Banjac Marina

Pidgins and Creoles

1.Introduction

Salikoko S. Mufwene discuses and opposes the well-established view on pidgins and creoles as
sharing the same developmental tide. First, he discusses the emergence of the terms as proof
of their independence. Secondly, he opposes the idea that the structural design of the creole is
what distinguishes it from other language varieties. Furthermore, in the section The
development of creoles, he lists different approaches to the analysis of the development and
external shape of the creoles. He also endeavors to explain the shortcomings of general
linguistics’ applied analysis of the pidgins and creoles.

2. What Are Pidgins and Creoles?

Pidgins and creoles are new varieties of language that arose from the extended contact
between colonial non-standard varieties of European languages and several non-European
languages. Pidgins are reduced and structurally simplified languages which emerged along
trade routes and trade forts. Pidgins are specialized in functions and initially served as lingua
francas. Some pidgins expanded and through the process of nativization or creolization became
creoles, as Bloomfield (1933) and Hall(1966) state. However, discussion about the structural
complexity of the two, as well as of the terminology chosen for the reference to the languages
that are referred to as pidgins or creoles is debatable. Author Salikoko S. Mufwene presents the
evidence of a contradicting nature of the standards that govern these notions. Underlying
criteria that categorize new language varieties into pidgins and creoles rests upon the tentative
assumption that these terms are identified as part of one continuum. Salikoko S. Mufwene
criticizes received approach to the analysis of pidgins and creoles through challenging well-
established views. The terms creole and pidgin had expanded to other emerging varieties
during the time of massive colonializations. Before the convergence, many of them had initially
been appointed the name jargon.

The term pidgin arose in the early nineteenth century (Baker and Mühlhäusler, 1990) and is
believed to be etymologically related to the Cantonese bei chin, (Comrie, Matthews, and
Polinsky, 1996:146) which phonologically resembles the pronunciation of pi-dgin more than an
English alternative etymon business. The term was generalized and utilized by the linguists,
even though the sailors and traders were responsible for the ’escalation’ of the term. The term
Creole, on the other hand, was coined in the American Iberian colonies in the sixteenth century
and was soon to be adopted in metropolitan Spanish, French, and English. Hall (1966) and
Mühlhäusler (1986/1997) compare the pidgin, jargon, and creole with reference to ’life-cycle’
stating that jargon is less stable than pidgin, while the pidgin structurally expands into creole
through the putative process of nativization. This implies that they all belong on one and the
same axis, which is what Salikoko S. Mufwene strongly opposes. ’’The fact that the term pidgin
emerged in Canton, thousands of miles away from the American Iberian colonies where the
term creole originated in the sixteenth century, should have cast doubt on the scenario that
derives creoles from pidgins.’’ It was not until the eighteenth century, however, that the term
Creole started to be generally applied for language variety associated exclusively with the
descendants of non-Europeans.

According to Chaudenson (1992) and Mufwene (1997), Creole is in essence basilect, lower class
variety, as opposed to acrolect which is the upper class’ variety. They justify this by stating that
settlement colonies were commonly spread and enlarged by homestead societies, and even
though non-Europeans were in minority, they used the same koinés as Europeans. Diverging
from the initial forms of the colonial language, in the later stages of the plantation settlement,
this language could be identified as basilect. Chaudenson (1992) points out that prior to this
development, slaves did not use pidgins, but mesolectal approximations of European koinés. In
that socio-economic climate, as some diachronic textual evidence suggests, plantation
settlements flourished, the population grew and changed, an earlier variation of colonial
language faded, and was consequently replaced by newly developed basilect.

When the pidgin structurally expands and is acquired by the new generations of indigenous
people it is said to be creolized. This process of creolization also implies further development
and cultural expansion to the level when the creole is not recognized as such, due to its close
approximation with the vernacular or base language. This well-held view is dubious since there
are examples where some of the European languages even though resembling structurally
other creoles, are not considered creoles but a variety. The reason behind this is that somehow,
an idea of creole is closely connected with the vernacular language exclusively acquired by the
non-Europeans. Bloomfield(1933) stated that when the language of a particular community
becomes their only language, it is considered to be creolized. Furthermore, Hall (1962,1966)
developed this theory by interpreting the creoles as ‘nativized pidgins’. Post-creole stage on the
life-cycle continuum was added and coined by DeCamp (1971) stating that creole may become
decreolized and in fact become standard language of a particular community.

However, Salikoko S. Mufwene states that Creole is still a creole even if some of its features are
lost when converging with the base language. The evidence for this is basilectal and mesolectal
features existing at the same time with the creole proving the fact that the creole is still alive.
At the same time, Creole is often identified due to its socio-economical climate in which it
developed, and not according to its ’’structural peculiarities’’. Salikoko S. Mufwene presents
some discrepancies between different post-continuum outcomes adducing Carribean English
creoles and Gullah as evidence against decreolization.

