Pidgins and creoles are contact languages that develop when groups lack a common language. A pidgin is used for basic communication between adults with different first languages. If a pidgin becomes the primary language of children, it evolves into a creole with an expanded vocabulary and stable grammar rules. There are different theories on how creoles form, including that isolation leads children to "re-create" a new language from a pidgin. Creolization more readily occurs when groups have no access to the standardized language, such as slaves in the Americas.

1. Pidgins and creoles
Popular terms:
Pidgin
Creole
Patois [patwa]
Uneducated English
Native dialect, etc.

2. http://www.etymonline.com

3. http://www.etymonline.com

4. Pidgins and creoles
Linguistic usage:
• Pidgin: a contact language between
adults with different first languages
• Creole: a second-generation
language spoken by children who
grow up in a pidgin community.

5. Pidgins and creoles
Pidgin: contact language between
adults with different first languages
Audio clip from Margaret Johnson, BA
thesis on Kárahnjúkar
(see next slide for text)

6. A: We no talk speak Mario drill outside.
B: Marius tried to call you in the phone. No connection.
Zero.
A: Aha. Two zero yes.
B: Yes. Marius needs to speak to you.
A: Aha. No you speak (oh) zero..
B. So that Marius asked you to please go outside
A: Aha
B: because
A: Aha yes ah, Marius ask me, OK. Marius kom.
B: Yes. Call - phone.
A: Mhm. De Marius, de Marius kom.
B: No, no kom.
A: No?
B: Speak in phone.
A: Aha.

7. Margaret Jónsson, 2007. Contact Languages: Kárahnjúkar. BA essay

8. Pidgins and creoles
• Grammatical and syntactical similarity of
creoles.
Theories of origin:
• ‘Foreigner-talk’ theory
• Monogenetic theory
• Polygenetic theory

9. Pidgins and creoles
• ‘Foreigner-talk’ theory
Masta

10. Pidgins and creoles
• Monogenetic theory:
(this is the theory mentioned by Wells 7.1.2.,
p. 562. See also Todd.)
The original Mediterranean creole Sabir, i.e. proto-
Creole, was relexified by Portuguese, later by French,
English, Dutch etc.
Sabir
Portuguese
pidgin
English
pidgin
French
pidgin
Dutch
pidgin
means "relexified to"

11. Pidgins and creoles
First language acquisition:
• Where there is a fully developed
language available to children, they
will acquire it.
• First languages are not aquired by
copying, but by re-creation from key
features

12. Pidgins and creoles
• Where there is not a fully developed
language available for children, they
create their own

13. Pidgins and creoles
• pidgin
• small vocabulary
• lack of stable grammar
• creole
• grammar and vocabulary become
elaborated
• grammar develops ‘rules’ – native
speakers

14. Pidgins and creoles
Thus we assume that unorganized
vocabulary will organise (creolize) itself
into language with generation renewal.
Call this the polygenetic theory of
pidgin/creole origin

15. Pidgins and creoles
• Polygenetic theory
Masta

16. Pidgins and creoles
• Why is the vocabulary taken from the
Masta language rather than one of the
vernaculars?
1. Prestige - the masta's language has
power, centrality.
2. The masta's language is always present
3. The masta's language is equally alien to
all vernaculars; it is the only language
that none of the slaves speaks.

17. • Creolization:

18. Pidgins and creoles
Children of Turkish immigrants in Hamborg in
the 60s-70s did not create a creole out of their
parent's immigrant-pidgin. Why not?
But children of the slaves who worked on
cotton planatations in the southern States had
no access to standard English and so
developed ('creolized') their own language
using their parents' pidgin.

19. Post-creole
continuum
(Jamaica)
Acrolect
Mesolect
Basilect

20. Decreolization
(Jamaica)
Acrolect
Mesolect
Basilect

21. No
continuum:
diglossic
(Surinam)
Acrolect
Dutch
Basilect:
Sranan Tongo
(one of many languages)

22. No
continuum:
diglossic
(Haiti)
Acrolect
French
Basilect:
Haitian Creole:
Kreyòl ayisyen

23. • Alsop 1958, see Bickerton Dymanics (9)
• Guyanan Creole:

24. • Surinam:
• Fred ben de a tweede boi fu en mama. A
ben tapu siksi yari kba. En bigi brada ben
nem Emil. Wan dei di a ben waka na
strati, a ben si wan swarfudosu. A skopu
en wantu meter moro fara. A waka moro
fara èn a skopu a dosu baka. Dan a yere
wan sten taki: "Teki a dosu." A teki a dosu
èn a luku na ini. Dri dala ben de na ini.
Fred no ben sabi omeni moni ben de ini a
dosu. So a waka langalanga go na oso.
• http://www.sil.org/americas/suriname/sranan/English/SrananEngLLI
ndex.html

25. http://courses.essex.ac.uk/lg/lg449/12featu
re.html
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~patrickp/Sh
ots.html
http://www.wazobiafm.com
http://www.wazobiafm.com/stream.html
stream:
http://radiotime.com/WebTuner.aspx?StationId=109503&

26. http://www.wazobiafm.com

27. http://www.wazobiafm.com

28. http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/tokpisin/
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/flash/listen/otherLanguages_Tok.htm
decreolisation / relixification and phrases from English:
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/flash/listen/podcasts_Tok.htm
Yut forum – first programme
http://www.wazobiafm.com/lagos951/# from 7:00

29. http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/tokpisin/news/stories/201101/s3121740.htm

30. Wikipedia:Nicaraguan Sign Language
video at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/libr
ary/07/2/l_072_04.html
nativism vs. cultural learning
Google Michael Tomasello