2011. Kriol And Kriolisation Exploring The Creole Language Of North Australia. (Thesis)

Kriol and Kriolisation:
Exploring the creole language of North Australia
Josh PHILLIPS
A thesis submitted to the University of New South Wales
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Bachelor’s Degree in International Studies —
Language Studies (Honours) (Linguistics)
School of Languages and Linguistics
The University of New South Wales
2011

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ORIGINALITY STATEMENT
‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my
knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another
person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the
award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution,
except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. I also declare that the
intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the
extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception and style,
presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’
Signed
Date

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Acknowledgments
Dumaji ai garra theŋkim loda pipul blaŋa albim mi blaŋa raidim dis thesis na.
If ai nomo bina abum yumob, wal ai jis nomo bina binijim im.
My phenomenal supervisors, Mengistu Amberber and Carmella Hollo. It goes without saying
that, without you both, I’d be in a straitjacket and padded room by now. Mengistu, I owe so
much to your bibliographic knowledge of the discipline, the palpable enthusiasm in your
teaching and the patient encouragement which has, for a year, effectively countered my
fortnightly bout of anxiety. Carmella, the infectious enthusiasm communicated through your
classes, unwavering encouragement and generosity with your time has, not only this year,
but throughout the past five, contributed immeasurably to my experience at uni.
A thank you also to other staff of the SLL, for the interest you’ve shown, and for having
tolerated my overuse of MB205. Special thanks to Peter Collins for your pointers and
critiques during the long pre‐writing phase.
To my family, for your unhesitant moral support in the face of constant irrationality and for
exercising due discretion about how much, and when, to check up on progress this year.
The ‘cohort’: friends, your commiseration, toleration of abstruse ironic humour (i.e. Cait &
Shank) and much‐needed aid in justifying two‐hour expeditions to the Coffee Cart this year
have made the experience what it has been. Particular thanks to Tim and Jonah for the
extended study sessions and stylistic advice.
Scripture quotations are from the Holi Baibul in the Kriol of Northern Australia © 2007
the Bible Society in Australia Inc.
The thesis comprises a description of the history and posits an explanation for the
linguistic features of the Kriol language of North Australia — a language born as the
direct result of the atrocities and cultural arrogance that underscored the period of
European imperialism and one that is still ignored by society. It is to the indigenous people
of this country and their ever‐marginalised cultures that this work is dedicated.

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments..............................................................................................................................iii
Table of Contents................................................................................................................................ iv
Table of Figures...................................................................................................................................... vi
List of Abbreviations .......................................................................................................................vii
1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................1
2. THEORISING POSTCOLONIAL LINGUISTICS ..........................................................5
2.1 By way of definition: seeking terminological consensus ......................................................6
2.2 A sociolinguistic overview of creole and pidgin languages...................................................9
2.3 Transmission and Expansion ....................................................................................................... 12
2.3.1 The Creole: a typological or sociolinguistic construct?..............................................................12
2.3.1.1 The Exceptionalists: creole languages as a “typological class” .....................................13
2.3.1.1a Revising concepts of ‘linguistic simplicity’ .....................................................................15
2.3.2 Creole Genesis: Substrata versus Universals..................................................................................16
2.3.2.1 The nativists........................................................................................................................................16
2.3.2.2. Substratism.........................................................................................................................................18
2.3.2.2a Transfer constraints.................................................................................................................19
2.3.3 Superstratism....................................................................................................................................................20
3. THE LINGUISTIC ECOLOGY OF ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIA....................................23
3.1 Post‐contact language phenomena in Australia .................................................................... 25
3.1.1 Pidgins and the sociohistorical history of Kriol ............................................................................25
3.1.2 Kriol and Aboriginal English as lexifier languages........................................................................30
3.2 Attitudes to post‐contact varieties ............................................................................................. 32
3.2.1 Education .......................................................................................................................................................34
3.2.2 Cross‐cultural communication: SHEIM and identity......................................................................35
4. KRIOL: A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS .....................................................................38
4.1 Phonology .......................................................................................................................................... 39
4.1.1 The consonant inventory ........................................................................................................................40
4.1.2 The vowel system.......................................................................................................................................40
4.2 Morphosyntax.................................................................................................................................... 42
4.2.1 The Kriol verb phrase................................................................................................................................43
4.2.1.1 The Kriol TMA system.....................................................................................................................43
4.2.1.1a Tense..............................................................................................................................................43
4.2.1.1b Mode................................................................................................................................................44
4.2.1.1c Aspect.............................................................................................................................................48
4.2.1.1d TMA: Ordering and Inferences ............................................................................................50
4.2.1.2 Copulæ...................................................................................................................................................52
4.2.1.3 Transitivity and Valence‐changing operations....................................................................55
4.2.1.3a Ambitransitive (labile) verbs ..............................................................................................56
4.2.1.3b Passives.........................................................................................................................................57
4.2.2 Subject Referencing Pronoun {im}.......................................................................................................58
4.2.3 Derivational Morphology.......................................................................................................................59
4.2.3.1 Phrasal Verbs......................................................................................................................................60

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4.2.3.2 Nominal derivation ..........................................................................................................................61
4.2.4 The Pronoun Paradigm............................................................................................................................63
4.2.4.1 Kriol pronouns, case and morphosyntax.................................................................................64
4.3 Kriol as an Aboriginal Language ................................................................................................. 67
5. DISCUSSION: THEORISING KRIOL GENESIS .......................................................69
5.0. ‘Complementary Influences’........................................................................................................ 69
5.1 Substrate transfer and relexification in Kriol ....................................................................... 70
5.1.1 Phonological Transfer ..............................................................................................................................71
5.1.2 Morphological transfer: the VP.............................................................................................................71
5.1.3 Morphological transfer: the NP............................................................................................................72
5.2 ‘Class membership’: Universals in KRIOLisation .................................................................... 73
5.2.1 Kriol morphology and the CPH............................................................................................................74
5.2.2. Universals, discourse structuring and the orate creole............................................................75
5.3 KRIOLisation, policy, identity........................................................................................................ 77
6. ENVOI..............................................................................................................78
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................79
................................................................................................................................
APPENDICES...........................................................................................................1
A. Common linguistic features in ALs ..................................................................................................1
A.1 Phonology............................................................................................................................................................ 1
A.2 Morphosyntax ................................................................................................................................................... 3
A.2.1 Verb phrase typology............................................................................................................................ 5
A.3 Lexicon.................................................................................................................................................................. 5
B. Diachronic process informing the development of Kriol phonology...................................7
B.1 Voicing .................................................................................................................................................................. 7
B.2 Fortition ............................................................................................................................................................... 8
B.3 Syllables ................................................................................................................................................................ 9
C. Causativisation.................................................................................................................................... 10
D. Pluralisation........................................................................................................................................ 11
E. Complex Clause Structure .................................................................................................................... 11
E.1 Noun Clauses.....................................................................................................................................................12
E.2 Relative Clauses.............................................................................................................................................12

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Table of Figures
Table 1: Chrau derivations with {pa‐}.....................................................................................14
Table 2: Consonant inventory of basilectal Kriol...............................................................40
Table 3: Putative word class division in Kriol................................................................43
Table 4: The evolution of construction of future “tense” and conditional “moods”
in Vulgar Latin and Old French ........................................................................................46
Table 5: Paradigm of verbal prefix {jurd‐} in Alawa.........................................................61
Table 6: Kriol pronoun paradigm .............................................................................................64
Appendices
Figure 1: Cardinal vowels in ALs 1
Table 7: Available places of articulation for stop and nasal consonants in ALs..... 2

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List of Abbreviations
*pPN proto‐Pama‐Nyungan
1 First‐person (pronoun)
2 Second‐person (pronoun)
3 Third‐person (pronoun
1 Karin Fes Karinthiyans
1 Sem Fes Semyul
2 Kran Sekan Kranakuls
2 Sem Sekan Semyul
A ‘Agent’: Subject of a transitive clause
AAVE African American Vernacular English
ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation
AbE Aboriginal (varieties of) English
ACAUS Anticausative (auxiliary)
ADV Adverbal marker
AL Australian (phylogenetic Aboriginal) language
ASB Australian Bureau of Statistics
ATTR Attributive marker
BV Bislama Vanuatu
CAUS Causative (auxiliary)
COND Conditional Mood
CONT Continuous aspect
COP Copula
CPE Chinese Pidgin English
CPH Creole Prototype Hypothesis
CPR Creole phonological restructuring
D Dual (pronoun)
D2 Second dialect
DEM Demonstrative
DESIR Desiderative mood
DET Determiner
DM Discourse marker
DUR Durative aspect
Dyud Dyudaranami
Eimos Eimos
Eksa Eksadas
EMP Emphatic particle
Esta Esta
EVEN Eventive mood
EXCL Exclamatory
GK Gurindji Kriol
GR Grammatical relation
HAB Habitual aspect
Hos Hoseiya
IL Interlanguage
intr. Intransitive (verb)
IPFV Imperfective aspect
IRR Irrealis mood
ITER Iterative aspect
Jadj Jadjis
Jen Jenasis
Kr. Kriol (translation)
L1 First language
L2 Second language
LBH Language Bioprogram Hypothesis
Lem Leminteishans
LW ‘Light’ Warlpiri

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MP Melanesian Pidgin
NAME Proper name
NEC Necessitative mood
NEG Negative
Nei Neiham
nPN non‐Pama‐Nyungan
NSV Non‐standard variety
NSW New South Wales
NT Northern Territory
O Object of a transitive clause
P Plural (pronoun)
PERM Permissive mood
PC Pidgin‐Creole
PL Plural
PN Pama‐Nyungan
POT Potential mood
PROG Progressive aspect
PROH Prohibitive mood
PST Past tense
PURP Purposive
REL Relativiser
S Singular (pronoun)
S Subject of an intransitive clause
SAE Standard Australian English
SDA Second Dialect Acquisition
SE Standard English
SIL Summer Institute of Linguistics
SLA Second Language Acquisition
Song Brabli Gudwan Song
SRP Subject referencing pronoun
STAT Stative
TD Traditional Dyirbal
TL Traditional language
TMA Tense‐Modality‐Aspect
TP Tok Pisin
TR Transitive marker
tr. Transitive (verb)
UG Universal Grammar
YD Young people’s Dyirbal