Salikoko S. Mufwene discusses how naming practice behind creoles is not as consistent as it
seems. If we are to name a new language a creole, it needs to have some criteria with which it
is compatible. There must be some structural similarities that all creoles share. However, it
seems that only languages or vernaculars that were acquired by the Non-Europeans were
granted the ‘status’ of the creole. While some colonial offsprings in Europe were only
considered to be varieties of European languages.

This is closely related to the problem of the structural design of the creole. How can one resort
to a handful of rules which govern the creation and adaptation of the base language to its
users' utilization? Is there some kind of prototype to which all creoles resort to? Salikoko S.
Mufwene discusses the well-established view ‘’that there are creole prototypes from which
others deviate in various ways’’. He states that creoles cannot be defined in that way since
every creole had its own specific socio-economic ecology. Under this, he posits that every single
aspect is relevant in the development process. Whether it be the languages in contact, the time
duration of contact, people in contact, nature of their contact etc.

3. The Development of Creoles

So if creoles did not come into existence out of pidgin, how did they develop? There are three
hypotheses concerning this question. The substratum, the superstrate, and universalist.

First instances of substrate hypothesis were related to African languages spoken by the slaves
in the New World and Indian Ocean plantations. The nineteenth-century French creolists
believed that Europeans had to talk to the Africans in baby talk.They also assumed that African
languages were primitive and that the creole was their appropriation of European languages. In
the twentieth century Sylvain ( 1936) and Turner (1949) shed the light on the structural
influence that African linguistics had on Haitian Creole and Gullah.

There are three schools concerned with substrate hypothesis.First school advocated by Alleyne
(1980, 1996) and Holm (1988) analyzes the substrate influence on Atlantic and Indian Ocean
creoles. It resembles the previous approach by Turner which also invoked the influence of
African language but lacked evidence. Mufwene (1990) criticized both of these approaches as
being inadequate. Stating that although they do acknowledge the influence African languages
had on the Creole, they lack structural evidence of precisely which selectional principles are
involved.

The second school accounts for the relexification hypothesis. Relexification is the process
wherein the lexemes from the European language are incorporated into the non-European
languages. This approach has been criticized by Salikoko S. Mufwene, by drawing an examples
from Haitian which has French as its lexifier language and EweFon as substrate: (1) Haitian also
shares several features with other non-standard French varieties; (2)It ignores several features
that came from other African languages which were present during the development of the
Haitian Creole. The reason behind that is that ’’relexifications assume, disputably, that
languages of the Ewe-Fon group are structurally identical and that no competition of influence
among them was involved’’

The third school of substrate hypothesis deals with the idea that substrate languages provide
their structural elements and incorporate them in newly formed varieties. Typologically
homogenous languages share their relevant features, even though the example of Melanesian
show that not all features are equally incorporated.

Superstrate hypothesis or dialectologists hypothesis revolves around the idea that superstrate
language is the one lending its structural features to the newly created creole.AAE is claimed to
have developed from the non-standard variety of the base language which served as the source
of creoles’ structural features. This non-standard variety was related to the low-class whites,
while the African languages had restricted influence if any at all. As for the Haitian Creole, it is
strongly related to 17th and 18th century French, taking all of its basic vocabulary and linguistic
structure. It is also, as stated with the examples of AAE, heavily based on the superstratum
language, amongst others, Krapp (1924) and Kurath (1928) Faine (1937) and Hall (1958: 372).
However, Rickford (1998) and Chaudenson (1989, 1992) believe that creole’s feature did not
originate in their base language and are more accommodating for the substratum hypothesis.

Universalist hypotheses are closely related to the notion of Universal Grammar which stands
for the universality of language features underlying their formal realization. According to this,
creoles are not influenced by the languages which were used by the speakers in contact but are
attributed to the certain laws of language acquisition. Bickerton contends that children
acquiring the creole actually contribute to its formation and shaping due to UG parameters.
Bickerton helps himself with the notion of Pidginization index where he presents some factors
included. They fundamentally revolve around the socio-economic background during the
colonization growth concerning the number of speakers of one or the other language
community. However, not all creolist invoked the position of children as critical in this process
of development of the creole.

Many contemporary creolists subscribe to a complementary hypothesis which implies

combination and discussion of all relevant aspects of the previous three, and therefore this is
considered to be an adequate alternative. Baker and Corne, (1986); Hancock, (1986); and
Mufwene,(1986, 2001) discuss the interaction and influence from both substrate and
superstrate language, along with the socio-historical issues relevant for the development of the
creole.

There are a lot of technical problems to overcome when being on the road of discovery of how
creoles became what they became? What were the selectional principles when the interaction
between the nation happened? Could one find the definite form to which all creoles gravitate
to become? Are there any rules at all? How did sociohistorical conditions shaped the acquisition
of the new language? Is there any possibility of generalizing creoles according to their structural
features and not according to the circumstances in which they arose that are the same for all
creoles? Every creole had different languages in contact and selectional features of both were
based on the languages in contact.

Reference:

Salikoko S. Mufwene, (2006). “Pidgins and Creoles” In Braj B.Kachru, Yamuna Kachru, Cecil L.
Nelson (eds.) The Handbook of World Englishes(315-327.) Blackwell Publishing.