Creole Genesis Research Articles

Saramaccan and Haitian as young grammars

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Creolization and Contact (review)

Reviewed by: Creolization and contact ed. by Norval Smith, Tonjes Veenstra Don E. Walicek Creolization and contact. Ed. by Norval Smith and Tonjes Veenstra. (Creole language library 23.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001. Pp. 323. ISBN 1588111113. $110 (Hb). The twelve papers in this volume were inspired by a 1995 workshop on language contact and creolization at the University of Amsterdam. They cover five general topics: relexification, second-language learning, koine-formation, contact linguistics, and sociolinguistics. The collection focuses on contact between social groups and individuals rather than merely on interactions of communities. Claire Lefebvre begins the first section by describing how relexification, dialect leveling, and re-analysis apply to the genesis and development of functional category lexical items in Haitian. She shows that both superstratum and substratum languages (specifically Fongbe) are reflected in creole lexical entries. In the next chapter, ‘Voodoo chile’, Norval Smith compares Haitian to Saramaccan. Asking why these two languages have different end-results despite shared Eastern Gbe influence, Smith examines work by Lefebvre. He suggests that both universalist and substrate approaches partially explain creole genesis. In Ch. 3, Anthony Grant provides an informative overview of research on language intertwining. He argues that this process is distinct from creolization and offers a detailed look at three languages: Berbice Dutch, Zamboangueño, and Cotabateño. In the next paper, Maarten Mous explains paralexification. He suggests that this process of adding word forms to lexical entries leads to language intertwining. In the first contribution on second-language learning, Ulla-Brit Kotsinas describes learner varieties of Swedish. She identifies several ‘deviant’ features of pidginized Swedish, characteristics she sees as [End Page 189] evidence of compensatory strategies rather than L1 interference. Kotsinas also presents evidence of creolization among first-generation immigrants. In the next chapter, responding to Kotsinas, Pieter Muysken looks at the grammatical properties of Negerhollands in terms of L2 acquisition of Dutch. Muysken recognizes features that can be attributed to the acquisition of Dutch as a second language as well as some that seem to reflect West African patterns. The section on koine-formation and convergence begins with Jeff Siegel’s article on creole genesis and Fiji Hindi. He describes a sociolinguistic model in which mixing, leveling, and simplification each play key roles. Frans Hinskens responds to Siegel in the next chapter by questioning how empirical the latter’s sketch is. He includes questions about Siegel’s methodology and suggestions for further development of the model. In Ch. 9, Silvia Kouwenberg points out that there is no coherent theory of convergence in historical linguistics. Criticizing analyses that identify convergence only retrospectively, she shows that it serves primarily as a descriptive concept. Sarah Thomason contributes the volume’s first chapter on contact linguistics. She compares pidgin/creole genesis with more typical contact-induced change. Relatedly, she holds that borrowing plays a significant role in mixing but not in genesis. In Ch. 11, Ellen Prince approaches Yiddish not as a creole but as a language in contact. She advances the theory that contact effects result from pragmatic and semantic intentions in which speakers target concepts as expressed in the contact scenario. The final chapter, ‘Social stratification and network relations in the formation of Sranan’, focuses on sociohistorical factors operating at the microlevel. Highlighting insightful sociolinguistic studies written in Dutch on this topic, Jacques Arends dispels myths about plantation life and lists examples of overlooked network relations. As in previous chapters, this exciting work reminds the reader that similar phenomena could be investigated for other creoles. This excellent and impressive volume approaches the problems it addresses at a variety of levels and will surely motivate provocative discussion and research. Don E. Walicek University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Copyright © 2004 Linguistic Society of America

Pidgin and Creole Languages: A Basic Introduction (review)

