Pidgins and creoles

Popular terms:
Pidgin
Creole
Patois [patwa]
Uneducated English
Native dialect, etc.
http://www.etymonline.com
http://www.etymonline.com
 Pidgins and creoles
Linguistic usage:
• Pidgin: a contact language between
adults with different first languages
• Creole: a second-generation
language spoken by children who
grow up in a pidgin community.
 Pidgins and creoles
Pidgin: contact language between
adults with different first languages

Audio clip from Margaret Johnson, BA

thesis on Kárahnjúkar
(see next slide for text)
A: We no talk speak Mario drill outside.
B: Marius tried to call you in the phone. No connection.
Zero.
A: Aha. Two zero yes.
B: Yes. Marius needs to speak to you.
A: Aha. No you speak (oh) zero..
B. So that Marius asked you to please go outside
A: Aha
B: because
A: Aha yes ah, Marius ask me, OK. Marius kom.
B: Yes. Call - phone.
A: Mhm. De Marius, de Marius kom.
B: No, no kom.
A: No?
B: Speak in phone.
A: Aha.
Margaret Jónsson, 2007. Contact Languages: Kárahnjúkar. BA essay
 Pidgins and creoles
• Grammatical and syntactical similarity of
creoles.
Theories of origin:
• ‘Foreigner-talk’ theory
• Monogenetic theory
• Polygenetic theory
 Pidgins and creoles
• ‘Foreigner-talk’ theory

Masta
 Pidgins and creoles
• Monogenetic theory:
(this is the theory mentioned by Wells 7.1.2.,
p. 562. See also Todd.)
The original Mediterranean creole Sabir, i.e. proto-
Creole, was relexified by Portuguese, later by French,
English, Dutch etc.
 Pidgins and creoles
First language acquisition:
• Where there is a fully developed
language available to children, they
will acquire it.
• First languages are not aquired by
copying, but by re-creation from key
features
 Pidgins and creoles
• Where there is not a fully developed
language available for children, they
create their own
 Pidgins and creoles
• pidgin
• small vocabulary
• lack of stable grammar
• creole
• grammar and vocabulary become
elaborated
• grammar develops ‘rules’ – native
speakers
 Pidgins and creoles
Thus we assume that unorganized
vocabulary will organise (creolize) itself
into language with generation renewal.
Call this the polygenetic theory of
pidgin/creole origin
 Pidgins and creoles
• Polygenetic theory

Masta
 Pidgins and creoles

• Why is the vocabulary taken from the

Masta language rather than one of the
vernaculars?
1. Prestige - the masta's language has
power, centrality.
2. The masta's language is always present
3. The masta's language is equally alien to
all vernaculars; it is the only language
that none of the slaves speaks.
• Creolization:
 Pidgins and creoles
Children of Turkish immigrants in Hamborg in
the 60s-70s did not create a creole out of their
parent's immigrant-pidgin. Why not?

But children of the slaves who worked on

cotton planatations in the southern States had
no access to standard English and so
developed ('creolized') their own language
using their parents' pidgin.
Post-creole Acrolect
continuum
(Jamaica)

Mesolect

Basilect
Decreolization Acrolect
(Jamaica)

Mesolect

Basilect
No Acrolect
Dutch
continuum:
diglossic
(Surinam)
Basilect:
Sranan Tongo
(one of many languages)
No Acrolect
French
continuum:
diglossic
(Haiti)
Basilect:
Haitian Creole:
Kreyòl ayisyen
• Alsop 1958, see Bickerton Dymanics (9)
• Guyanan Creole:
• Surinam:
• Fred ben de a tweede boi fu en mama. A
ben tapu siksi yari kba. En bigi brada ben
nem Emil. Wan dei di a ben waka na strati,
a ben si wan swarfudosu. A skopu en
wantu meter moro fara. A waka moro fara
èn a skopu a dosu baka. Dan a yere wan
sten taki: "Teki a dosu." A teki a dosu èn a
luku na ini. Dri dala ben de na ini. Fred no
ben sabi omeni moni ben de ini a dosu. So
a waka langalanga go na oso.
• http://www.sil.org/americas/suriname/sranan/English/SrananEngLLI
ndex.html
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp/Sh
ots.html

http://courses.essex.ac.uk/lg/lg449/12featu
re.html

http://radiotime.com/WebTuner.aspx?StationI
d=109503&

stream:
http://www.wazobiafm.com
http://www.wazobiafm.com/stream.html
http://www.wazobiafm.com
http://www.wazobiafm.com
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/tokpisin/

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/flash/listen
/otherLanguages_Tok.htm

decreolisation / relixification and phrases from English:

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/flash/listen/podcasts_Tok.htm
Yut forum – first programme

http://www.wazobiafm.com/lagos951/# from 7:00

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/tokpisin/news/stories/201101/s3121740.htm
Wikipedia:Nicaraguan Sign Language

video at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/libr
ary/07/2/l_072_04.html

nativism vs. cultural learning

Google Michael Tomasello