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1. Introduction
ORTH AUSTRALIAN ‘KRIOL’ (hereafter referred to as ‘Kriol’) is an English‐
lexified creole language spoken by Aboriginal populations in Australia,
communities existing in Western Australia (WA), the Northern Territory (NT)
and extending into North Queensland. It is not mutually intelligible with
Standard Australian English (SAE) and is spoken by some 20,000 people (Siegel
2008: 225). Its ‘birth’ is a direct result of the sedentarization and disruption of
traditional lifestyles, effected by the encroaching white settlement and political
occupation at the turn of the twentieth century, during the doctrinal
opportunism and acquisitiveness of the terra nullius era.*
The age of colonial rule, and the ethnocentric, scientific racism that was
implicated as a means of justifying the imperial powers’ mission civilatrice (i.e.
‘the white man’s burden’), devastated New World communities. It also created
new communities: people drawn from disparate geographical and linguistic
ecologies came to coexist in foreign, remote settings. These new socio‐politically
marginalised communities, with no or few common communicative resources
between them, innovated lingue franche – languages which are now (subject to
some qualification, as explained below) known as “creole languages.”
The study of creoles and related languages, referred to as ‘creolistics’ or
‘postcolonial linguistics,’ attempts to respond to a series of polemical questions.
The tenor of discourse surrounding pidgin and creole languages has historically
been one of pejorative derision: issues of prestige, institutionalisation and
literacy development have raised heated sociolinguistic debate. Furthermore,
since the work of Hugo Schuchardt, a German scholar credited as “the father of
modern creolistics,” theorists have been eager to point out (and explain) the
“similarities” that are postulated of these languages, despite their discrete
* This thesis contains a series of scripture texts, which have been, as per linguistic convention,
interlineally glossed and free translated into English. Because of their direct relevance to the text,
they have been included in the body of the thesis, rather than appended, to allow for easy
reference.
N

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geographical and linguistic development – ‘vindicating,’ so to speak, the “creole
language” as a typological class (e.g. McWhorter 1998: etc.). Nevertheless, this
hypothesis has, in recent decades, come under fierce attack (e.g. DeGraff 2001:
etc.),1 spurring an exceptionally vigorous empirical and theoretical debate that
polarises the discipline. Tangential to this is another important debate, to which
this thesis will attempt to contribute: the identification of motivating forces
behind creole genesis, primarily resolving the question of “substrata versus
universals” (cf. Muysken & Smith 1986). This seeks to answer questions about
the sources of formal features in creole languages: whether they are motivated
by an innate (and therefore universally human) ‘language bioprogram’ and set of
universals (which offers self‐evidencing reasons for putative cross‐creole
structural similarity), or alternatively whether the development of creole
grammar is simply a “relexification” of that of its ‘substrate languages’ – i.e. the
diverse first languages (L1) of its speakers. While both approaches have been
(and continue to be) subjected to volleys of methodological criticism, we will see
how these forces are not only not mutually exclusive, but even appear to
complement each other in Kriol.
Independent of whether or not one sympathises with DeGraff’s critique of
‘creole exceptionalism,’ the diachronic processes contributing to the genesis of
creole languages shed light, not only on formal linguistics, but also upon theories
of second language acquisition (SLA) and human cognition and behaviour.
Indeed recent studies, such as the extraordinary (2008) volume edited by Silvia
Kouwenberg and John Victor Singler, have attempted to resituate and apply the
discussion surrounding these language varieties within different frameworks:
fascinating, contemporary templates of linguistic and cultural contact, change
and complexification.
This thesis, then, is an investigation into the context and formal structure of
Australian Kriol; an attempt to better situate it in the scholarly discourse and
study of pidgin and creole languages which, to date, has all but neglected it. It
1 The enduring perspective of creole languages’ exhibiting a predictable set of typological
features is what Michel DeGraff refers to as “(the fallacy of) Creole Exceptionalism” (e.g. 2003;
2005).

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appears that the negligible public awareness (“linguistic exile”) of Australian
creoles, as reflected by the paucity of research into them, is a result of enshrined
ideological indifference that forms part of DeGraff’s “discursive chain” (2003:
402; 2005) of oppression and contempt towards colonised peoples —“varieties
not considered true languages worthy of linguistic inquiry… perceived to be
bastards and perverted” (Mühlhäusler 2008: 437).
Including this introductory section, this thesis is divided into six chapters,
organised as follows:
In order to discuss Kriol in relation to theories of creole genesis and
morphological expansion, Chapter Two will outline the primary lines of
thinking that inform creolistics. It will provide a brief survey of the definitional
debate and the wealth of general literature and research that has polarised the
field. A comparison of approaches to creole genesis will be provided as well as a
brief outline of the profound applied issues associated with these “new”
languages.
Chapter Three will comprise a discussion of the Australian ‘linguistic ecology.’
This includes a sociolinguistic glimpse of pre‐contact Aboriginal Australia,
discusses the effects of European contact as a major disruption to the Indigenous
mode de vie and the motivating factor for the establishment of a functional
pidgin language, facilitating intergroup communication which, in various forms,
spread throughout Australia and Melanesia (§3.1). It will synthesise the
expanding literature that has inquired into issues of cross‐cultural
communication for Indigenous Australians. This subchapter addresses salient
attitudinal issues that affect speakers of creoles and ‘non‐standard varieties’
(NSV), such as access to institutions, representation and education, as well as
conceptions of identity in “new,” sedentarised Aboriginal communities (§3.2).
There is no satisfactory reference grammar for Kriol. An almost exclusively orate
language system with a developing scribal system, its anæmic literature consists
primarily of a few picture books, scripture translations and a series of bi‐ or

4
trilingual draft dictionaries (e.g. Sharpe 2001). The most significant written
documentation is the result of a twenty‐five year translation process, which
yielded a complete rendering of the Bible into Kriol in 2007. Drawing on these
finite resources, particularly the biblical text, Chapter Four roughly sketches
some aspects of Kriol grammar, with particular reference to those features that
appear relevant to a creolistics study. These include topics that creolists have
seized upon as evidence of typological ‘creoleness’ as well as features that
suggest a link between creole languages and substrate structures. Each of these
features will be compared against relevant texts and hypotheses, hopefully
shedding light on the forces that instigated creolisation.
Finally, Chapter Five will provide a synthesis of findings and a discussion of the
implications of this thesis. It will propose a basic framework for understanding
the complementary forces that contributed to creolisation in the NT. Chapter
Six is an envoi, consisting of directions for future research.

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2. Theorising Postcolonial Linguistics
“Not the least of the crimes of colonialism has been to
persuade the colonized that they, or ways in which they
differ, are inferior – to convince the stigmatized that the
stigma is deserved”
Dell Hymes 1968, page 3
The terminology and metalanguage that informs the discourse on and inquiry
into pidgin and creole languages form a primordial issue for this study and the
discipline in general. The postcolonial discourse surrounding this putative
(although, as we will see, hotly debated) discrete subset of languages has
generated such stigma and prejudice amongst speakers and observers alike, that
even notions of political correctness seem to intervene in and obfuscate the
definitional debates that surround and envelop the literature. Indeed, for many,
the term “creole” itself still seems to invoke the notions of slavery, colonialism
and racist ethnology: recalling the nineteenth century imperialist discourses of
“bastardised” or incompletely acquired forms of European languages. Indeed,
only in the last few decades of the previous century did observers begin to
conceive of these “creoles” as languages at all, whereas formerly they were
considered “degenerations… deviations from other systems…[explained by the]
inherent ignorance, indolence, and inferiority [of their speakers]” (Hymes 1968:
3). We have had, then, to contend with simultaneous popular and scholarly
usages of the same words; co‐opted by linguists to describe these emergent
languages (Harris 2007). The still‐extant idea that pidgin and creole languages
represent grammatically simplified versions of their lexifiers is one that has met
with fierce criticism in modern linguistics and will be discussed in the following
section.
This chapter is subdivided into three sections: §2.1 deals with the bemusing
terminological debate and defines key concepts, §2.2 provides an overview of
the many sociolinguistic and applied issues that present across creole‐language
communities and §2.3, the bulk of the chapter, presents competing theories and

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perspectives that seek to answer the question of how and whence creole
languages and their linguistic features emerge.
2.1 By way of definition: seeking terminological consensus
Despite the fact that creole languages and the contact phenomenon in general
have been the subject of linguistic scrutiny for more than a century, any form of
terminological and attitudinal clarity is much more recent a phenomenon.2 The
linguistic community’s subsumption of lay‐terms “pidgin” and “creole” as
conceptual paradigms obfuscates their meaning and conjures up morally
unpalatable images of the oppression, disenfranchisement and suppression of
indigenous cultures by eighteenth and nineteenth century colonists. Pre‐
scriptivist approaches to grammar, inherited by much of the “inner circle’s”
educated community, means that these post‐contact varieties “[were] at worst …
considered to be pathologically deviant versions of European languages; at best,
just quaint dialects” (Sandefur 1986: 1). The salience of Caribbean “creole”
culture further adds to this confusion: much of the wider community seems to
make a vague association between the word and the language spoken by
marginalised former plantation communities in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of
Mexico and their miscegenetic culture, similarly a symptom of decolonisation.
Former French colonies in the region have seen popular movements directed at
espousing their ‘créolité’, an identity that is as much the product of European
influence as it is of African descent (Bernabé et al. 1993). This salient anthropo‐
logical definition, while informing applied sociolinguistic issues in non‐standard
speech communities, is unhelpful for our purposes and demonstrates the need
for satisfactory terminological consensus to be drawn on linguistic grounds.
Whether these features exist and can be enumerated is an issue to be further
discussed below. Speakers increasingly identifying with their creole vernaculars
has generated an impetus for the further institutionalisation of these into
2 Often credited with the moniker of “father of modern creolistics,” Hugo Schuchardt published
his Kreolische Studien in the 1880 (Sandefur 1986). Nonetheless, the first grammar of a creole
language (Virgin Islands Creole) was published by the Dane Jochum Melchior Magens in 1770.
Widespread discussion of the term as representing a discrete and identifiable set of languages
was absent until the middle of the last century, however (ibid). Dell Hymes’ 1968 conference
appears to mark the advent of recognized scholarly inquiry.

