MULTILINGUAL

SPEECH COMMUNITIES
LINGUISTIC VARIETIES AND
MULTILINGUAL NATIONS
OUTLINE
• Vernacular languages
• Standard languages
• World Englishes

• Lingua francas
• Pidgins and creoles
• Pidgins
• Creoles
• Origins and endings
Example 1
Kathiawari: (a dialect of Marathi: local market
Gujerati) home with wife language
and children

Hindustani: working Kacchi: language of spice

people’s lingua franca trade
English: listening to cricket
commentary on the radio
Problems facing multilingual nations:
▪ Should a country use the same language
for internal administration and for official
communications with other nations?
▪ Which language or languages should be
used by the government and the courts?
 Vernacular languages
A vernacular language: a language
which has not been standardised and
which does not have official status.
- often used for a relatively narrow
range of informal functions.
Ex: Buang in Papua New Guinea,
Hindustani in India, Bumbar in Vanuatu,
etc.
 Vernacular languages
3 components:
1. an uncodified or unstandardized variety
2. acquired in the home, as a first variety
3. used for relatively circumscribed
functions.
 Vernacular languages
Extended term:
▪The first language of a group socially or politically
dominated by a group with a different language. => A
language which is not an official language in a particular
context.
▪The most colloquial variety in a person’s linguistic
repertoire.
▪Used for communication in the home, with close friends
▪Used between people from the same ethnic group
▪In a monolingual community, the most informal and
colloquial variety of a language
▪Used to indicate that a language is used for everyday
interaction
Example 2
Do not take the termes of Northern-
men, such as they use in dayly talke,
whether they be noblemen or
gentlemen, or of their best clarkes all
is a matter; nor in effect any speach
used beyond the river Trent, though
no man can deny but that theirs is the
purer English Saxon at this day, yet it
is not so Courtly nor so currant as
our Southern English is, no more is
the far Westerne mans speach; ye
George Puttenham
shall therefore take the usuall speach (1529-1590)
of the Court, and that of London and English writer
the shires lying about London within and literary critic
LX myles, and not much above.
 Standard languages
A standard variety: one which is written,
and which has undergone some degree
of regularisation or codification (for
example, in a grammar and a dictionary);
it is recognised as a prestigious variety
or code by a community, and it is used
for H functions alongside a diversity of L
varieties.
 prestigious
Emerged in the influential
15th century useful
The variety used by People (from
the English Court & provinces) coming to
influential
merchants of London
Standard London recognized
English and learned it

London: base of the Court, Codification process

Oxford and Cambridge
universities , hub of
international trade and exports
to Calais, centre of political,
social and intellectual life
accelerated by printing.
Speech of London: basis
for translation. Consult
best writers for
judgements on usages
 Standard languages
Standard varieties are codified varieties.
▪Codification: recording and prescribing
standard forms of the language through
grammars and dictionaries
▪Criteria based on usage of educated and
socially prestigious members of the
community
 Standard languages
3 essential criteria of a standard variety
▪It was an influential or prestigious
variety
▪It was codified and stabilized
▪It served H functions
 Standard languages
A standard language is always a
particular dialect which has gained its
special position as a result of social,
economic and political influences.
 Standard languages
ESL: India,
World Englishes Jamaica,
Philippines,
EFL: Italy, etc.
Brazil, (400
Russia, million)
China, etc.
(1 Billion) L1: UK,
USA,
Australia,
etc.
(375
million)
 Lingua francas
Explained in Lesson 1.
 Pidgins and Creoles
Let’s watch this video about a language
called Tok Pisin.
Link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhGo
hMxJ9WM
 Pidgins and Creoles
Pidgins
A pidgin is a language which has no
native speakers, developed as a means
of communication between people who
do not have a common language.
 Pidgins and Creoles
Pidgins
Why do pidgins develop?
1. West African slaves in
Caribbean plantations
=> separated from those
with the same language to
avoid escape or rebel plot
=> pidgin developed based
on plantation bosses +
slaves’ languages
 Pidgins and Creoles
Pidgins
Why do pidgins develop?
2. Sea-coasts in multilingual
contexts
=> European traders (Portuguese,
Spanish, English) communicate
with people from other continents
=> pidgins developed as languages
of trade, a lingua franca
Etymology
Originally Chinese mispronunciation of English
“business” => pigion => Chinese Pidgin English =>
later used to refer to any pidgin

Repeat after Pigeon,

me Pigion,
“BUSINESS” Pidgin
 Pidgins and Creoles
Pidgins
▪Initially developed with limited
functions.
▪Almost exclusive for referential
functions (buy/selling things)
=> Simple structure
Example 7

