Pidgins and Creoles
Three types of new language arise from contact: pidgins creoles bilingual mixed languages
Pidgins and Creoles Many contemporary pidgins and Creoles can, however, be traced back to European 'discoveries' in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a period of linguistic procreation, when new languages came into being, languages which are lexically related to Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, and which are spoken in the late twentieth century, in some form, by perhaps 100 million people.
There are 127 pidgins and creoles according to some estimates. Thirty-five of these are English- based. These include such languages as Hawaiian Creole, Jamaican Creole, Guyana Creole, Krio (spoken in Sierra Leone, Cameroon Pidgin English, Tok Pisin, and Chinese Pidgin English (now virtually extinct).
Pidgin and creole languages are distributed mainly, though not exclusively, in the equatorial belt around the world, usually in places with direct or easy access to the oceans. Consequently, they are found mainly in the Caribbean and around the north and east coasts of South America, around the coasts of Africa, particularly the west coast, and across the Indian and Pacific Oceans. They are fairly uncommon in the more extreme northern and southern areas of the world and in the interiors of continents.
Origins of the word 'pidgin' from Pidian (South American Indian) from a Chinese pronunciation of English business or Portuguese ocupapao (business) from Hebrew pidjom (barter) from Portuguese pcqueno (little, and suggesting baby talk), from a combination of any of these, reinforced by English pigeon
Pidgin is applied to a lingua franca which develops as a simple means of communication between people speaking different languages A lingua franca (originally Italian for "Frankish language" - see etymology below) is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues. is a variety of a language that developed for some practical purpose, such as trading, among groups of people who had a lot of contact, but who did not know each other’s languages.
The theories of Pidgin origin 1) The baby-talk theory 2) Independent parallel development theory 3) Nautical jargon theory 4) Monogenetic/relexification theory 5) Universalist theory
English pidgin English is the lexifier language, that is, the main source of words in the pidgin. Thus, there are two sources of linguistic features: Superstrate: the socially dominant language Most vocabulary from superstrate language (lexifier language) Substrate: socially subordinate language(s) Most grammatical structure from the substrate language(s)
All stable pidgins share the following characteristics (a) Phonologically, they are simpler than any of the languages involved in their evolution. Often, they have a five- or seven-vowel system.
All stable pidgins share the following characteristics (b) They have a small vocabulary, drawn mainly from the language of the socially dominant group. English-based pidgins, for example, derive as much as 90 percent of their lexicon from English
All stable pidgins share the following characteristics Most words are polysemous. Kamtok's hia (
All stable pidgins share the following characteristics (d) Most words are multifunctional. Kamtok's bad (
All stable pidgins share the following characteristics (e) Emphasis is often indicated by reduplication Kamtok (Cameroonian Pidgin English) big (big) big (enormous) luk (see) luk (stare at)
All stable pidgins share the following characteristics (f) They often have a small number of prepositions, sometimes as few as two, one to indicate location, another to indicate possession. For example, instead of changing the form of you to your, as in the English phrase your book, Englishbased pidgins use a form like bilong, and change the word order to produce phrases like buk bilong yu. In Tok Pisin, for example, the two most frequently used are long (< along) and bilong (< belong). Mi stei long Mosbi. (I live in Port Moresby. ) haus bilong mi (my house) haus bilong wanpela meri (a woman's house).
All stable pidgins share the following characteristics (g) Abstractions are often indicated by compounds. In Kamtok, for example, one finds: big ai (< big + eye) = greed, greedy draiai (
All stable pidgins share the following characteristics (h) Word order is rigid. In many pidgins, including Kamtok, it follows the pattern of: (Adjunct) + Subject + Predicate + (Object) + (Adjunct) Las nait wi bin si wi papa fo haus Last night we saw (visited) our father in his house. Weti yu difain josnau? What are you looking for now? Wuna go kwik. Go immediately.
All stable pidgins share the following characteristics (i) Inflection is nonexistent or minimal. Inflectional suffixes such as -s (plural) and -’s (possessive) on nouns in Standard English are rare in pidgins, while structures like tu buk (“two books”) and di gyal place (“the girl’s place”) are common. Yule Kamtok Tok Pisin English wan man wanpela man one man tupela man two men a go mi go I go / go em i go he/she/it goes wi go mipela go we go yu bin go yu go pinis you (sg) went wuna go go bai yupela go you (pi) will go a go go? bai mi go? Shall I go?