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literature, the education sector and other public services (Buzelin & Winer 2008;
Siegel 1992).
Within linguistics, Peter Mühlhäusler (1974; 1986) provides a discussion of the
need for greater transparency with regard to pidgin and creole nomenclature.
Broadly speaking, pidgins are understood to signify codes that emerged in
situations of contact between different language communities (generally with a
socio‐politically dominant minority); codes that are native to no one and exist as
grammatically and lexically impoverished auxiliaries, to some particular ends.3
They are restricted in terms of purpose, effectively providing an ad hoc social
solution (as opposed to idiosyncratic “jargons” or “pre‐pidgins”) to intergroup
communication in contact situations (Mühlhäusler 1974: 16). Furthermore, it
has been generally observed that pidgins have a tendency to “expand” and
“stabilise” into more complex systems over time, as ‘communicative
requirements become more demanding’ (ibid 1986: 5ff).
A useful construct that has informed most thought on the development of creole
languages (albeit with some notable detractors) dates back to Schuchardt: the
“creole life‐cycle” model (Kouwenberg & Singler 2008: 8ff). This states that
creoles differ from the pidgins from which they arise in that they are used on a
daily basis and are generally the L1 of a generation of speakers. Given creole
languages’ infiltration into all aspects of a community’s existence, they have
morphologically and lexically developed to a point where they can fulfil all the
necessary linguistic functions of their lexifier (or any other natural language).
This distinction, however, is obfuscated by the interplay between social and
formal linguistic analyses. Pacific vernaculars such as Tok Pisin of Papua New
Guinea (TP) and Bislama of Vanuatu (BV) see usage as lingue franche in all areas
of society and have developed writing systems and register variation. However,
they are not spoken as a first language by the vast majority of the population.4
3 The (disputed) etymology elucidates this latter point, presumably a borrowing from the
Chinese Pidgin English (CPE) spoken through the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The word
ultimately derives from Standard English (SE) “business”. (cf. DeCamp 1968a; Chaudenson 2001)
4 Siegel argues that TP be described as an expanded pidgin on these sociolinguistic grounds
(2008a:5), even though, like BV, it behaves as a lingua franca for much of the community
(including both countries’ administrations) and is the primary native language (L1) for less than
five per cent of the population.

8
Some scholars therefore refer to these as “expanded pidgins,” contact languages
that have the same degree of formal repletion as creole languages. To avoid this
problem some texts use the terminology “pidgincreoles” (PCs) (Bakker 2008;
DeCamp 1968a), suggesting that the two “belong to a single category” (Bakker
2008; Lefebvre et al. 2006a: 1).5
Approaching labels like ‘pidgin’ and ‘creole’ as heuristic concepts linked by
continua, it would appear, is a more appropriate methodology. Mühlhäusler
(1986) models the formal evolution and stabilisation of a jargon/incipient pidgin
into an expanded pidgin/creole, describing this as a “developmental continuum”
(11). Furthermore, Mühlhäusler (loc. cit.) has appealed to the concept of a “post‐
creole continuum,” another popular construct amongst creolists that accounts
for the diglossia that is common in creole‐speaking communities and a tendency
for a creole language to “merge” with its lexifier in cases of prolonged linguistic
contact.6 The “continuum” that represents a cline of dialects ranging between
Jamaican Creole (the “basilects”) and Jamaican Standard English (the “acrolects”),
originally proposed by DeCamp (1968b) is a canonical example of this.7 Given
the continuing contact between the creoles spoken by Indigenous Australians
and their lexifier, SAE, in urban centres, an identical phenomenon of
“decreolization” exists in Aboriginal Australia (Rhydwen 1996; Sandefur 1982).
Mühlhäusler plots this variation onto a “restructuring continuum” – along which
a creole language with a complete lexical, phonological and grammatical
inventory varies towards a socio‐political standard, typically the one by which it
is lexified (ibid). In communities undergoing restructuring, it is impossible (or at
least unreasonable) to quantitatively identify a “structural gap” – that is, to
distinguish a speaker of a creole language from that of a variety of its lexifier.
Additionally, within these speech communities, DeCamp claims that it is unlikely
5 For the purposes of this thesis, drawing such a distinction is unnecessary: we will use the term
‘creole’ to refer to institutionalised and formally complete languages spoken in postcolonial
contexts and (usually) ‘born’ from a pidgin predecessor.
6 Mühlhäusler notes that Dutch‐lexified Sranan (Surinamese) and Negerholland (Antillean) did
not coexist with their lexifier, and therefore exhibit different properties (1986:11). Interestingly,
Sranan and Negerhollands both receive particular interest in the creolistics literature,
considered “radical creoles” given their conformity to the creole sociohistorical profile.
7 Derived from Greek combining etyma βασις‐ base‐; αχρο‐ topmost‐

9
that there be many (if any) speakers of creole at its ‘purest’ (1968b: 350‐1).
Sandefur (1984: 2‐3) notes of the Roper varieties that “no Kriol speaker can be
placed at a single point along the phonological continuum,” rather controlling,
and often mixing, a “range” of it. This phonological, lexical and grammatical
heterogeneity along the post‐creole continuum engenders self‐evident issues for
the development of orthographies (and thereby literacy), let alone for the
definition of a creole language. Rhydwen, in her 1996 survey of Kriol literacy
notes that the orthography, based on a basilectal (or “heavy”8) pronunciation is
often non‐representative of speakers’ phonetic renderings of a text, likely a
result of interference from Australian English. The word “lukgaafdaum” in Kriol,
derived from English phrasal verb ‘look after’ was rendered [lʊkafdʌ] when read
by a forty year‐old woman who had spent time in urban Darwin (89‐91).
These two “continua”, which chart the development of creole languages in terms
of morphological expansion and variation relative to their lexifier, are useful
heuristics that have been met with general acceptance in the relatively short
history of creolistics scholarship. Although these theories have become virtually
axiomatic, they are not, as we will see below, without their critics. The
‘superstratist’ school, tenets of which are outlined below (p20), challenges the
assumptive relationship between pidgins and creoles in a discourse that has
influenced, and perhaps divided, the central discourse of pidgin and creole
studies itself.
2.2 A sociolinguistic overview of creole and pidgin languages
Informed by some of these debates, an apparent dichotomy in institutionalised
approaches to creole languages exists.
On the one hand is the promotion of a contemporary social role and acceptance
of creoles as languages in their own right, with discrete grammars and
8 The terms “heavy” and “light” are used by Indigenous speakers when referring to and
distinguishing dialect and register variation in their own speech: “light” referring to acrolectal
varieties, “heavy” to basilectal. The term, by analogy, has also expanded its reference to that of
Australian languages: the restructured, more configurational varieties spoken by younger people
are referred to as “light,” against the traditional “heavy” and highly inflected varieties of their
ancestors. This terminology will be further employed in later sections (e.g. §3.1.2. See Butcher
2008; Rhydwen 1996).

10
literatures, uniting their speakers in a type of postcolonial language community.
Stewart (2007: 17ff) notes how this notion of créolité, as paramount to the
formation of a French Caribbean identity, gained some traction in the 1980s;
instigating a push to incorporate and institutionalise local vernaculars. Indeed, it
is well established in sociolinguistic literature that these non‐standard language
variants form a crucial component of speakers’ identity and culture. The
emergence of a pan‐Caribbean ‘creole’ identity exemplifies this tendency and
reflects the expressive potential of creole languages.
On the other hand, the stigma associated with pidgins and creoles – which are
often described as (degenerate) dialects of their lexifier language and accounted
for in terms of fractured language acquisition and poor education – is manifest
and global in its effect. The consequences of such attitudes, resulting in a failure
to recognise the legitimacy of creole languages in their own right, have dire
implications for these language communities in terms of their education and
integration into society. In his fieldwork investigation of the English creole
spoken in Carriacou (Grenada, West Indies), Kephart (1992) discusses the
destructive effects of the discouragement of literacy in vernacular creoles. He
deconstructs fallacious claims that creole language literacy impairs local
children’s capacity to be educated in the standard and suggests that the élite’s
entrenched attitudes, and the effects that they have upon education policy and
schooling, contribute to social stratification and discrimination in these Brókn
Inglish‐speaking populations. Michel DeGraff, a Haitian linguist, seizes on these
arguments – he asserts that falsifiable scholarly claims of creole grammars’
exhibiting a typological ‘formal simplicity’ (see p.15) are symptomatic of an
unbroken transmission of ensconced imperialistic notions of hegemonic
racialism (2003: 391). This argument, one that calls the ontological assumptions
of this discipline into question, is further discussed below.
A related issue in postcolonial linguistics, and a particularly salient one in
cosmopolitan societies like those of the United States and Australia, whose
settlement long predated their de jure espousal of universal human rights, is that
of the use of and attitudes towards NSVs. The ostensibly divergent formal

