This document discusses pidgins and creoles, including their causes and characteristics. It also summarizes the history of spelling reforms in English. Specifically, it notes that pidgins arise out of necessity for communication between groups with different languages, often due to trade or political crises. Creoles develop when a pidgin becomes the native language of a new generation. The document then outlines key events and organizations involved in proposals to reform English spelling to better reflect pronunciation over time. It provides examples of spelling changes suggested by groups in the 18th-19th centuries to standardize English.

1. 5. Pidgins and Creoles
Spelling reforms
Lecture No.5
Zafar Ullah,
zafarullah76@gmail.com

2. Sociolinguistics
• Study of language in context of the society
• Social interactions in virtual world
• Global village
• Trade
• USA is a country of immigrants. Intercultural
marriages, pluriculturalism, plurilingualism
• Canada etc has immigration programs
• CPEC
• China Pak marriages and repercussions
• Language change 2

3. Causes of the Start of Pidgin
• Marriage of two cultures
• Trade, tourism, education
• Political crises in Syria, Palestine, Burma,
Kashmir, Afghanistan,
• Natural calamities
• Migration due to intolerance
• Colonialism motivates pidgins
• Need of a third common language, lingua franca
and it is called pidgin.
• Swahili in East Africa is a pidgin.
• Espearanto, 3

4. Definition of Pidgin
• A pidgin or contact language is a restricted and
extended language which arises with an urgency
of communication to serve specific needs
between social groups that are ethnically and
linguistically different from each other .
• Contact linguistics
• The reduction and simplification of input
materials, internal innovation, and regularization
of structure, with L1 influence also play their role
in pidginiation process.
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5. Creole
• A creole is a pidgin that has become the first
language of a new generation of speakers.
• Creolization is a process where a pidgin
expanded in structure and vocabulary in order to
express the range of meanings and serve the
range of functions required of a first language.
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6. Characteristics of Creole
• Nativization is when pidgin passed onto new
generations and it became a mother tongue
which is acquired by children.
• Its speech becomes faster,
• It is the expansion of morphology and syntax.
• It expands phonology.
• It publishes the lexicon.
• Publication is started.
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7. Decreolization
• Reversal to standard language
• Linguistic purism
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8. Pidgin Creole Development
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9. Spelling Reforms
• A lot of work was printed in middle English
period. Handwritten manuscripts
• Variations in spellings in one book
• Homer’s Illiad had different spellings for one word
• Great vowel shift in modern English, changes in
phonology
• Refashioned words according to their Latin origin
for example middle English “dett” was fashioned
as “debt” because of Latin word “debitum”
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10. Cont…
• Why? Ease, standard, international
• Printing press, unification
• Harry Lindgren proposed SR1 (short sound to be
spelled “E” e.g friend as frend
• Webster Noah- 1806 wrote ‘A Compendious
Dictionary of the English Language’
• 1828 ‘An American Dictionary of the English
Language’
• In 1837, Isaac Pitman published system of
Phonetic Shorthand.
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11. Cont…
• In 1848, Alexander John Ellis published ‘A Plea
for the Phonetic Spellings’
• In 1870, Philological societies were formed in the
USA and UK
• In 1876, English Spelling Reform Association
• In 1876, American Spelling Reform Association
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12. Cont…
• US Newspaper, Chicago Tribunal reformed
• In 1883, American Philological Association, 24
spelling reform rules
• In 1898, American national Association adopted
12 words “paragon, prolog, pedagog,demogog,
decalog, catalog, thruout, thru, tho, altho, thoro,
thorofare
• In 20th century, Roosevelt started
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13. 11 Changes by American Spelling
Reform Association
• Are…….ar
• Given….giv
• Have….hav
• Live….liv
• Though…tho
• Through….thru
• Guard…….gard
• Catalogue…catalog
• Definite….definit
• Wished…wisht 13

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