Reviewed by: Pidgin and creole languages: A basic introduction by Alan S. Kaye, Mauro Tosco Elizabeth Grace Winkler Pidgin and creole languages: A basic introduction. By Alan S. Kaye and Mauro Tosco. Munich: LINCOM Europa, 2001. Pp. 114. ISBN 389586031X. $44. Erratum The authors open the text with the same question I had upon receiving the book: ‘What, another introductory textbook on pidgins and creoles in such an already overcrowded market?’ (2). They contend that this text is unique in that it does two things. First, it is the only text that focuses on non-European lexified creoles (Juba Arabic and Ki-Nuba), and its target audience is undergraduate students with little, if any, exposure to linguistics. The text begins with a lengthy introductory chapter covering a broad scope of topics including basic definitions of pidgins and creoles and other mixed languages [End Page 808] that do not fit into either classification. The second chapter focuses on theories of pidgin and creole genesis. The authors provide a broad, though cursory, review of the field and provide a substantial quantity of references for future reading. The final chapter focuses on the linguistic characteristics of pidgins and creoles using a plentiful collection of examples from Juba Arabic and a lesser number from Ki-Nuba. Although the authors of the text purport that this text is appropriate for undergraduates with little linguistic background, it would require a great deal of explicit and detailed supplemental information to make it usable. Much of the basic introduction to the field provided is a jump from topic to topic with little or no background information and references to undefined topics to be explained in future chapters. Understanding the introductory chapter requires considerable background knowledge. In addition, there are too many undefined terms for the intended audience. On one page of the introduction the following undefined terms occurred, among many others: less marked, phonological contrasts, clicks, implosives, ejectives, pharyngealized-velarized consonants, morphology, and isolating natural languages. In future editions, if this is indeed to be used by undergraduates, a glossary of terms is very necessary, especially considering that many of the terms used will not be found in any dictionary other than a linguistic one. Having said this, I do not wish to imply that the text has no merit. I think it is an excellent discussion of the scope of topics key to pidgins and creoles for a more advanced level of student. Furthermore, the treatment of Juba Arabic and Ki-Nuba provides a unique non-Eurocentric perspective rarely addressed in other similarly-themed books. Another strength of the book is the frequent discussion of the many ongoing points of controversy that are still unanswered and the problems associated with solving them, for example, questions concerning definitions of pidgin and creole, the boundaries between creole and standard, and the beliefs of the native speakers about them. The failure of this book as an introductory text is its strength for graduate students and linguists from outside the field—it takes you beyond an introductory understanding of the issues and challenges you to think about the issues that still plague the field and to understand what it is about these languages that offer insight into the understanding of more ‘traditional’ languages. Elizabeth Grace Winkler University of Arizona Copyright © 2003 Linguistic Society of America

LANGUAGE CHANGE AND LANGUAGE CONTACT IN PIDGINS AND CREOLES.John McWhorter (Ed.). Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1999. Pp. vi + 503. $145.00 cloth.

This volume is a selection of 15 papers from approximately 125 papers presented at three consecutive meetings of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (San Diego in January 1996, Chicago in January 1997, and London in June 1997). The collection represents a good variety of contributions in terms of theoretical concerns and languages discussed. Two of the chapters present a survey of particular phenomena in a number of pidgins and creoles: stativity and time reference (Holm) and wh-words and question formation (Clements &amp; Mahboob). Another chapter revisits the prototypical creole tense-mood-aspect system with an examination of a larger database of Sranan speech than has been previously seen in the literature (Winford). The remainder of the chapters address historical linguistic concerns, discussing issues of Indo-European development (Goyette) as well as creole genesis. The articles on genesis represent an integration of recent developments from outside the creolist world—for example, using insights from Chaos Theory (Lang) and Optimality Theory (Singler) and expanding on previous discussions of nativization (Roberts). Two chapters represent more quantitative approaches from sociolinguistics applied to creole settings (Naro &amp; Scherre; Tagliamonte). There are four articles that address diachronic issues that would potentially address issues of SLA; however, they do not explicitly address their orientation as to how processes of creole genesis are separate from those of SLA.

Language Contact: An Introduction (review)