Pidgin language Simple sound system:

spoken in the morphology of Arabic
Southern Sudan eliminated

Small vocabulary: Own distinct

trade and basic
Juba
Arabic structure
communication, A stable variety
borrows from native
languages of the Easier for an Arabic
Sudan, or colloquial person to learn than
Arabic for an English
speaker
 Pidgins and Creoles
What kind of linguistic structure does a pidgin language
have?
1. All languages involved may contribute to the sounds,
the vocabulary and the grammatical features, but to
different extents, and some additional features may
emerge which are unique to the new variety.
2. The prestige language tends to supply more of the
vocabulary (=> lexifier language/superstrate)
3. Vernacular languages have more influence on the
grammar of the developing pidgin (=> substrate)
4. Tend to have a simplified structure and a small
vocabulary
5. Tend to reduce grammatical signals to a minimum
French English Tok Pisin Cameroon
pidgin
je vais I go mi go a go
tu vas you go yu go yu go
elle/il va she/he/it goes em go i go
nous allongs we go yumi go wi go
mipela go
vous allez yupela go wuna go
elles/ils vont they go ol go dem go

Source: From Todd 2005: 2.

Tok Pisin
pas => a pass, a letter, a permit, ahead,
fast, firmly, to be dense,
crowded, or tight,
to be blocked or shut

Cameroon Pidgin English

water => lake, river, spring, tear or water
 Pidgins and Creoles
Pidgins
Attitudes
- Pidgins do not have high status or
prestige
- Ridiculous languages to outsiders
- Sometimes given negative labels
- Considered a debased form of original
languages (to Europeans)
 Pidgins and Creoles
Pidgins
▪often have a short life.
▪disappear when the function
disappears.
▪disappear when trade between the
groups dies out, or one side begins
learning the other’s language
 Pidgins and Creoles
Pidgin language
1. it is used in restricted domains and
functions
2. it has a simplified structure compared
to the source languages
3. it generally has low prestige and
attracts negative attitudes – especially
from outsiders.
 Pidgins and Creoles
Creoles
A creole is a pidgin which has acquired
native speakers.
A creole is a pidgin which has expanded in
structure and vocabulary to express the
range of meanings and serve the range of
functions required of a first language.
Creolisation: the process by which a pidgin
becomes a creole
Example 12

Tok Pisin at different stages

a) baimbai yu go you will go
b) bambai yu go you will go
c) bai yu go you will go
d) yu bai go you will go
e) yu bfgo you will go
Comparison of verb forms in four languages

French English Tok Pisin Cameroon

pidgin
je vais I go mi go a go
tu vas you go yu go yu go
elle/il va she/he/it goes em go i go
nous allongs we go yumi go wi go
mipela go
vous allez yupela go wuna go
elles/ils vont they go ol go dem go

Source: From Todd 2005: 2.

Tok Pisin forms

Tok Pisin English Tok Pisin English

bik big, large bikim to enlarge, make large
brait wide braitim to make wide, widen
daun low daunim to lower
nogut bad nogutim to spoil, damage
pret afraid pretim to frighten, scare
doti dirty dotim
_________ to make dirty
 Pidgins and Creoles
Creoles
Structural features
•Develop ways of systematically signalling
meanings such as verb tenses =>
inflections/affixes over time
•Substrate: source of structural complexity for a
creole
•Become more structurally regular
•Paraphrases become more compact and
concise, less transparent.
 Pidgins and Creoles
Creoles
Functions
Once a creole has developed it can be
used for all the functions of any language
– politics, education, administration,
original literature and so on.
 Pidgins and Creoles
Creoles
Attitudes
- often negative (outsiders)
- has status and prestige
 Pidgins and Creoles
Origins and endings
The origin of pidgins:
▪Many similarities are found among pidgins
and creoles <= Argument 1: Lexifier language
for most (about 85): English (35), French (15),
Portuguese (14), Spanish (7), German (6),
Dutch (5), Italian (3)
 Pidgins and Creoles
Origins and endings
The origin of pidgins:
▪Similarities have been found between pidgins
from quite different geographical regions, and
in pidgins where quite different languages
have contributed to their development
<= Argument 2: all pidgins and creoles had a
common origin
 Pidgins and Creoles
Origins and endings
The origin of pidgins:
▪Argument 3: each pidgin arises and develops
independently.
• Basic functions: trade, barter, transactional and
referentially oriented functions.
• Structural processes (simplification and reduction)
universal to all situations of language development.
=> No need to argue for a common origin for all
pidgins.
 Pidgins and Creoles
Origins and endings
What will ultimately happen to a creole?
▪In societies with rigid social divisions, a creole may
remain as a stable L variety alongside an officially
sanctioned H variety
▪Where social barriers are more fluid, the creole may
develop towards the standard language from which it
has derived large amounts of vocabulary (change in
the direction of the standard variety). =>
decreolization.
 Pidgins and Creoles
Origins and endings
▪Post-creole continuum

acrolect
mesolect

standard creole
basilect
 Pidgins and Creoles
Origins and endings
Over time a creole
▪may be engulfed by the standard language; or
▪may be standardised and adopted as an
official language; or
▪May become a national language.