11
features of some minority speech communities may be seen to be a result of
their disenfranchisement and policies of enforced illiteracy adopted by previous
ruling élites (Farrell 1983: 473).9 Their contemporary status and ‘legitimacy,’
particularly in relation to education today, however, are sources of great contro‐
versy. California’s ‘Oakland Ebonics controversy’ in 1996, for example, where a
local school board passed a resolution permitting African American Vernacular
English to be used as a tool in remedial English classrooms received a wide
range of negative reactions. The Linguistics Society of America, nonetheless,
supported the policy, citing an overwhelming increase in code‐switching and SE
proficiency when the standard has been explicitly contrasted and taught parallel
to NSVs (Rickford 1999). Siegel points out how “speakers of creoles and
minority dialects are disadvantaged in the formal education system” (1999: 508)
given that the language of instruction is not one that they speak at home or
outside of scholastic environments. This is further discussed in §3.3.1.
The wide variation in attitudes and societal valuation of NSVs, pidgins and
creoles, then, underscores the need for some greater form of terminological and
semantic agreement. Assuming that it is indeed true that there are echoes of
neoimperialism (see DeGraff 2003: loc cit.) in the insistence of some scholars
that these postcolonial languages form a typological group per se, creolists must
point to formal linguistic criteria to justify their field. The equation of these
languages with “Broken Englishes”, whose ‘simplicity is believed to reflect the
lesser mental capabilities of its darker skinned speakers […is] dangerous,
because [it] serves to rationalise European ethnocentrism and…perpetuates
racist stereotypes’ (Crowley & Rigsby 1979: 154; cited in Mühlhäusler 1991:
159f). Indeed, in Australia, “broken English” was the term applied to what has
come to be known as Kriol (Sharpe & Sandefur 1976). The claim that creole
languages exhibit similar linguistic properties despite the disparities in their
geographic and developmental contexts will be examined in the following
9 Citing Jean Piaget, Eric Havelock, Walter Ong and other psycho‐anthropological/socio‐
linguistic studies, Farrell (1983:475ff) contends that cognition and cognitive
development are greatly affected by the acquisition of literacy: that perception and
thought in primarily “oral” cultures differs on various fundamental levels from that of
those raised in “literate” cultural milieu particularly in reference to the development of
abstract thinking. This will be further explored later on in relation to schemata
verborum and parataxis in discourse structuring.

12
sections alongside other important related theoretical issues. This termino‐
logical debate, of course, and its reliance on “hard” linguistic data is crucial,
given the controversial nature and implications of the word “creole” as a
descriptor in the literature.
2.3 Transmission and Expansion
A particularly heated area of debate engages the question of whether creole
languages form a “typological class,” distinguishable by formal features
supposedly universal to creole languages. Since the inception of creole studies,
the task of accounting for the striking presence of various grammatical struct‐
ures that seem common to geographically disparate creoles despite the absence
of these in their lexifiers has captured the interest (and imagination) of scholars
(Holm & Patrick 2007: v). Other relevant questions include assessing the degree
of to which substratum has influenced creole language features, and that of
whether “transmission” of the lexifier was “broken” in creolisation (Siegel
2007b: 167) — these will all be discussed below.
2.3.1 The Creole: a typological or sociolinguistic construct?
‘Les langues créoles peuvent‐elles être définies sans allusion à leur histoire ?’
reads the title to an article published by Salikoko Mufwene in the (1987) volume
of Études Créoles. Accounting for supposed striking similarities across creole
languages is a challenge that has permeated the discipline since its inception.
Early theorists (i.e. the discredited ‘monogenetic’ theory) had suggested that
such typological similarities could be traced back to a Mediterranean “proto‐
pidgin,” that had been relexified on the plantations of Caribbean” (critiqued in
DeCamp 1968a: 20–23). Others have stated that the similarities are demonstr‐
ative of an innate human language faculty and basic communicative require‐
ments, strategies for which are innovated by children with insufficient linguistic
input. Many current theorists criticise the common assumption that these
purported similarities are demonstrative of any typological relationship. Rather,
as daughters of their lexifier, even “des idiomes issus des langues européennes”
(idioms that emerged from European languages), they are equally subject to

13
historical linguistic precepts as any Romance language (Chaudenson 2003: 38;
cited in Lefebvre 2011b: 4).
2.3.1.1 The Exceptionalists: creole languages as a “typological class”
In a recent article, Bakker et al. (2011) respond to the arguments against a
synchronic definition of creoles , noting the lack of empirical linguistic work that
has been done on both sides of the debate.
John McWhorter, an influential advocate of creole exceptionalism has claimed
(and in doing so launched something of a polemic) that ‘The world’s simplest
grammars are creole grammars’ (2001b). In doing so, McWhorter argues for a
rethinking of the linguistic “truism” that “all languages are equally complex”
(ibid: 125) and that it is the phenomenon of “overspecification,” whereby ‘older’
grammars outstrip the demands of Universal Grammar, which results in their
relative ‘complexity.’
Unsurprisingly given his background, theorists such as the Haïtian linguist
Michel DeGraff have responded in passionate criticism to these claims (e.g.
DeGraff 2003). While conscious of the fallacious equation of inflectional morpho‐
logy with linguistic sophistication and prestige, McWhorter suggests three
broadly defined criteria, the simultaneous absence of which is supposedly
attested in all creole languages but in no “older” natural language – a
fundamental weakness with earlier universalist accounts of morphological
expansion (notably Bickerton 1984; Markey 1982). In doing so, McWhorter has
formulated a highly cogent definition of creole language typology, which has
deep implications for historical and typological studies of linguistics and
coherently accounts for synchronic divergences from his hypothesis. These
three features are discussed one‐by‐one below, as they provide valuable
perspectives for the outcomes of this thesis.
i. Inflectional affixation, it is widely reported, is absent or infrequent in
creole languages. McWhorter claims that this lack of inflection can be explained
by the process of pidginisation, where the information traditionally encoded by
inflectional affixes is usually sidelined by the intrinsically utilitarian functions of

14
this immediate contact language (cf. Mühlhäusler 1986: 143). Developing rapidly
out of pidgin languages, creoles therefore emerge without inflectional
morphology, a feature that he argues is developed diachronically through
documentable processes of grammaticalisation (2005: 12). Meakins (2011: 98)
outlines various creolists’ identification of aspect affixation in some creoles.
ii. The absence of syntactic tone and lexically contrastive tone in
monosyllables. This criteria is a directly riposte to skeptics’ claims that the lack
of inflectional morphology in Chinese (and other analytic) languages means that
they could be considered ‘creoles’ by earlier proposed typological features.
McWhorter makes the substantiated claim that, like affixation, ‘tonogenesis’ is a
diachronic process, one which evolves from the erosion of segmental
(consonantal) phones and other ‘natural’ phonetic processes (ibid.: 13).10
iii. An absence of derivational noncompositionality, that is, all processes of
derivational morphology are semantically transparent and regular (i.e. compos‐
itional). Citing Thomas and Thomas (Thomas 1971; Thomas 1969), McWhorter
gives the example of the Chrau (Mon‐Khmer: Vietnam) prefix pa‐ which has
“drifted so far from its original meaning that no synchronic meaning is
perceivable.” (McWhorter 2005: 17). Below is a tabulation of its usage as
adapted from loc. cit.
Table 1: Chrau derivations with {pa‐}
găn go across pa‐găn crosswise
le dodge pa‐le roll over
lôm lure pa‐lôm mislead
lăm set, point pa‐lăm roll
jŏq long pa‐jŏq how long?
McWhorter notes the noncompositionality of productive, analysable English
morphemes such as the re‐ in “represent” and “repose” or the with‐ in
“withstand”, “withdraw” and “withhold” which appear to be “stored in the
lexicon rather than generated” (1998: 798; 2005: 15) and are therefore
10 For a discussion of the preconditions for tonogenesis, see Hombert et al. (1979)

15
traceable to historical processes. He makes the case that this semantic and
metaphorical obfuscation of derivational morphemes, which leads to the
lexification of noncompositional usages, is a process of natural semantic shift
occurring language‐internally over extended periods of time.
Because of various confounding factors as discussed elsewhere in this paper—
i.e. prolonged contact with superstrate (“decreolization”) or substrate languages
(“basilectalisation”) or general opacification and language‐internal restructuring
with diachronic drift — McWhorter acknowledges that the conformity to these
three factors is likely to vary between languages that fit the creole socio‐
historical profile. He proposes that, because the emergence of “ornamental” (i.e.
non‐basic, non‐simple) features is a diachronic process, the degree of presence
of these features is reflective of its age and development. Therefore, according to
McWhorter, the distinctive simplicity of creole languages is epiphenomenal
upon their putative ‘youth.’ These claims of youth draw on theories of broken
transmission as marked by the absence of the morphological, phonological and
semantic complexity, each of which is measured by the presence of the
aforementioned features and, by McWhorter’s analysis, accreted over time
(2009: 141).
While these elements are certainly all true of Kriol (with the arguable exception
of iii.), the ‘prototype’ idea has met with significant criticism (DeGraff 2003;
2005; Lefebvre 2001; 2003; 2004). This debate, an existential one for the
continued study of creole languages as a discrete class is ongoing (see §2.4).
Particular controversy surrounds the CPH’s invocation of (and revisionist
attitude towards) the notion of linguistic simplicity.
2.3.1.1a Revising concepts of ‘linguistic simplicity’
A recent volume (2009) edited by Sampson, Gil and Trudgill critiques the
traditional paradigm that there is no variance in ‘degrees’ of structural
complexity across languages. Such a claim is fraught with the sociopolitical
implications tied to the apparent viewpoint that “politically powerless groups
might speak languages which in some sense lack the full sophistication of
European languages” (Sampson 2009: 14). Sampson cites recent evidence,