Reviewed by: Language contact: An introduction by Sarah G. Thomason Peter Unseth Language contact: An introduction. By Sarah G. Thomason. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2001. Pp. vii, 310. Paper $29.95. Thomason’s book is an excellent exploration of the linguistics of language contact. She does not focus on the sociolinguistics of language contact but concentrates on the linguistic results of language contact and the processes by which they come about. She explains what she means by language contact and reminds us that language contact is the norm and not an unusual phenomenon, as some North Americans may feel. No language, she says, has developed in total linguistic isolation. A partial list of chapter titles gives some indication of topics covered: ‘Contact onsets and stability’, ‘Contact-induced change: Results’, ‘Contact-induced language change: Mechanisms’, ‘Contact languages I: Pidgins and Creoles’, ‘Contact languages II: Other mixed languages’, ‘Language death’, and ‘Endangered languages’. Two key concepts that T develops are ‘imperfect learning’ and ‘shift-induced interference’ (the index helpfully listing the many pages where these are used). T differentiates the results of language contact when there is ‘imperfect learning’ or bilingualism, pointing out several differences. For example, the ‘mixed languages’ Michif and Mednyj Aleut developed in communities where speakers controlled both languages, but pidgins arise where there is imperfect learning. T presents a number of intriguing claims that scholars will want to evaluate in light of their own research, such as evidence of language interference from a second language back into speakers’ first language, evidence against Derek Bickerton’s hypothesis as an explanation of creole genesis, the claim that codeswitching is not a major mechanism of shift-induced change, and a recognition of multiple causes in cases of contact-induced change. T’s discussion of Charles A. Ferguson’s Ethiopian Language Area (Sprachbund) should be tempered by Mauro Tosco’s ‘Is there an “Ethiopian Language Area”?’ (Anthropological Linguistics 42.329–65, 2000). With a 25-page glossary, a helpful index, and clearly written text, the book is useful as a textbook for graduate students (who have had an introduction to sociolinguistic concepts) but wrestles with enough cutting edge questions to challenge mature scholars as well. The editors have tried a format that was apparently meant to be friendlier to the less scholarly reader by avoiding the citation of sources in the text. Instead, each chapter closes with ‘Sources and further reading’, where T suggests additional useful reading on the subject and then conversationally mentions all of the authors she has quoted or alluded to in the course of the chapter, citing page numbers where applicable. This, together with nearly invisible section headings, was presumably done to make the text flow more continuously. But this is not a novel. I trust this experiment will be recognized as a failure, and the publishers will return to the established practice of [End Page 672] linking citations to their actual references in the text. A second edition should fix these problems (and one certainly does hope for an updated edition in the future), as T provokes new study to answer some of the questions this book raises and leads readers to rethink previously overlooked relevant points in the literature. Peter Unseth Graduate Institute of Applied Linguistics/SIL International Copyright © 2003 Linguistic Society of America

INTRODUCTION

This volume aims to rekindle interest in the question of whether insights from the study of second language (L2) acquisition can usefully be called on to provide explanations for pidgin and creole genesis, providing (mainly) creolist perspectives.1 Not surprisingly, the focus of several contributions is on transfer in pidginization, creolization, and L2 acquisition.

THE SURVIVAL OF INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY IN FRENCH-RELATED CREOLES

In traditional classifications of languages by inflectional subsystems, both creole languages and the results of untutored SLA (interlanguages) are classified as isolating. We focus on remnants of verbal inflectional morphology in French-related creoles and ask: (a) Can the properties of verbal morphology be attributed to SLA, and (b) what does this imply for creole genesis? We show how acquisition of inflectional morphology occurs in learner varieties of French from a basic variety perspective. We discuss reflexes of French inflectional morphology that survived the creolization process, resulting in a long–short opposition of verb forms: Across creoles, different grammatical properties are marked by this opposition. Finally, we consider the implications for creole genesis theories and propose a three-generational scenario of creolization with multiple agents.

Creole Genesis, Attitudes and Discourse (review)

