CREOLE

CREOLE A term relating to people and LANGUAGES especially in the erstwhile colonial tropics and subtropics, in the Americas, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. In Portuguese, crioulo appears to have referred first to an animal or person born at home, then to a black African slave in Brazil who was born in his or her master's house. In the 17–18c, particularly in the West Indies, the term creole could mean both a descendant of European settlers (a white creole) or a descendant of African slaves (a creole Negro or Negro creole). Later, it came to apply also to life and culture in creole societies: for example, the (French) Creole cuisine of Louisiana. Since the later 19c, the term has extended to include a language spoken by creoles and has acquired a new sense in LINGUISTICS, associated with the development of PIDGIN languages.

Creole languages

In sociolinguistic terms, these languages have arisen through contact between speakers of different languages. This contact first produces a makeshift language called a pidgin; when this is nativized and becomes the language of a community, it is a creole. Such languages are often known locally as pidgin or creole, but may have such specific names as AKU in Gambia and Papiamentu in the Netherlands Antilles. They are usually given labels by sociolinguists that refer to location and principal lexifier language (the language from which they draw most of their vocabulary): for example, JAMAICAN CREOLE, in full Jamaican Creole English or Jamaican English Creole, the English-based creole spoken in Jamaica. Haitian Creole French is spoken in Haiti and is French-based. Creoles based on English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese occur in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.

Creole English

There are many English-based creoles. In West Africa, they include Aku in GAMBIA, KRIO in SIERRA LEONE, Kru English in LIBERIA, and KAMTOK in CAMEROON. In the Caribbean and the neighbouring mainland they include BAJAN in BARBADOS, CREOLESE in GUYANA, MISKITO COAST CREOLE in Nicaragua, Sranan in SURINAM, Trinbagonian in TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, and the creoles of the Bay Islands of Honduras. In North America, they include Afro-Seminole, Amerindian Pidgin English, and GULLAH. In Oceania, they include BISLAMA in Vanuatu, BROKEN in the Torres Straits, HAWAII CREOLE ENGLISH, KRIOL in Northern Australia, PIJIN in the Solomon Islands, and TOK PISIN in Papua New Guinea. It has been argued that AFRICAN-AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH in the US has creole origins since it shares many features with English-based creoles in the Caribbean. In the UK, British Black English, spoken by immigrants from the Caribbean and their children, has features inherited from CARIBBEAN ENGLISH CREOLE.

Shared features

Typical grammatical features in European-based creoles include the use of preverbal negation and subject-verb-object word order: for example (from Sranan in Surinam) A no koti a brede He didn't cut the bread. Many use the same item for both existential statements and possession: for example, get in Guyanese Creole Dem get wan uman we get gyal pikni There is a woman who has a daughter. They lack a formal passive: for example, in Jamaican Creole no distinction is made in the verb forms in sentences such as Dem plaan di tri (They planted the tree) and Di tri plaan (The tree was planted). Creoles tend to have no copula and adjectives may function as verbs: for example, Jamaican Creole Di pikni sik The child is sick. Most creoles do not show any syntactic difference between questions and statements: for example, Guyanese Creole I bai di eg dem can mean ‘He bought the eggs’ or ‘Did he buy the eggs?’ (although there is a distinction in intonation). Question words in creoles tend to have two elements, the first generally from the lexifier language: for example, Haitian Creole ki kote (from qui and cˆté, ‘which’ and ‘side’) meaning where, and Kamtok wetin (from what and thing) meaning what. It has been claimed that many syntactic and semantic similarities among creoles are due to an innate ‘bioprogram’ for language, and that creoles provide the key to understanding the original evolution of human language.

Creolization

The process of becoming a creole may occur at any stage as a make-shift language develops from trade jargon to expanded pidgin, and can happen under drastic conditions, such as where a population of slaves speaking many languages has to develop a common language among slaves and with overseers. In due course, children grow up speaking the pidgin as their main language, and when this happens it must change to meet their needs. Depending on the stage at which creolization occurs, different types of structural expansion are necessary before the language can become adequate. In the case of Jamaican Creole, it is thought that a rudimentary pidgin creolized within a generation, then began to de-creolize towards general English. Tok Pisin, however, first stabilized and expanded as a pidgin before it became creolized; in such cases, the transition between the two stages is gradual rather than abrupt.

The term is also applied to cases where heavy borrowing disrupts the continuity of a language, turning it into a creole-like variety, but without a prior pidgin stage. Some researchers have argued that Middle English is a creole that arose from contact with Norse during the Scandinavian settlements (8–11c) and then with French after the Norman Conquest (11c). In addition to massive lexical borrowing, many changes led to such simplification of grammar as loss of the Old English inflectional endings. It is not, however, clear that these changes were due solely to language contact, since other languages have undergone similar restructurings in the absence of contact, as for example when Latin became Italian.

De-creolization is a further development in which a creole gradually converges with its superstrate or lexifier language: for example, in Hawaii and Jamaica, both creoles moving towards STANDARD ENGLISH. Following the creolization of a pidgin, a POST-CREOLE CONTINUUM may develop when, after a period of relatively independent linguistic development, a post-pidgin or post-creole variety comes under a period of renewed influence from the lexifier language. De-creolization may obscure the origins of a variety, as in the case of American Black English.

Conclusion

Pidgin and creole languages were long neglected by the academic world, because they were not regarded as ‘real’ or ‘fully-fledged’ languages, but their study is currently regarded as significant for general linguistics as well as the study of such languages as English. The study of pidgins and creoles has been rapidly expanding as linguists interested in language acquisition, language change, and universal grammar have taken more notice of them. Since pidgins and creoles are generally spoken in Third World countries, their role and function are intimately connected with a variety of political questions concerned with national, social, and economic development and transition into post-colonial societies. Some countries give official recognition to pidgin and creole languages, among them PAPUA NEW GUINEA, VANUATU, and Haiti. Pidgin and creole languages also function as symbols of solidarity in many parts of the world where their use is increasing.

See ABORIGINAL ENGLISH, ACROLECT, AFRICAN ENGLISH, ATLANTIC CREOLES, BAHAMAS, BASILECT, BELIZE, CAYMAN ISLANDS, GHANA, HAWAIIAN ENGLISH, JAMAICAN ENGLISH, MAURITIUS, MELANESIAN PIDGIN ENGLISH, MESOLECT, MONTSERRAT, NEW ORLEANS, NIGERIA, SAINT CHRISTOPHER AND NEVIS, SAINT LUCIA, SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES, SOLOMON ISLANDS PIDGIN ENGLISH, TALK, WEST AFRICAN ENGLISH, WEST AFRICAN PIDGIN ENGLISH.