All stable pidgins share the following characteristics (j) Temporal and aspectual distinctions are indicated by context, by an adjunct, or by a set of auxiliaries which occur in a fixed order:
All stable pidgins share the following characteristics (k) Negation is usually indicated by placing a negator before the verb: Kamtok Tok Pisin English Kam Come No kam Don't come / no kam Em i no kam He isn't coming/hasn't come Multiple negation is common as a form of emphasis. No man no laik mi no smol. (Nobody likes me at all. )
Creoles 'Creole' derives ultimately from Latin creare (to beget) and more immediately from Portuguese crioulo, Spanish criollo and French creole. The term 'creole' was applied to Europeans who were born in the New World, then to Africans born there, to both, to people of mixed race, to the forms of language spoken by people in the Americas, and eventually, to any pidgin which has become a mother tongue for a community.
Creole a pidgin that has become the first language of a new generation of speakers A creole is a pidgin which has expanded in structure and vocabulary to express the range of meanings and serve the range of functions required of a first language. ’ (Holmes (1992, p. 95))
Pidgin or Creole In practice it is not always easy to say whether we have a pidgin rather than a creole. Tok Pisin and some of the West African pidgins such as Nigerian Pidgin English probably exist as both pidgins and creoles. They have speakers who use them only as second languages in an expanded form and also speakers for whom they are first languages. Such expanded varieties are often characteristic of urban environments in which there is likely to be considerable contact among speakers of different languages and are sometimes referred to as extended pidgins. Winford (2003, p. 307) says that ‘creoles constitute a motley assortment of contact vernaculars with different histories and lines of development, though of course they still have much in common . . . [and] there are no structural characteristics that all creoles share. . . [and] no structural criteria that can distinguish creoles from other types of language. ’
Creoles To date the best-known creoles have evolved from English and French. Those of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean are, along with Hawai’ian Creole, those that have informed most theorizing on the development of creoles. A creole initially develops as the first language of children growing up in a pidgin-using community and becomes more complex as it serves more communicative purposes. Thus, unlike pidgins, creoles have large numbers of native speakers and are not restricted at all in their uses. A French creole is spoken by the majority of the population in Haiti and English creoles are used in Jamaica and Sierra Leone. The separate vocabulary elements of a pidgin can become grammatical elements in a creole. The form baimbai yu go (“by and by you go”) in early Tok Pisin gradually shortened to bai yu go, and finally to yu bigo, with a grammatical structure not unlike that of its English translation equivalent, “you will go. ”
The example of Tok Pisin is useful in considering how a pidgin expands and develops into a creole It was not until the 1960 s that the pidgin was nativized, i. e. , children began to acquire it as a first language, and, therefore, becoming for them a creole (while remaining an extended pidgin for previous generations). Muhlhausler (1982) has noted that in Tok Pisin grammatical categories such as time and number have become compulsory, a word-formation component has been developed, devices for structuring discourse are now present, and there are opportunities for stylistic differentiation. So far as functions are concerned, Tok Pisin has become symbolic of a new culture; it is now used in many entirely new domains, e. g. , government, religion, agriculture, and aviation; it is employed in a variety of media; and it is supplanting the vernaculars and even English in many areas.
Aitchison (1991) has also noted what is happening to Tok Pisin. She points out four kinds of change. One of these is that people speak creoles faster than pidgins and they do not speak them word by word. Consequently, processes of assimilation and reduction can be seen at work in Tok Pisin: ma bilong mi (‘my husband’) becomes mamblomi. A second change is the expansion of vocabulary resources: new shorter words are formed, so that paitman (‘fighter’) exists alongside man bilong pait (‘man of fight’). There is also much borrowing of technical vocabulary from English. A third change is the development of a tense system in verbs. Bin is used as a past time marker and bai, from baimbai (‘by and by’), as a future time marker. Finally, greater sentence complexity is now apparent.