16
including Dan Everett’s “transgressive” description of Pirahã (Muran:
Amazonas), which allegedly subverts expectations for the minimal elaboration
of human language. A strong trend is emerging that conceives of linguistic
complexity as a synchronic and diachronic variable conditioned by an array of
sociocultural and evolutionary phenomena. It is from this perspective that the
CPH may be seen to provide very valuable insights into linguistics as a broader
discipline.
2.3.2 Creole Genesis: Substrata versus Universals
Creolists have attempted to provide a scholarly account for the framework by
which creole speakers expand the grammar and expressive capacity of their
language. Two schools of thought have dominated the debate for the past three
decades: one claiming that creole forms replicate an innate, behaviourist
‘language bioprogram,’ the other that these forms are reflective of salient
grammatical and semantic characteristics in the substratum. In my view (and
that espoused by Mufwene (1986; 1990)), these claims are mutualistic.
2.3.2.1 The nativists
Cognitive scientist and major creolist Derek Bickerton’s ‘Language Bioprogram
Hypothesis’ (LBH) (1976; 1981; 1984), formed perhaps the most prominent
platform for ‘univeralism’ or ‘innatism,’—the dominant hypothesis explaining
morphological expansion in creole languages in the 1980s (Mufwene 1986;
Siegel 2008a: 66). Appealing in part to Chomsky’s Core Grammar, Bickerton
makes the ambitious claim that various features found to be common across
creole languages (narrowly defined) are structures demonstrative of human
language, cognition and acquisition mechanics. For Bickerton, a creole arises in a
linguistically fractured community where the majority of speakers have no
language in common and emerges ‘out of a prior pidgin which had not existed
for more than a generation’ (1981: 4). This second generation, Bickerton
assumes, inherit only the impoverished lexicon and grammar from their parents’
incipient pidgin as a means of communication. Bickerton explains that the rapid
expansion of the pidgin is a result of these children falling back onto a set of
innate cognitive resources, universal to human behaviour. He claims that it is
this inbuilt cognitive capacity that determines which structures must be

17
represented in basic communication, explaining the existence of the putative
typological features of creole languages.
Based on this theory, Bickerton posits that, if his hypothesis can be proven, it
offers “indispensible keys” to accounting for the original genesis of human
language (1981). In this seminal publication, Roots of Language, he outlines a set
of twelve categories that exist across a range of Atlantic creole languages,
allegedly predictable by the biosystem. While the LBH is an extremely attractive
one in its marriage of cognitive science and creolistics, it has attracted wide‐
spread criticism and has effectively been disproven in its stronger forms. Siegel
(2007a) cites recent evidence which exposes basic flaws in Bickerton’s data,
methodology and great discrepancies between the LBH and Hawaiian Creole
English (HCE) the language after which he modelled it (63). Furthermore,
Sandefur (1979: 157) comments that, by virtue of the gradual development of
pidgin Englishes in the NT for several generations before creolisation (evidently
resulting in features having become fixed and permitting for continued contact
with other languages), Kriol is excluded from this analysis (cf. Bickerton 1981:
4).
In a similar vein, Thomas Markey undertook a comparative study of Afrikaans
and Negerhollands, two Dutch‐lexified post‐colonial languages. Similar to the
LBH, this study yielded a set of eleven quantifiable features including marking
plural by third‐person pronouns, absence of grammatical noun classes and three
TMA markers, which he claims “is the best evidence to date that creoles reflect
prototypical patterns that may mirror innate faculties of linguistic competence”
(1982: 203‐4). This viewpoint has been subject to heavy criticism as data
incongruent with Markey’s inferences has eroded the relevance of his
hypothesis – it seems to provide rather a “typology of analytic languages in
general” (e.g. McWhorter 2005: 9). Nonetheless, he concludes that the presence
or absence of these categories locates a “transitional language” on a cline
between creole and non creole (Markey: ibid: 204).

18
These perspectives, while flawed in their execution, provide an extraordinarily
interesting and provocative perspective on language genesis and human
cognition in general. We will return to the intellectual implications of creole
universalism in Chapter 5.
2.3.2.2. Substratism
Bickerton, in particular, has faced strong criticism from other creolists for his
adamant rejection of the influence of substrate language transfer in processes of
morphological expansion, referring to proponents of this theoretical paradigm
as ‘substratomaniacs’(1981: 304). One of these, Jeff Siegel (2008), posits that
‘[m]ost often the form of a new grammatical morpheme originates in its lexifier,
while its function or meaning appears to be derived from a grammatical
morpheme or morphemes in one or more substrate languages’ (83, italics my
own). He demonstrates how various categories (e.g. TMA marking, syncretism
in existential and possessive constructions etc.) existing in HCE that Bickerton
had attributed to the bioprogram can be accounted for by similar structures
occurring in in the substrate L1s of Cantonese and Portuguese labourers (ibid
2007a: passim; 2008a: 91‐104). Espousing this theory, he develops a model,
which he calls ‘transfer constraints,’ as a means of gauging the salience of a
formal feature in substrate languages and estimating the likelihood of its being
successfully transferred into a “levelled” contact variety. His student, Jennifer
Munro, submitted a (2004) doctoral thesis applying this framework to Roper
River Kriol: she finds some evidence of putative transfer from the Roper River
traditional languages (TL), as well as some from NSW languages which was
ostensibly acquired during pidginization. Some of these categories will be
further investigated in Chapter 4 and the transfer constraints methodology is
discussed below.
Claire Lefebvre is a major figure in what is referred to as the “relexification
hypothesis.” Her work marries theory on second language acquisition (SLA) and
creole genesis and proposes structural similarities between the development of
grammars in creoles and interlanguages (IL). The “imperfect learning theory”
was proposed as early as the 1880s by Portuguese philologist Adolfo Coelho as a
means of explaining the ostensible simplification of the lexifier that occurs

19
during pidginisation (Siegel 2008b). In order for speakers of the various
substrate languages in a contact situation to generate a common lexicon for their
lingua franca, phonological strings from the socio‐politically dominant
superstrate are imported. Lefebvre points out, however, that the properties of
these superstrate‐derived ‘phonological strings’ correspond to the lexical entries
of the substrate languages; they have undergone ‘relexification’ (1998: 36).
Relexification, as a type of transfer, is a cognitive process that also appears to be
a major process in early SLA – adherents of this theory suggest that the grammar
of the IL is effectively identical to that of the speaker’s L1 (Lefebvre et al. 2006a).
The similarities between early ILs and nascent creoles are such that it has been
posited that “the early L2 learner and the early creole cocreator are cognitively
and epistemologically indistinguishable. Different outcomes associated with
interlanguage development and creole genesis are functions exclusively of the
environment” – this ‘environment’ being the alleged break in transmission of the
lexifier during pidginisation (or later) and the ensuing stabilization of creole
forms (Sprouse 2006: 175). This has interesting implications for McWhorter’s
aforementioned hypothesis, given his conviction that these three features are
often omitted in early, untutored SLA (2011a: 47, 156).
Given that, according to relexification theory, the grammar of an incipient pidgin
is in effect a relexified version of the native languages of its cocreators, it follows
that many of the apparent innovations which have occurred during creolisation
are results of interference from substrate features. Modern substratist theory is
largely predicated on this mechanism and, despite its critics, has been gaining
increasing clout in the past decade (Lefebvre 2011a; Lefebvre et al. 2006b;
Siegel 2008b)
2.3.2.2a Transfer constraints
In his 1981 volume, Bickerton complains of a persistent failure amongst
substratists to properly account for how and in what circumstances transfer
would occur (303‐4). Similarly, Mufwene comments that the framing of various
characteristics in Atlantic creoles as structures relexified from their West
African substrates is spurious, given that “the same features are attested in other
creoles whose substrate parents did not have [them]” (Mufwene 1986: 134).

20
Munro explains that “the process of transfer can take place only when speakers
perceive a morpheme in the developing contact language or superstrate (L2) that
appears to have a function of meaning similar to a morpheme in the L1 (i.e.
substrate language)” (ibid. : 32, italics my own). The constraints on the
“availability” of an L2 morpheme include (i) its “perceptual salience” ‐ being the
identifiability of a structure suitable to subsume the L1 category and (ii)
“congruence” – the superficial similarity of an L2 feature such that it can be
reanalyzed as largely corresponding to the syntactic function of the speakers’
native language (Munro 2004; Siegel 2008a). Siegel continues by proposing the
“reinforcement principle of frequency” – whereby the retention of a singular
variant form of a particular feature is reflective of typological features common
to regional substrate languages. He claims (1998) that the systemized formal
differences between Tok Pisin, Bislama and Solomons Pijin, all mutually
intelligible dialects of the expanded Melanesian Pidgin (MP) system are
representative of typological differences in their substrates (predominantly
Papuan, Vanuatuan and SE Solomonic respectively). Therefore, it can be
predicted that highly discourse‐frequent, core formal features, which are
common across typologically similar substrates, will be successfully transferred
during morphological expansion of a creole (Munro 2004: 33).
2.3.3 Superstratism
At this point, it is necessary to make brief reference to another current debate,
one that challenges the basic disciplinary ontology of creolistics. Haïtian linguist
Michel DeGraff, for example, deduces that the failure of the discipline to achieve
any meaningful way of explaining and measuring grammatical “creoleness”
erodes its relevance as a linguistic phenomenon. He asserts that the only
tangible elements shared by creole languages are their sociohistorical context
and that claims of creole languages containing some sui generis linguistic
structures are merely archaic “baggage” which the academic discourse has
inherited from a Western European dialectic chain of scientific racism (DeGraff
2003; 2005). Labelling creole exceptionalism as “linguists’ most dangerous myth,’
he goes so far as to say that the theoretical and applied consequences of the disc‐

