A creole is first a pidgin, or a makeshift language. It is usually a mixed language from the contact of speakers that use different languages, and is labeled by location and lexifier language. When it is pa ssed down from one generation to the next and becomes the language of the community, it is then a creole. The generation that grows up speaking the pidgin has to expand it in different ways depending on how developed the pidgin is. Then, when it can mee t the needs of the community, it is a creole.
Though this is how we usually describe creole, the term can also be applied to languages that are so affected by heavy borrowing that a new variety, much like a creole is created. Some argue that because of Norse and French contact, Middle English is a creole, but this is not a fact. A few definite examples of English-based creoles are Hawaiian English Creole, Aku in Gambia, Krio in Sierra Leone, and Kamtok in Cameroon.
Shared grammatical features in the European based creoles include pre-verbal negation and subject-verb-object word order. EX. He didn't cut the bread. However, creoles do not have a formal passive and show no syntactic difference between questions an d statements. Some researchers believe that because of basic similarities, creoles can provide a means for understanding the evolution of human language.
Finally, de-creolization is when a creole is influenced by its lexical language, and therefore, moves toward that standard language.
Study Questions1) How are creoles usually labeled?
2) What are typical grammatical features in European-based creoles?
3) What are two differences in creoles from English?
4) What are two ways a language becomes a creole?
5) What is de-creolization?
Barbra Kerr's Summary:In reading 5C, Romine discusses the similarities held among creole languages and the possible conclusions a linguist can draw from such information. She also describes the processes a pidgin language goes through when becoming a creole.
Before she states the language similarities, Romine explains the difference between pidgin and creole languages. A pidgin language is a "makeshift" language that is created through contact between speakers of different languages. A creole language develops when the pidgin language is nativized and becomes the community language.
Romine identifies seventeen different creole languages that are English based. Through studying these languages she points out that even though these languages look and sound different that there are many shared features as follows:
These tend to suggest that "similarities among creoles are due to an innate `bioprogram' for language".
The transformation of a language into a creole language can happen at any stage of language development. Romine states that structural expansion of a language is necessary before any language is adequate. A language that expands early, in the pidgin stages, is more likely to make a gradual transition. Romine mentions that heavy borrowing from another language can disrupt the continuity of a language, "turning into a creole-like language" that never had a pidgin stage. (Middle English is debated to have been a creole.)
Sometimes in expanding the creole languages, development is taken so far that a de- creolization takes place. This is where creole merges with the lexifer language. (i.e. Hawaii, Jamaica) Romine stresses that this occurrence makes it difficult to find a languages origins.
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