LING 122: ENGLISH AS A WORLD

LANGUAGE - 18
Language Contact:
Pidgins & Creoles

Readings:
Lipski, Crystal, Holman,
Sample Pidgins & Creoles
PIDGINS AND CREOLES
- Characteristics and origins of Pidgins and Creoles
- Expanded pidgins
- Creole origins
- From pidgins to creoles
-- Hawaiian Creole English
- Developments in the UK and the US
*Notes based on Jenkins, J. 2003. World Englishes, Routledge, pp. 55-60, 99-106, 154-162.
Pidgins

Limited functions (esp. trade)
No native speakers (nobodys mother tongue)
Contact language involving at least two, often
three different language groups
That is, it is the product of a multilingual situation
in which those who wish to communicate must
find or improvise a simple language system that
will enable them to do so.
Pidgin Origins
So Pidgins, in the stereotypical case, are formed
when speakers of one language engage in trade
with speakers of another, or work on plantations
managed by speakers of another, and neither
knows the others language.
In plantation settings, their manual function is to
enable workers to communicate with each other,
since plantation laborers very often do not speak
the same language.

Pidgins
Very simple languages that develop just linguistically
and functionally enough to satisfy their purposes
Usually involve a European language (esp. English) and
non-European languages
Very often, the situation (i.e. the context of origin) is
one in which there is an imbalance of power among
the languages. The speakers of one language
dominate the speakers of the other languages
economically and socially.
That is, the superstratum language supplies most of
vocabulary (new domain of use for non-Europeans)
The substratum language supplies much of the
grammar

Expanded Pidgins
Pidgins usually have limited life-span; can die out
when the interactions that they serve end (e.g.,
the end of a trade route)
Pidgins will survive longer if at least two
substratum language groups are involved.
E.g. Non-European language groups not in frequent
contact with each other until arrival of trans-oceanic
trade will continue to use the Pidgin created.
Expanded Pidgins
So the pidgin becomes a link language among the
non-Europeans, who sometimes continue to
develop and use it after the Europeans have left
True in many West African countries and South Pacific
islands (e.g., Sierra Leone in Story of English).
So it can become an expanded pidgin, like the Nigerian
pidgin Genesis, and remain in wide use.
Grammar and vocabulary expand as types of
interaction become broader and more complex.
But still no native speakers.
Expanded Pidgins
However, under certain circumstances, expanded pidgins can
start to have native speakers
Imagine that as trade along the rivers and the coastal areas
continues to expand,
Communities (ultimately cities) develop in which speakers of
different non-European languages interact frequently for
many purposes
The only language that they share is the pidgin
If woman and man from different native language
backgrounds meet frequently and eventually marry, they
can only communicate with each other in the pidgin.

Expanded Pidgins
What happens when they have children? What
language will the children speak?

The children will be native speakers of the pidgin, and
they will grow up with other children having similar
language backgrounds.

As they grow up and become involved in broad range of
activities (education, music, religion), their language
becomes more complex in terms of grammar,
vocabulary, and discourse.

Creole Origins
The pidgin has now developed into a creole, which is
the mother tongue of a community.

Creoles can become dominant languages of
communities and even post-colonial nations
e.g., Jamaica, Haiti

Creoles often co-exist with standard dialect of a former
colonial European language, which remains the
language of official power.

Creoles
Thus,
-A Creole is often defined as a pidgin that has
become the first language of a new generation of
speakers, i.e. creoles arise when pidgins become
mother tongues.

- A creole, therefore, is a normal language in almost
every sense.

- 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.
Pidgins and Creoles
English-Based Pidgins and Creoles (35), E.g.
- Hawaiian Creole
- Gullah or Sea Islands Creole (spoken on the islands off the
coasts of northern Florida, Georgian and South Carolina)
- Jamaican Creole
- Krio (spoken in Sierra Leone)
- Sranan and Djuka (spoken is Suriname)
- Cameroon Pidgin English
- Tok Pisin
- Chinese Pidgin English (a modified form of English used as a
trade language between the British and the Chinese, first in
Canton, China, and later in other Chinese trade centers (e.g.,
Shanghai).

From Pidgins To Creoles
When a pidgin has become nativized, the history of the
resultant Creoles is, in essence, similar to that of any other
language.