21
ourse are neo‐colonial instruments that serve to continue to marginalise creole‐
speaking communities. Indeed, according to DeGraff, “the discourse of Creole
Exceptionalism can be textually linked to certain tropes within a (pseudo‐)
scientific hegemonic narrative that runs throughout the history of the (post‐
)colonial Caribbean from the earliest descriptions of its Creole languages” (2005:
535). While it elucidates an apposite heterodox critique of many of the assump‐
tions and observations drawn by creolists, which indeed may to some degree be
informed by nineteenth century pseudoscientific racialism (i.e. Rudyard
Kipling’s “ White Man’s Burden”), DeGraff’s oeuvre essentially reads as a histo‐
riographical diatribe against the creolistics metalanguage, which he has ident‐
ified as contributing towards discourses of slavery and neoimperialism as well
as, ultimately, to retrogressive public attitudes vis‐à‐vis race and class (DeGraff
2009).
Contemporary criticism of some of the commonly held assumptions within
pidgin and creole studies constitutes what is sometimes referred to as the
“superstratist school” (as compared against the abovementioned substratist‐
univeralist distinction). Championed by influential voices such as DeGraff and
Robert Chaudenson, with a more reconciliatory approach espoused by Salikoko
Mufwene, such a view holds that the emergence of “creole languages” is an
entirely sociolinguistic phenomenon. Superstratist theory has traditionally
sourced its data primarily from French‐lexified creole languages spoken in the
Atlantic and, for a large part, has completely ignored Pacific and Melanesian
creoles. They argue against the ‘pidgin‐genesis theory,’ claiming that creole
vernaculars have emerged as a result of normal (albeit expedited) processes of
language change from standard and non‐standard varieties (e.g. Chaudenson &
Mufwene 2001). Mufwene claims that there is no historical evidence of “creoles”
having structural features unattested in pidgins, nor that they are an abrupt
result of pidgin nativisation (2001: 9). He also labels the “evolution” of standards
into creole varieties as “basilectalization” – the continuing restructuring of the
lexifier language across generations11 as influenced by language contact in the
11 Mufwene refers to continuing influxes of slaves over time, during the plantation phase of
Atlantic colonization. He argues that newer waves of migration lead to “approximations of

22
form of substrate features and regulated by the “bioprogram” (Mufwene 2001:
10, 34; also cited in Siegel 2007b: 174). Despite his conviction that creoles are a
descendent of their lexifiers rather than result of pidgin expansion, he has also
claimed that the processes of restructuring are influenced by the marriage of
substrate and nativist influences, a perspective which he labels the
‘complementary hypothesis,’ the basis of which he traces back to Schuchardt
himself (1990: 3).
To the best of my knowledge, the superstratists make no specific reference to
Australian Kriol in their “unbroken transmission” thesis; indeed, they explicitly
narrow their focus to the vernaculars spoken in Atlantic plantations in defining
what a creole is (as opposed to an “expanded pidgin” (Mufwene 2008)). The
sociological profile that they outline, downplaying the role of children and
claiming that the transmission of English to Kriol speakers was unbroken, is
incongruent with the commonly accepted history of Kriol as detailed by John
Harris (e.g. 1986) and discussed in Ch.3 of this paper (p.25). There is also
evidence of a prolonged period of basilectalisation, as per Mufwene’s definition
(see NOTE 11), this accounts for some of the regional and diachronic restruct‐
uring of an unstable NT pidgin.
In light of his adamant rejection of mainstream creole theory and his claims that
the overwhelming trends of the field are reflective of a persistent discourse of
oppression and marginalisation of creole communities, DeGraff proposes a
“scientifically and socially responsible” approach to postcolonial linguistics,
which he labels “Cartesian‐uniformitarianism” (2003: 403f). Such an approach
would reject the “(mis)practices” of creole studies and “[would draw] attention
to the sociohistorical determinants and sociological consequences of meta‐
linguistic attitudes” as a means of reversing the discourse of creole languages’
inferiority and expressive insufficiency and promoting the redesigning of
language and education policy on these grounds (2005: 579f).
approximations [of the lexifier]” as conditioned by these two complementary forces resulting in
continued “basilectalisation.”

23
3. The Linguistic Ecology of Aboriginal
Australia
“The most useful service which linguists can perform
today is to clear away the illusion of verbal deprivation
and to provide a more adequate notion of the relations
between standard and nonstandard dialects”
William Labov, Language in the Inner City (1972: 202)
Inhabitation of the Australian continent12 is estimated to have occurred at least
40,000 (and perhaps as many as 125,000) years ago, making it ‘certainly the
longest‐established linguistic area in the world’ (Dixon 2002a: 55). It has long
been recognised that a majority of the 250‐odd indigenous Australian
languages,13 including all of those spoken in the southern portion of the
continent, have a phylogenetic relationship (Hale 1964: 248‐9). The earliest
comparative typological work on Australian languages14 also demonstrated
relative lexical and grammatical heterogeneity in northern Australia – a
particular diversity of structures relative to that of the more homogenous ‘Pama‐
Nyungan’ (PN) family, which encompasses up to some 175 identified Australian
languages in the more densely settled south and east (Koch 2007: 25‐8).
Although contested by some prominent Australianists, who admonish its
‘deleterious’ effect on the discipline (e.g. Dixon 1980; 2002a), Pama‐Nyungan
phylogenetic unity is widely assumed and has gained some impetus through
comparative glottochronological reconstruction of a hypothetical protolanguage
(*proto‐Pama‐Nyungan or *pPN), thought to have been spoken 4,000–8,000
years before present (Hale & O'Grady 2004). Conversely, Dixon attributes the
12 The settling of this continental landmass (Sahul/Meganesia) predated the separation of the
Australian mainland from the now‐islands of New Guinea and Tasmania. This geography informs
hypotheses of prehistoric language macrophyla comprising autochthonous Australian,
Tasmanian and Papuan languages without respect for current marine boundaries.
13 This count varies depending on one’s definition of what constitutes a “language” in its own
right. This figure refers to formally linguistic notions of language as opposed to political
interpretations of the term. If each tribe is considered to have its own “language” this figure
would be closer to 700, although accounting for mutual intelligibility between these tribal
dialects, approximately 250 distinct languages are identified. The problems with providing an
accurate figure are self‐evident given the pre‐contact language ecology in Australia.
14 E.g. Lord Grey’s journals (1841), as cited in Dixon (1980:11‐12).

24
similarities that pervade Australian languages to a hypothetical proto‐Australian,
spoken before the separation of New Guinea from the Australian mainland and,
as seen below, “continual processes of diffusion” eroding differences and
diffusing linguistic innovations, leading to a convergence in structural profiles
(Dixon 2002b: 28).15
This pre‐colonial linguistic density coexisted with perennial intergroup contact
as facilitated by a sophisticated system of trade routes, joint corroborees and
strictly enforced pan‐Aboriginal traditions of exogamy. This continued socio‐
cultural and commercial contact over 40,000 years between neighbouring tribes
is responsible for not only the diffusion of technology (e.g. the boomerang) and
societal rites (e.g. tribal division systems; male circumcision16) but also the
universal multilingualism, institutionalized sign languages and fluidity of
‘language boundaries,’ motivating ‘splits’ and mergers of language groups. Dixon
also claims that these anthropological surveys inform the modelling of areally
diffused linguistic features (see 2002a: 40ff). Close typological relationships
between disparate tribal dialects are widely attested, a phenomenon also
unsurprising given the tribes’ non‐sedentary (semi‐nomadic) social organisation
(Dixon 2002a: 7‐19). “Western Desert language” is a canonical example of this
phenomenon: this term itself used to represent a chain encompassing dozens of
distinct but mutually intelligible tribal dialects over ‘one and a quarter million
square kilometres’ (Harris 2007). Dixon’s (1972) grammar of Dyirbal, for
example, draws together and annotates data for lexical and grammatical
structures from a dozen tribal dialects, each with their own name. “Dyirbal” is,
by Dixon’s own admission, a ‘label of convenience’ – a hypernym of sorts to
expedite the linguistic description of this ostensible continuum of mutually
intelligible ‘languages.’17
15See Hale & O’Grady (2004) for a coherent defense to phyletic Pama‐Nyungan relevance and
linguistic unity in direct response to the challenges posed by Dixon (2002).
16 Dixon (2002) comments that the diffusion of this initiation rite was still in progress when
European contact was first made – he posits it as evidence of social contact between
geographically disparate indigenous groupings.
17 The “dialect chains” that span the autonomous tribal and nomadic communities pose a
problem to linguists differentiating “dialect” from “language.” E.g. The Mamu tribe of North
Queensland, although speaking a Dyirbalic language, associates the label with a different tongue
and people. (Dixon 1972)

25
A brief sketch, provided as Appendix A (appendices: pp.1ff), outlines some of
structures that have been presented as typologically common over a wide range
of Australian languages. As the substrate languages to post‐contact Australian
Kriol varieties are likely to exhibit many of these typological structures, this
discussion will inform questions of the latter’s linguistic development, according
to the substratist theories (esp. Siegel, Lefebvre etc.) that were discussed in the
previous section.
In §3.1, we look at the emergence of “new” languages and the radical changes to
the linguistic landscape that have been observed as a result of “punctuated
equilibrium.” §3.2, mirroring §2.2, briefly surveys the salient sociolinguistic and
applied issues that are relevant to Aboriginal representation within Australian
society.
3.1 Post‐contact language phenomena in Australia
As we saw in Chapter Two, creolists have differing convictions on whether
creole languages exhibit typological, linguistic similarities, or whether these are
restricted to similar sociohistorical experiences. The following discussion
outlines the emergence of Kriol and its development out of various pidgins,
which were transported along the expanding frontier.
3.1.1 Pidgins and the sociohistorical history of Kriol
The question of language ‘death’ or extinction in Aboriginal Australia is
particularly pertinent, in that the forces responsible for punctuating the long‐
standing linguistic equilibrium in Aboriginal Australia have played an
instrumental role in the ‘birth’ of new means of intergroup communication –
ecological responses to language contact (cf. Dixon 2002: 31). Contact between
Aboriginal communities and British sailors dates back to the arrival of the First
Fleet in January 1788. The linguistic responses to this initial occupation were
documented by early settlers and have profound implications for the Australian
language ecology today. The ancestral languages of the South East, still by far the

