Chapter 3, Pidgins and Creoles

Key concepts:

An example of a creole - the English-lexified creole of a Rarotongan (from one of the Cook Islands) teaching on Mataso, New Hebrides (provided in Fasold 1984)

Rough translation:

Dear Mr. Comins: How are you? We haven’t seen each other in some time. Please keep a look out for the boat to Mae today. Could Vakaromala sleep at your house? He’s watching my boat for me. I’m out of supplies and I’m hungry now. The man on the boat to Mae will give you some very good yams. The tobacco that you gave to me is gone, completely used up. See you soon.

The example from above shows several interesting grammatical features of what is probably a creole.

Phonology

Pidgins and creoles have simplified vowel systems: here, five vowels, [a,e,i,o,u]:

Pidgin	English
kamu	come
ruki	look
mani	man
vari	very
olo	all

Pidgin	English
poti	boat
kivi	give
tete	today

Pidgin	English
ruki	look
ausi	house
like	raiki

Morphology - The system of inflections is simplified.

A distinction is made between nominative and accusative:

	Nominative	Accusative
1st person	mi	me

	look	come	like	give
1st person	ruki		raiki
2nd person	ruku	kamu		kivi
3rd person				kivi

Lexicon - Another well documented feature of Pidgins and Creoles is the use of a small lexicon to express a variety of meanings. The verb 'to look' takes on numerous meanings:

Pidgin	English
Jou no kamu ruki me. Me no ruki you	We haven't seen each other.

Jou ruku Mai Poti	Be expecting my boat.
i rukauti Mai Poti	He'll take care of my boat.

Syntax - Syntax is simplified. Complex sentences are found.

Negation - Place 'no' directly before the verb.

Jou no kamu ruki me

You haven’t seen me

Genitive - possession + parogi + possessor

Ausi parogi iou	Your house
te pako parogi me	My tobacco

mi raiki i tiripi ausi parogi iou

I like he sleep house belong you

Discourse - The discourse features in this letter may reflect patterns followed in the source language. There appears to be a tendency to front the topic of the sentence.

Pidgins - pidgins are formed among traders or workers who speak different languages and who must develop a lingua franca in order to communicate; pidgins, by definition are not native to anyone; the language that supplies most of the vocabulary to the pidgin is called the lexifier language

Ferguson's Definition of Pidgin

Stewart's Definitions of Pidgin

Pidgins lack markers of tense, mood, and aspect. Words, such as subjects, are often left out of sentences.

HPE (Hawaiian Pidgin English)

dis	pleis	kam.
this	place	came.
"I	arrived	here."

Creoles - Creoles differ from pidgins in that they are the native language of a speech community. Some creoles are referred to as pidgins, e.g., Hawaiian Pidgin, Tok Pisin.

Ferguson's definition - Creoles (K) are more vital than pidgins and spoken natively. Creoles are acquired by children of speakers of P, or by speakers of K (-prestige, ± vital)

Stewart's definition - Creoles are more vital than pidgins, being spoken as a first language.

Creoles have a system of tense, mood and aspect.

HCE

Pidginization and Creolization

Mülhäusler proposes this development pattern for pidgins and creoles:

jargon® stable pidgin ® expanded pidgin ® creole

Attitudes towards pidgins and creoles - linguists do not judge languages, but do document society's condemnation of hybrid languages:

"adaptations of French or English to the phonetic and grammatical mentality...of a linguistically inferior race"

"a debased mongrel jargon"

"a crude macaronic lingo"

"a miserable language"

Issues of interest to researchers of pidgins and creoles are closely related to issues in the areas of first and second language acquisition. Second language is by definition a hybrid language that in early stages of acquisition is characterized by a L2 lexicon and phonology and syntax heavily influenced by the first language.

Post-Creole Continuum - In Jamaica the local creole exists in contact with its lexifier language, Standard English. There is a continuum of varieties, ranging from the most differentiated form of the creole (the basilect) to fully standardized English (the acrolect). There are several intermediate forms, known as mesolects.

basilect - Jamaican Creole

mesolect - Intermediate Creole

acrolect - Standard English

Theories of creole formation

monogenesis - the hypothesis that all creoles descended from Sabir, a eastern Mediterranean trade language that had an Italian-Provençal base with influence from Spanish, French, Greek, Arabic, and Turkish.

relexification - the hypothesis that some creoles have had their entire lexifier language replaced by another

bioprogram - Bickerton’s proposal that all creoles are created as the consequence of (Chomsky’s) principles of universal grammar (UG)

African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) - a decreolized form of Plantation Creole

Features

Habitual 'be' - But the teachers don't be knowing the problems like the parents do.

Remote 'béen' - They béen called the cops, and they're still not here.

Perfective 'done' - I done forgot to turn off the stove

Future perfect 'be done' - I'll be done bought my own CB waitin on him to buy me one.

Durative 'steady' - Them fools be steady hustlin everybody they see

Semi-auxiliary 'come' - She come going in my room - didn't knock or nothing.

Copula deletion - If we fighting and we getting beat...

Verbal -s deletion - He walk to school every day.

Academic Issues Involving AAVE

Creole Origin Hypothesis - Gullah, a creole spoken on the Sea Islands off Georgia, is clearly a creole, and is considered to be an earlier form of African-American English.

AAVE Divergence - Labov believes that qualitative changes are occurring in AAVE. These apply only to the vernacular, and are found only among the ethnically most isolated blacks.

AAVE Convergence - In other areas, convergence with standard English is occurring. Two examples are higher use of 'be' in progressive constructions (He always be fighting), and use of -s to mark past narrative.

recreolization - linguistic movement back to the basilect

Samaná - a community of descendents of slaves liberated in the 1820s and relocated to the Dominican Republic, now shifting to Spanish. AAVE is not any more creole than now. Old recordings of slave narratives from the thirties show the same lack of basilectal forms. AAVE may have followed a different course than Caribbean creoles, or decreolization may have occurred by the middle of the last century.