Reviewed by: Creole genesis, attitudes and discourse ed. by John R. Rickford, Suzanne Romaine J. Clancy Clements Creole genesis, attitudes and discourse. Ed. by John R. Rickford and Suzanne Romaine (Creole language library 20.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1999. Pp. viii, 418. $138.00. This collection of papers celebrates the life and work of Charlene ‘Charlie’ J. Sato whose work and interests included, among other things, pidgin and creole languages, language acquisition, and political issues involving minority languages. Focused on the three themes mentioned in its title, the book also includes an introduction (Part A) which highlights the life and work of Sato and contains, as well, two pieces in Hawaiian English. Because of space constraints, I review only some of the contributions. The studies involving creole genesis in Part B cover a wide range of phenomena and languages. Derek Bickerton (‘Pidgins and language mixture’, 31–43) challenges one view regarding the lexical make-up of pidgins, namely, that a pidgin derives its lexicon almost exclusively from one language (cf. Bakker 1995:29). Using textual evidence from pidgin varieties in Hawaii in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Bickerton argues that Pidgin Hawaiian and Pidgin English were two extremes of the same continuum and that the lexicon of this variety was heterogeneous, though he offers no percentages. In support of his argument, he does cite percentages taken from the pidgins Russenorsk, Chinook Jargon, and the pidgin-derived creoles Saramaccan, Sranan, Guyanais, Berbice Dutch, and Lesser Antillean Creole. Although Bickerton makes a valid point, some 75 additional pidgins still remain to be examined in order to be able to say something definitive about the heterogeneous nature of pidgin lexicons. Sarah Roberts (‘The TMA system of Hawaiian Creole and diffusion’, 45–70) traces the development of the TMA (Tense-Mood-Aspect) markers in Hawaiian Pidgin English (HPE), concentrating on native-born speakers, through six phases from 1778 to the present. She finds that, apart from the past/anterior marker bin, the TMA markers developed in HPE independently of any external influence from other pidgins or creoles. This conclusion goes against Holm’s (1992) Atlantic-to-Pacific diffusion hypothesis, which cannot account for the absence of the Atlantic markers de/da and don in Hawaii, or for the presence of stei ‘progressive’ and pau ‘completive’ which developed locally. However, it is in line with Baker’s (1993) foreigner-talk model in that it accounts for all this and the accommodation of bin in HPE. Three studies examine the nature of the copula in creoles. John Holm et al.’s study (‘Copula patterns in Atlantic and non-Atlantic creoles’, 97–119) looks at copula presence/absence with NP predicates, locative predicates, and adjectival predicates, as well as the function of the copula as a highlighter. The expectation is that these languages would have separate copulas for NPs and locatives, a null copula with adjectives, and a copula as a highlighter if there is substrate influence in these creoles. (Many West African languages display these traits.) Their results reveal that all English-based creoles have different copular elements for NPs and locatives respectively, that they also display a null copula with adjectival predicates, and that four of five of these creoles have a copula as a highlighter. This pattern, however, is not as homogeneous in the Atlantic creoles lexified by French, Dutch, Portuguese, or Spanish: three of eight have a separate copula for NPs and locatives, and two of those cases can be explained by superstrate influence. Moreover, only four of eight have a highlighter. As for the non-Atlantic creoles, they [End Page 210] do not exhibit the expected pattern at all. Thus, the case for substrate influence, while claimed to be present for all the Atlantic creoles considered, is strongest for the English-based creoles. John McWhorter (‘Skeletons in the closet: Anomalies in the behavior of the Saramaccan copula’, 121–42) tests Holm et al.’s substrate hypothesis on Saramaccan (SM), albeit not explicitly so. McWhorter shows that SM uses a separate copula for identificational predicates (e.g. George is my brother ; copula da) on the one hand, and class predicates (George is...

Creolization of Language and Culture

Creolization of Language and Culture is the first English edition of Robert Chaudenson's landmark text Des iles, des hommes, des langues, which has also been fully revised. . With reference to the main varieties of creole French, Chaudenson argues against the traditional account of creole genesis for a more sophisticated paradigm which takes full account of the peculiar linguistic and social factors at play in colonial societies. This is an accessible book which makes an important contribution to the study of pidgin and creole language varieties, as well as to the development of contemporary European languages outside Europe. Key features include: Analysis of current debates on the development of creoles Discussion of many aspects of human culture including music, medicine, cooking, magic and folklore Translation of all French sources from which Chaudenson quotes extensively

Language Typology and Tonogenesis in Two Atlantic Creoles

This paper provides evidence of strong typological similarities between the tonal systems of Papiamentu and Saramaccan with the systems of West African languages. These typological similarities constitute the basis for a proposal that there is a genetic affiliation between Papiamentu and Saramaccan with the Kwa and Bantu language families; an affiliation that reaches beyond the accidental lexical borrowing. Since Saramaccan has been classified as an English-based Creole, and Papiamentu as a Romance-based Creole, their similarities indicate that their substrata have a greater significance in Creole genesis than previously recognized.

John H. McWhorter, The missing Spanish creoles: Recovering the birth of plantation contact languages. Berkeley, Los Angeles, &amp; London: University of California Press, 2000. Pp. ix + 281. Hb $45.00.

Meant to be challenging, controversial, and even radical, McWhorter's (McW) latest work on creole genesis may well be the most revisionist book on contact languages to appear since Bickerton's Roots of Language (1981) and Thomason and Kaufman's Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics (1988). It will therefore be required reading for anyone interested in the ongoing exploration of the origins of plantation creoles and of contact languages in general.

Speakers’ attitudes in language change, contact-language genesis and language preservation

Many contact situations around the world show that speakers can, and sometimes do, make deliberate changes in their languages. Although deliberate changes are likely to affect entire languages only in small speech communities, most –or perhaps all– pidgin and creole languages developed, at least at first, within relatively small groups of speakers. In several cases, documentary evidence indicates that speakers´ attitudes significantly affected the process of pidgin / creole genesis, and they may have done so in many more instances as well. Moreover, many or most of the world´s living pidgins and creoles are spoken by so few people that the languages are gravely endangered, and the attitudes of an endangered language´s speakers are the most important factor in determining the success of efforts to preserve the language. The future of Chabacano seems bright precisely because so many of its speakers are eager to engage in preservation activities.