Tok Pisin Grammar. At first glance, Tok Pisin grammar seems to be just simplified English. For example, you don't have to add an "s" to show plural: wanpela pik 'one pig' tripela pik 'three pigs' You don't have to add "ing" or "ed" to show tense: Mi wok nau. 'I'm working now. ‘ Mi wok asde. 'I worked yesterday. ' The same word em can mean 'he', 'him' 'she', 'her' and 'it'. For example, the following sentence can have three different meanings, depending on the context: Em i stap long haus. 'He's in the house' or 'She's in the house' or 'It's in the house. Em i lukim mi. 'He/she/it saw me. ‘ Mi lukim em. 'I saw him/her/it. '
Tok Pisin But Tok Pisin has its own grammatical rules. First of all, look at the following sentences: Mi wok. 'I worked. ' Yu wok. 'You worked. ' Em i wok. 'He/she worked. ' Tom i wok. 'Tom worked. ' Note that the last two sentences have the little word i before the verb. (Remember that in Tok Pisin, i is pronounced something like "ee". ) This little word is called a "predicate marker", and it must occur in a sentence when subject is em or a noun (like "Tom" or "the bicycle"). This rule is certainly different from anything found in English. To show plural, you put the word ol before the word instead of "s" at the end of the word: Mi lukim dok. 'I saw the dog. ' Mi lukim ol dok. 'I saw the dogs. '
Tok Pisin To be specific about tense or aspect, or about other things like ability, you can use different short words. Some occur before the verb and some occur after the verb. Here are some examples: Ben i bin wok asde. 'Ben worked yesterday. ' Ben bai i wok tumora. 'Ben will work tomorrow. ' Ben i wok i stap nau. 'Ben is working now. ' Ben i wok pinis. 'Ben is finished working. ' Ben i save wok long Sarere. 'Ben works on Saturday. ' Ben i ken wok. 'Ben can work (he is allowed to). ' Ben inap wok. 'Ben can work (he has the ability). '
Tok Pisin Vocabulary. Tok Pisin can sound very colourful in its use of words, which are derived from English (with Australian influences), indigenous Melanesian languages and German (part of the country was under German rule until 1914). balus - airplane or bird (from a Melanesian word for "bird") belhat - angry (lit. "belly hot") belo - lunch (from the bellow of horns used by businesses to indicate the lunch hour has begun) maus gras - moustache (lit: "mouth grass"). meri - woman (from the English name "Mary"). Also means female, e. g. "Bulmakau meri" (lit. "bull cow female") = cow. olgeta - all (from "all together") pisin - bird (from "pigeon"). The homophony of this word with the name of the language has led to a limited association between the two; Mian speakers, for example, refer to Tok Pisin as "wan weng", literally "bird language". pasim - close, lock (from "fasten") pasim maus - shut up, be quiet, i. e. "yu pasim maus" lit: "you close mouth" = "shut up!" tasol - but, only (from "that's all")
Tok Pisin The Lord's Prayer in Tok Pisin: Papa bilong mipela Yu stap long heven. Nem bilong yu i mas i stap holi. Kingdom bilong yu i mas i kam. Strongim mipela long bihainim laik bilong yu long graun, olsem ol i bihainim long heven. Givim mipela kaikai inap long tude. Pogivim rong bilong mipela, olsem mipela i pogivim ol arapela i mekim rong long mipela. Sambai long mipela long taim bilong traim. Na rausim olgeta samting nogut long mipela. Kingdom na strong na glori, em i bilong yu tasol oltaim. Tru. The Lord's Prayer in English: Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen
A Pidgin is a contact language or lingua franca that arose naturally (not like e. g. Esperanto) does not have native speakers is reduced in linguistic form and grammar is restricted in contexts of use is typically unstable and highly mixed may sometimes be a stable variety with norms of acceptability, but is NOT a fully adequate natural language.
Also, Pidgins: derive from the process of pidginization typically evolve from trade or plantation situations. . . where many languages occur but no one predominates; are the products of incomplete Second Language Acquisition, and thus. . . have small core vocabularies, and borrow extensively, . . . have very surfacy grammar, much variation but little system, . . . and sociolinguistically have no (or incoherent) norms of interpretation; have limited domains for expressive and communicative functions; typically either die out or evolve into creoles. . . through the process of creolization/nativization.
A Creole does have native speakers has developed, thru expansion in linguistic form and grammar, and thru extension in use (communicative & expressive functions), into a full-fledged, complete and adequate natural language which is typically stable and autonomous in its norms
Also, Creoles: often evolve from pidgins, thru the creolization/nativization process; exist most often in post-colonial areas, where. . . they tend to be the vernacular of spontaneous daily use; are typically related to one widely-spoken language (often seen as a 'corruption' of it); are native languages acquired as mother tongues; thus. . . are products of First Language Acquisition, based on inadequate input (Bickerton); may either stabilize, decreolize thru contact, or die out
may or may not be highly mixed, depending on their age & current language contacts; have established mechanisms for vocabulary extension (borrowing/integration rules); have less elaborate/grammaticalized structures in grammar than older languages do (whether standardized or not), but definitely more than pidgins; have much variation but coherent sociolinguistic norms (of evaluation/interpretation) have wider domains & are used more for expressive/communicative purposes. . . though they resemble non-standard dialects in terms of prestige; may remain stable over long periods or merge toward standard languages (decreolize).