26
most populated region of Australia and the area where sustained contact was
quickly established upon European settlement, have been, for a large part,
referred to as “extinct,” as compared to the still relative currency of TLs in the
remote and less populated areas in the north, west and centre of the continent.
As described in other ‘language contact’ situations, the use of gesticulation and
idiolectal jargons in the initial contact period was the natural output of these
groups’ “blind need to communicate” (cf. Bickerton 1999: 40). Harris notes how,
given the absence of any linguistic resources common to both parties, the
context was “not conducive to people on either side becoming bilingual [and that
it] was far more likely that a contact language would arise […] in this the local
inhabitants seemed more adept” (2007: 138‐9). Although, during the initial
stage of European settlement of New South Wales (NSW), there was limited
contact between indigenous and settler groups, various factors eventually led to
the stabilisation of early, holophrastic jargons into the nascent ‘NSW Pidgin.’
These included the capture of Bennelong, a native of the Sydney tribe, who then
introduced English vocabulary into his community, as well as great depopulation
of Aboriginal communities as a result of a smallpox epidemic, resulting in an
increased need for communication between groups (Amery & Mühlhäusler
1996).
By the end of the eighteenth century, what had emerged was a restricted pidgin
with its lexicon pulled variably from English, the traditional Sydney language
and augmented by those of the settlers’ ships’ multicultural crews, accounting
for the presence of various words borrowed from pre‐existing trade jargons.
There are very few, unreliable data available for the early jargons and incipient
pidgins spoken in turn‐of‐the‐century NSW. Furthermore, citing Troy (1994),
Amery & Mühlhäusler note how the varieties used by the settlers would
certainly have sharply differed from those of the natives (1996). The expansion
of the Australian pastoral industry was a primary motivator for the northward
settlement push during the early twentieth century, with the NSW pidgin being
used as a linguistic medium for intergroup communication. The colonisation of
Queensland and the NT is widely abhorred for the mass disseisin and slaughter
of indigenous people; the frontier had become a place where morality and law

27
were “suspended,” where “settlers felt free to kill with impunity” and the NT
authorities tried to maintain a “conspiracy of silence” around these atrocities
(Harris 1986: 222). The southeastern pidgin lexicon continued to be fed by
various indigenous Queensland languages and came to be the default means of
communication on the frontier. Additionally, in this period, linguistically
disparate Pacific Islanders were indentured to work on sugarcane plantations in
Queensland, for whom the QLD pidgin became the primary means of
communication. Upon these workers’ return to their homelands in Vanuatu,
Papua, the Torres Strait and Solomon Islands,18 this pidgin (collectively referred
to as Melanesian Pidgin [MP]) was expanded and restructured, becoming widely
spoken lingue franche for their populations.
With settlement of the NT and the eventual founding of Darwin in the mid‐
nineteenth century, an Aboriginal pidgin had emerged separately to the frontier
varieties (Sandefur 1986: 20). As cattle drovers began to arrive in hordes in the
Kimberley region, brutally massacring the indigenous tribes as they did so, the
dialects of these restricted pidgins began to be levelled and developed. A notable
Anglican mission in the frontier township of Roper Bar was founded in 1908,
housing Aboriginals who had been displaced and orphaned during the
profligacies of frontier expansion and were seeking refuge from virtually
indiscriminate slaughter. This missionary activity, often criticised by xenophobic
NT residents, was therefore also instrumental in the sedentarization of disparate
tribes. This fraction and reconstitution of TL ecologies in North Australia’s
“cattle belt”, notably the Roper River area (Ngukurr), generated the socio‐
linguistic preconditions to creolisation of the Aboriginal pidgin lingua franca.
As these children were placed in a situation where the linguistic resources at
their disposal were insufficient for intragroup discourse, the NT pidgin English
and fragments of SAE19 that they had in common were manipulated and
innovated (cf. Ch.4) to cater for their communicative needs (Harris 2007: 144).
The sources of this innovation are a topic of significant contention and have a
18 Torres Strait Creole (TSC) is a language distinct from Kriol. It is formally similar to TP (see
Shunkal 1992 etc.).
19 NT Pidgin was in current usage as a means of intergroup communication, generally between
Aborigines and Europeans. Partial command of SAE was transmitted through the school system.

28
profound bearing upon the creolistics discipline, which will be addressed in
more detail below and in the following chapter. It is interesting, as Munro
(2000) points out, to note the differences between, what has been described as,
an “adult pidgin” and the “youth creole” – the nativised and linguistically
expanded community language. She also notes the expansion in the language’s
social significance, this creolisation process being “closely associated with
emerging identities and roles” (247).
A similar process occurred in WA, where a restricted pidgin had developed and
been relexified from the south‐eastern varieties to facilitate communication
between diverse Aboriginal groups and foreign workers in the Broome pearling
industry. The cattle drovers continued westward frontier expansion, bringing
with them the early NT pidgin. (McGregor 2004). A mission was subsequently
established at the Fitzroy Crossing settlement in 1952, founding a children’s
hostel and a school, and proscribing TLs. Before the children had properly
acquired English, to become functionally bilingual, a large influx of dispossessed
Kriol speakers arrived at the mission from Hall’s Creek (ibid: 65f). The sustained,
intimate contact between the children of the Fitzroy Valley mission led to their
rapidly gaining proficiency in the Kriol of the NT. Hudson published a mono‐
graph (1983a) providing a discussion of the origins and a sketch of the linguistic
aspects of this Kriol dialect, which has developed somewhat separately from the
NT dialects since the arrival of speakers in 1955. A speaker growing up in the
Fitzroy Valley in the 1950s talks of how she learned Kriol from other children in
the playground and would be beaten for speaking Walmajarri (Hudson 1983a:
174ff).
Upwards of two hundred and seventy communities have been reported to speak
Kriol (Sandefur & Harris 1986), out of which Munro sketches a broad break‐
down of eight regional varieties (2000: 249). Similarly to Hudson (ibid), she
credits the first generation of children at the Roper River Mission with being the
source of these dialects, geographically diffused through increasing areal social
mobility, and solidified by virtue of the status of Kriol as a lingua franca for
Aboriginal peoples without a common language. While most of the formal

29
structure of Kriol can therefore be attributed to the Roper dialect, the varying
influence of different, distantly related substrate languages as well as the
‘decreolising’ effects of English account for some of the lexical and phonological
variety between regional dialects. Similarly, it has been observed that variability
in social attitudes to Kriol in these communities has also affected language use
(Munro 2000; Sandefur & Harris 1986).
A 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) report estimated the total
indigenous population of the country to be 517,000, with a steady projected
growth rate (ABS 2006a). Some 83% of these, particularly in urban centres are
reported to be monolingual English speakers (ABS 2006b). There is a substantial
literature dealing with the concept of “Aboriginal English” (AbE) as a non‐
standard sociolect,20 spoken by the Indigenous communities, where sustained
contact with SAE has occurred. Malcolm & Grote define the term as “referring to
a continuum of varieties which, at their broadest, have much in common with
creoles, and which, at the other extreme, share most of their features with
informal Standard Australian English” (2007: 153). The use of English as a
lingua franca across settled Australia continued to be a source of lexical data,
with variable levels of grammatical, phonological and pragmatic influence from
TL (Eades 1996). Conversely, in some areas where Kriol is spoken, some
decreolization is reported to have occurred as a result of urbanisation and
increased contact with SAE‐superstrate speakers (although, notably, the
application of a 'post‐creole continuum' theoretic to Kriol is rejected by Sandefur
1982). While it is true that Kriol and AbE exhibit similar traits21 and there is
disagreement, even within ‘Kriol’‐speaking communities, as to where Kriol stops
and AbE or “pidgin” English begins (cf. Rhydwen 1996: 53ff, passim), Sandefur
(1986) insists that Kriol developed separately to most varieties of AbE and
should be thought of as a discrete system (31ff). A more complete discussion of
Aboriginal varieties of English is beyond the scope of this paper, although its
20 Although, like Kriol, AbE is considered to be a complete code with a systematized grammar (cf.
Harkins 1994).
21 Indeed the preface to the 2007 Kriol Baibul suggests that “there will be people from other
areas [than WA and the NT] who speak… Aboriginal English who will be able to understand this
Bible too” (2007: i)

30
ambiguous relationship with Kriol will be somewhat expounded below. These
varieties are united in the failure of SAE speakers to account for this great
dialectal variation: a failure that has had profound consequences for the
indigenous community (§3.2.1). DeGraff has written extensively against—what
he considers to be a self‐fulfilling prophecy—the assumption that “creole
languages that are used alongside their lexifiers are doomed to an irremediable
fate…to dissolve into these major languages via the process of decreolization”
(2003: 403, citing Valdman 1987: 107).
3.1.2 Kriol and Aboriginal English as lexifier languages
Finally, in discussing the post‐contact language ecology of Aboriginal Australia, it
is of interest to mention the emergence of “new” Aboriginal languages, which
have seen increasing scholarly attention in the past few years. The disruption of
complete transmission of TLs and increasing contact with Kriol and English
varieties has led to rapid linguistic change intergenerationally. In a 1985
publication, Annette Schmidt reports on the “death” of the Traditional Dyirbal
(TD) language chain as described (and mentioned above) by Dixon (1972). She
attributes this phenomenon to an absence of TD literature and the increasing,
compulsory contact with English speakers, institutions and media (Schmidt
1985: 19). Young people’s Dyirbal (YD) is characterised by the collapse of TD’s
rich (and oft‐cited by typologists) morphophonology and the replacement of
tense suffixing by temporal adverbials. Influence from the superstrate is
demonstrated by the shedding of the language’s ergative‐absolutive case
distinction, and a move to marking GRs instead with an ‘English‐type’ word
order configuration (cf. Dixon: ibid.; Schmidt: 45‐95).22 As English becomes
increasingly pervasive in Aboriginal Australia, these language mixing
phenomena have become increasingly frequent (Walsh 2007: 89), recent
publications describing the emergence of varieties such as “Light Warlpiri”
(LW)23 (O’Shannessy 2005: 31) and “Gurindji Creole” (GC) (McConvell &
Meakins 2005), which “systematically combines elements of [TLs], Kriol and
English” (O'Shannessy 2005: 31). According to O’Shannessy, “Light” varieties of
22 Comparing different speakers’ idiolects, Schmidt proposes a set of six “stages” through which
the ergative category has been “lost” (48‐52)
23 See note 8 (p. 5)

