopting words of speakers with more power, speakers of the superstrate language (Holm, 1988: 5). Furthermore, the superstrate speakers accept many of the emerging changes in order to facilitate communication and to become more comprehensible, simultaneously they do not try to speak as they do within their own group (Holm, 1988: 5).







The Cambridge Handbook of Sociolinguistics


Book Description

The most comprehensive overview available, this Handbook is an essential guide to sociolinguistics today. Reflecting the breadth of research in the field, it surveys a range of topics and approaches in the study of language variation and use in society. As well as linguistic perspectives, the handbook includes insights from anthropology, social psychology, the study of discourse and power, conversation analysis, theories of style and styling, language contact and applied sociolinguistics. Language practices seem to have reached new levels since the communications revolution of the late twentieth century. At the same time face-to-face communication is still the main force of language identity, even if social and peer networks of the traditional face-to-face nature are facing stiff competition of the Facebook-to-Facebook sort. The most authoritative guide to the state of the field, this handbook shows that sociolinguistics provides us with the best tools for understanding our unfolding evolution as social beings.




Agency in the Emergence of Creole Languages


Book Description

Suitable for those who are looking for fresh perspectives on the process of creolization of language, this book demonstrates how enterprising women, rebellious slaves, insubordinate sailors, and a host of other renegades and maroons had a major impact on the creolized societies, cultures, and languages of the colonial era Atlantic and Pacific.




Pidgins and Creoles


Book Description

This introduction to the linguistic study of pidgin and creole languages is clearly designed as an introductory course book. It does not demand a high level of previous linguistic knowledge. Part I: General Aspects and Part II: Theories of Genesis constitute the core for presentation and discussion in the classroom, while Part III: Sketches of Individual Languages (such as Eskimo Pidgin, Haitian, Saramaccan, Shaba Swahili, Fa d'Ambu, Papiamentu, Sranan, Berbice Dutch) and Part IV: Grammatical Features (such as TMA particles and auxiliaries, noun phrases, reflexives, serial verbs, fronting) can form the basis for further exploration. A concluding chapter draws together the different strands of argumentation, and the annotated list provides the background information on several hundred pidgins, creoles and mixed languages. Diversity rather than unity is taken to be the central theme, and for the first time in an introduction to pidgins and creoles, the Atlantic creoles receive the attention they deserve. Pidgins are not treated as necessarily an intermediate step on the way to creoles, but as linguistic entities in their own right with their own characteristics. In addition to pidgins, mixed languages are treated in a separate chapter. Research on pidgin and creole languages during the past decade has yielded an abundance of uncovered material and new insights. This introduction, written jointly by the creolists of the University of Amsterdam, could not have been written without recourse to this new material.




Pidgins, Creoles and Mixed Languages


Book Description

This lucid and theory-neutral introduction to the study of pidgins, creoles and mixed languages covers both theoretical and empirical issues pertinent to the field of contact linguistics. Part I presents the theoretical background, with chapters devoted to the definition of terms, the sociohistorical settings, theories on the genesis of pidgins and creoles, as well as discussions on language variation and the sociology of language. Part II empirically tests assumptions made about the linguistic characteristics of pidgins and creoles by systematically comparing them with other natural languages in all linguistic domains. This is the first introduction that consistently applies the findings of the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures and systematically includes extended pidgins and mixed languages in the discussion of each linguistic feature. The book is designed for students of courses with a focus on pidgins, creoles and mixed languages, as well as typologically oriented courses on contact linguistics.




The Creole Debate


Book Description

A compelling argument for why creoles are their own unique entity, which have developed independently of other processes of language development and change.




Language Contact in the Early Colonial Pacific


Book Description

This volume presents a historical-sociolinguistic description and analysis of Maritime Polynesian Pidgin. It offers linguistic and sociohistorical substantiation for a regional Eastern Polynesian-based pidgin, and challenges conventional Eurocentric assumptions about early colonial contact in the eastern Pacific by arguing that Maritime Polynesian Pidgin preceded the introduction of Pidgin English by as much as a century. Emanuel J. Drechsel not only opens up new methodological avenues for historical-sociolinguistic research in Oceania by a combination of philology and ethnohistory, but also gives greater recognition to Pacific Islanders in early contact between cultures. Students and researchers working on language contact, language typology, historical linguistics and sociolinguistics will want to read this book. It redefines our understanding of how Europeans and Americans interacted with Pacific Islanders in Eastern Polynesia during early encounters and offers an alternative model of language contact.