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

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.

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)

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.

Margaret Jónsson, Contact Languages: Kárahnjúkar. BA essay

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

Pidgins and creoles ‘Foreigner-talk’ theory Masta

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

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

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

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

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

Pidgins and creoles Polygenetic theory Masta

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.

Creolization:

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.

Post-creole continuum (Jamaica) Acrolect Mesolect Basilect

Decreolization (Jamaica) Acrolect Mesolect Basilect

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

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

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

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. ndex.html

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/otherLanguages_Tok.htm decreolisation / relixification and phrases from English: Yut forum – first programme from 7:00

Wikipedia:Nicaraguan Sign Language video at ary/07/2/l_072_04.html nativism vs. cultural learning Google Michael Tomasello