31
Warlpiri emerged, not from a process of pidginisation and creolisation, but
rather through communicative strategies of “borrowing and code‐mixing” (loc.
cit.). A similar process of extended contact between Kriol, introduced by NT
cattle drovers and workers into the Victoria River area, and the TL of the
Gurindji tribes24 has resulted in the systematised mixing of these two codes (cf.
Meakins 2008). Meakins points out that the noun phrase is typically lexified by
Traditional (“heavy”) Gurindji while the verb phrase borrows morphological
features, notably its TMA auxiliaries, from Kriol counterpart. The phonology is
also stratified, with two parallel systems respecting the phonological form of its
etyma (forthcoming: 1ff).
This fascinating phenomenon is demonstrated in the elicitation below (3):
(3) dat marluka bin trai jidan jiya‐ngka bat i bin kirt.
the old.man PST MOD sit chair‐LOC but 3SG.SBJ PST break
"The old man tried to sit on the chair but it broke."
(Gurindji Kriol, Meakins forthcoming: 8)
A virtually identical phenomenon is observed in LW; speakers replicating the
Kriol or AbE verb complex, while simultaneously largely retaining Warlpiri’s
nominal suffixing system (O'Shannessy: ibid.). O’Shannessy argues that, while
LW originated from processes of code‐mixing, it now constitutes a language in
its own right, separate from both Kriol and Warlpiri, seeing as a new generation
speaks LW as its L1 and “the elements involved are not present in any of the
languages they are allegedly mixing” (53).
The function of the ergative marker in both of these ‘new languages’ is a particu‐
larly interesting example of change.25 A basic SVO word order, however, has
been shown to be developing in these “new” varieties. When this configuration is
respected—most productive in varieties that have had experienced closer
contact with Kriol and English—the ergative marker becomes functionally
redundant. Incidentally, if clause‐initial position marks subject, the optional
ergative morpheme appears to assume a pragmatic role, emphasising the
agentivity of the subject argument (Meakins & O'Shannessy 2010: 1708).
24 The Gurindji people are known for having been the first Aboriginal group to successfully
petition the crown and reclaim their dispossessed ancestral territories, breaking sustained
transmission of SAE in the twentieth century.
25 For an explanation of ergativity in ALs, please see Appendix A (p.4)

32
This systematic split, forming a typological class sometimes referred to as the ‘V‐
N mixed language’ has been well testified in other post‐contact situations in
North America (ibid). LW, GK and YD are languages that have been conclusively
demonstrated to have emerged from codeswitching between ALs (two PN, one
nPN) and heavy dialects of Kriol, with additional influence from AbE. These
three systems are further examples of postcolonial linguistic phenomena and the
thematic, institutionalised erosion and devaluing of TLs in Aboriginal
communities.
3.2 Attitudes to post‐contact varieties
As we saw in §2.2 (p.9), public attitudes towards non‐standard language
varieties, particularly when lexified by a prestige dialect, are often overwhelm‐
ingly negative – popularly conceived of as “degenerate,” broken versions of the
latter. The question of vindicating nonstandard language use through policies of
bilingualism (or bidialectalism) in the education system, in Australia as in
California, has engendered debate, both within and without the language
communities themselves. The NT government in particular has attracted consid‐
erable criticism from the Indigenous and linguistic groups for its handling of the
promotion of SAE literacy in Aboriginal communities (see Whitmont 2009).
John Sandefur’s 1979 orthography has been used by the Summer Institute of
Linguistics (SIL) and the Wycliffe Bible Translators as a means of promoting
literacy and establishing a Kriol identity (Rhydwen 1996). This said, there is
considerable discrepancy in attitudes amongst Kriol speakers towards their own
vernacular– whether Kriol is a mere ‘broken’ variety of English, scorned by SAE
speakers, or whether it represents a community language complete with
implications for social identity and cohesion (Eades & Siegel 1999). The
tendency for postcolonial communities to experience a shift in attitude from a
low view of their creole language and to gradually acquire a sense of pride and
identity has been observed in many different instances. Harris (1993) suggests
that the Kriol Bible translation program (which, after twenty‐nine years, was
completed in 2007), “whatever one’s religious views […] a substantial book with

33
powerful symbolic value,” which was celebrated by many indigenous groups, is
indicative of the language’s expressive potential and has improved speakers’
conceit of their language (150). Nonetheless, unlike the situation in the French
Caribbean (§2.2) there exists no literary movement that embraces the language
as an element of a collective consciousness, no analogue of créolité – “Kriol
speakers never identify themselves as Kriol people. They refer to themselves by
the name of their ancestral language, even if they do not speak it” (Rhydwen
1993: 157).
Rhydwen has observed how many Kriol‐speaking communities very often do not
identify themselves as such. In Nauiyu Nambiyu, a settlement and mission down‐
stream of the Daly River area out of Katherine where a continuum of Kriol
dialects are spoken, inhabitants draw a distinction between their ancestral
languages (Ngan’gityemerri) and Ngan’giwatyfala ‐ “white person’s language”
(1996: 52‐6). This term indicates that the inhabitants in Daly River consider
their sociolect of Kriol to be a ‘heavy’ variety of AbE. Both the Kriol speakers at
Roper and Halls Creek also maintain that they speak different languages, despite
these differences extending only to slight phonological and lexical variation –
likely a result of greater degrees of contact with English at Daly River (cf. the
phonemicisation of /f/ in the lighter Daly varieties), influence from local
ancestral languages and the effective institutionalisation of Sandefur’s Kriol
orthography in Barunga, based on Roper River dialects. Rhydwen attributes the
hostility of the Ngan’giwatyfala‐speaking community (which is echoed in other
communities) in part to the imposition of an orthography that is based on the
dialectal phonologies of other Kriol‐speaking communities with discrete iden‐
tities – issues associated with the SIL’s “top‐down” standardisation of a pluri‐
centric language (Mühlhäusler 2008: 444). Rhydwen also points out how Kriol is
often perceived as a transient vehicle for communication with elderly people
who have limited access to SAE and speak heavy varieties. Attempts to instituti‐
onalise it are often thought to threaten access to SAE (and therefore to Austra‐
lian society and its civil/political infrastructures) as well as crippling efforts to
promote traditional ALs (Hudson & Taylor 1987; Rhydwen 1993; 1996).

34
We are left, then, with a dichotomy in attitudinal approaches to Kriol: one that
undermines the wholesale application of the term upon communities that feel no
affiliation to it.
3.2.1 Education
Policies of bilingual/bidialectal education in communities where the vernacular
spoken is a creolised or other NSV of an urban standard have engendered fierce
debate, although as discussed (p.11), there is significant evidence of their
promise. In Australia, this debate has centred around the education of children
who speak Kriol or Aboriginal English (Also Torres Strait Broken, see Shnukal
1992) as well as those who have grown up speaking a traditional AL (See
Simpson: 2010; Whitmont 2009). Typically, Aboriginal children in schools have
underachieved and struggled to develop adequate literacy skills—a trend often
attributed to deficiencies in the education system in its failure to account for the
fact that English represents a second or third discrete language system for many
Indigenous children: they are effectively being asked to read and write solely in
a form that they access only at school (Hudson & Taylor 1987: 6). As a result, the
rate of fifteen‐year old Aboriginal students below numeracy and literacy
benchmarks is twice that of the national average (Siegel 2010: 164‐5). As
discussed in §2.2, miseducation of NSV speakers is an entrenched social problem
in postcolonial societies (see Labov 1972; cf. Ch.3 epigraph). Indeed, AbE
speakers’ SAE interlocutors failing to account for cross‐cultural semantic,
pragmatic and formal differences, due to these varieties’ perceived similarity to
the standard is thematic in pidgin and creole studies and reported to have
pernicious effects upon intergroup interactions.
There is wide support in linguistic scholarship, therefore, to approach SAE
literacy education in Indigenous communities as L2 or D2 acquisition – studies of
this strategy having yielded definitively positive results (e.g. Murtagh 1982).
Incidentally, Hudson and Taylor have emphasised the pedagogical imperative of
designing a clear delineation between these standard and non‐standard codes
(1987). Such a programme targets code‐switching, such that “I won” be under‐

35
stood as an SAE translation of the Kriol “Aibin win” (Berry & Hudson 1997: 33).26
In further defence of policy, Margaret Mickan observes how a particular non‐
state‐run Indigenous community school set up three separate classrooms: one
for each of English, Kriol and Gooniyandi, the ancestral language of the region, as
a means of evincing the complementary, autonomous status of each of these
“bona fide” languages (1992: 42‐3).27 It is argued that in recognising and
designing this formal ‘separation,’ Indigenous students will gain an ability to
situationally code‐switch and eventually develop competent, intuitive Kriol/SAE
diglossia. In addition to satisfying the claims that vernacular literacy education
expedites the process of learning to read a standard dialect, Hudson (1992) also
notes that this bilingualism “empowers Kimberley students [with the
standard]… without denigrating their home language” (125). Of course, a
complication to this strategy arises given that there is no accepted written
standard of creoles, which, despite having a systematised grammar, still vary
greatly between speakers (Siegel 1999; citing Valdman 1989).
As could be expected, resistance to schools’ teaching in creole and minority
dialects can be in part attributed to pervasive community perceptions of these
being merely deviant varieties of a standard—an attitude that extends to the
teachers (McRae 1994; Rhydwen 1996; Siegel 1999: 509).
3.2.2 Cross‐cultural communication: SHEIM and identity
We mentioned above the importance of the acquisition of SAE for Indigenous
people and their relationship with public institutions. Diana Eades has exten‐
sively researched the manifestation of severe miscommunication occurring in
Aborigines’ interactions with public institutions, notably the court system. Citing
various polemic cases, she points out that the great cultural differences exhib‐
ited between European and Indigenous Australian deference and status relation‐
ships manifest on a deep pragmatic level, and have led to complications that
threaten due process of Kriol and AbE speakers – courts and law enforcement
26 Notably, Mickan (1992) notes how Indigenous learners of SAE struggle with the English past
inflection.
27 Some schools have designated the Kriol/English distinction as “blekbalawei” (black fella way)
vs “gardiyawei” (European way) at the preschool level. Children will wear a black hat when
addressing the class in Kriol and a white hat for SAE (Mickan 1992:46f).

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