Review of Lefebvre (1998): Creole genesis and the acquisition of grammar. The case of Haitian Creole

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Review of Veenstra (1996): Serial verbs in Saramaccan: Predication and creole genesis

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The interplay of relexification and levelling in creole genesis and development

This paper bears on the relationship between relexification and levelling, two processes that play a role in Creole genesis and development. It is a well-documented fact that situations where creoles develop involve several substratum languages and one (or at least one major) superstratum language. Relexification of several substratum languages on the basis of a single/major superstratum language provides the creole community with a common lexicon, hence a common language. As a mental/cognitive process, relexification is an individual process. Consequently through relexification, the specificities of the various substratum languages are reproduced in the incipient creole, thus creating what might be referred to as different dialects of the new language. Relexification of several substratum languages, on the basis of a single superstratum language, can be viewed as the major source of variation in an incipient creole. This provides a sound explanation for the fact that different substratum languages may contribute different features to a particular creole. Dialect levelling, as discussed in the literature on dialects in contact, refers to the reduction of variation between dialects of the same language, in situations where these dialects are brought together. On the basis of three sets of data from Haitian creole, it is shown that, in creole development, dialect levelling operates on the output of relexification. The role of levelling in creole genesis and development accounts for the fact that the properties of some specific lexical entries of the creole may depart from those of the corresponding lexical entries in the individual substratum languages.

Review of McWhorter (1997): Towards a new model of creole genesis

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Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar: The Case of Haitian Creole:Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar The Case of Haitian Creole.

Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar The Case of Haitian Creole. Claire Lefebvre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 461 pp.

Creole Genesis and the Acquisition of Grammar: The Case of Haitian Creole

Preface List of abbreviations 1. The problem of creole genesis and linguistic theory 2. Cognitive processes involved in creole genesis 3. The research methodology 4. Functional category lexical entries involved in nominal structure 5. The preverbal markers encoding relative tense, mood and aspect 6. Pronouns 7. Functional category lexical entries involved in the structure of the clause 8. The determiner and the structure of the clause 9. The syntactic properties of verbs 10. Are derivational affixes relexified? 11. The concatenation of words in compounds 12. Parameters 13. Evaluation of the hypothesis 14. Theoretical consequences Appendices Notes References Indexes.

John H. McWhorter, Towards a new model of creole genesis. (Studies in ethnolinguistics, 3.) New York: Lang, 1997. Pp. xiii, 199. Hb $44.95.

This is an informative and quite stimulating book, which offers a detailed look at the nature of creole genesis with particular emphasis on the emergence of Saramaccan (SM), one of the maroon creoles spoken in Suriname. McWhorter describes himself in the preface as a member of the third generation of creolists – a generation not afraid to challenge the conventional wisdom in the field, or to offer alternative theories. This book has the rather ambitious aim of proposing a “systematic account of creolization which integrates a number of the processes which creolists have identified as contributing the structural form of these languages” (10). In pursuing it, McWhorter re-examines two key areas of SM syntax – serial verb constructions and the copula system – to support his own eclectic view of creole formation. Despite the date of publication, the book is essentially the same as McWhorter's doctoral dissertation, completed in 1993. Hence it is somewhat dated, and omits mention of much recent and current work on creole genesis.

Substrate influence in Hawai‘i Creole English

Since the 1970s, it has been assumed that the diverse languages of plantation laborers in Hawai‘i had little effect on the development of Hawai‘i Creole English (HCE); this view supported theories that emphasize the role of innate linguistic universals in creolization. But recent research has revealed (a) widespread bilingualism among locally born children of laborers before HCE emerged, and (b) the dominance of two ethnic groups at the time – the Chinese and Portuguese. This article re-examines the issue of substrate influence in HCE by concentrating on these two groups. Socio-historical and linguistic evidence is presented to show the likelihood that the Cantonese and Portuguese substrates reinforced and expanded various features of existing pidgins that had diffused to Hawai‘i. Portuguese also appears to be the origin of several key features of HCE which differ from those of other creoles. The implications of these findings for universalist theories of creole genesis are discussed.