Hence, whereas a pidgin is identifiable at any given time by
both linguistic and social criteria, a Creole is identifiable
only by historical criteriathat is if we know that it has
arisen out of pidgin.

There are no structural criteria which, in themselves, will
identify a Creole as such, in the absence of historical
evidence.

Characteristics of Pidgins &
Creoles
Lexis (vocabulary)
Pronunciation
Grammar
Social Functions


Lexis
Drawn from dominant (lexifier) language (English,
French, Portuguese, Dutch)
Lexis rules for pidgins are simpler than for mature
languages
Concepts encoded in lengthy ways
Yumitripela we, us
Gras bilong pisin feathers
Extensive use of reduplication
Pikpik pigs
Gutpela liklik fairly good
Pronunciation
Five vowel sounds: / i e a o u /
deep / dip -> /dip/
work / walk -> /wak/
Simplification of consonant clusters
/-nd/ -> /-n/ : /paun/ pound
/-ks/ -> /-kis/ : /sikis/ six
Conflation of consonant sounds
/f/ -> /p/ : /pren/ friend
// -> /s/ : /bus/ bush
Larger number of homophones
/ti/ -> thing / think
Grammar
Pidgins
Variable from speaker to speaker
Few if any inflections
Simple negation: no + X
Simple clause structure
From pidgins to creoles
Consistency across speakers
Assimilation & reduction processes
Expanded vocabularies
Tense system
Greater sentence complexity
Social Functions
Pidgins: Limited range of social functions
As contact languages, used for minimal
communication purposes
Extended pidgins and creoles: Wide range of
social functions
Oral and written literature
Education
Mass media
Advertising
Religion
Creole Developments in the UK
London Jamaican
Patois of British blacks
Origins in the Caribbean
Spoken by London-born youth
Reflects process of re-creolization (shift back to
earlier forms of the creole)
Also spoken by young whites, Asians
Language crossing use of minority varieties by
ethnic outgroups
Jamaican Creole Grammatical
Features
Interchangeable pronouns - /em/ = he, she, it,
him, her, etc.
Present tense forms for present & past
reference: /ai se/ = I said.
Elimination of tense suffixes (-s, -ed): /yu bret
stink/ = Your breath stinks.
Pre-phrasal no for negation /no bret stink/ =
My breath doesnt stink.
Jamaican Creole Phonological
Features
// & // -> /t/ & /d/: /bret/ = breath
Labialization after /b/: /bwoy/ = boy
Deletion of final consonants: /bl/ = bullet
// & //* -> /a/: cloth -> /klaat/
*// = open o as in
Lack of unstressed schwa: the -> /da/ ~ /di/
The US: From Pidgin to Creole
to African American English?
Ebonics
African American English (AAE)
Not all African Americans speak it
Some non-African Americans speak it
The language of descendents of slaves
Traces origins to original slave pidgin and subsequent
creoles
Shows possible traces of African languages
Non-standard
Rule-governed
Ebonics Grammatical Features
Deletion of past tense suffixes
Yesterday he played -> /ple/
Deletion of auxiliaries where SAE can contract
Hes going -> /hi gowi/, but not
how pretty you are -> */haw prIti yu/
Multiple negation
He dont know nothing.
Habitual be
Sometime she be angry but not
*Sometime she angry.
Existential Its
Theres a beer in the frig Its a beer in the frig
Ebonics Phonological Features
Reduction of final consonant clusters
burned my hand /bn ma hn/
messed up /ms p/
SAE /d/ and /t/
good man /g mn/
Monophthongization
time /Taim/ /Tam/
SAE /l/ and /r/ //
steal /stil/ /sti/; more /mor/ /mo/
SAE // and // /d/, /t/, /f/, /v/
thin /tin/; they /de/
brother /brv/; three /fri/
HAWAIAN PIDGIN
In Hawaii, a creole developed from an earlier pidgin (though
what is spoken today is often called Hawaiian Pidgin!)
On the colonial plantations, frequent contact among several
Asian immigrant language groups (Chinese, Japanese,
Korean), indigenous Hawaiians, and Caucasian Americans
As interactions among them become more frequent and
complex, expanded pidgin develops
Communicative functions expand, which requires more
complex grammar and vocabulary
When they intermarry, creole develops, which becomes first
language of their kids
Hawaiian Creole English
A sample from the Bible