Creole Studies Research Articles

Some Remarks on the Origin of Afro-Puerto Rican Spanish

A number of proposals have tried to account for the genesis and development of a set of Afro-Hispanic language varieties, the vernaculars ​​that formed in Latin America from the contact between African languages ​​and Spanish in colonial times (Sessarego 2021). This article presents a sociohistorical and linguistic analysis of Loza Spanish (LS), an Afro-Puerto Rican vernacular spoken in Loíza, Puerto Rico by the descendants of the Africans brought to this Caribbean island in colonial times to work as slaves on sugarcane plantations. This article assesses the evolution of this variety and its implications for creole studies. In so doing, it contributes to the long-lasting debate on the reasons behind the paucity of Spanish-based creoles in the Americas (Granda 1968 et seq.).

Pidgins and Creoles: Debates and Issues

This article identifies and presents the main debates and issues that are generating interest in the field of creole studies. It is composed of two main sections. The first one presents the debates currently stimulating creolistics: the nature of pidgins and creoles and the relation between the two, the sociological and typological distinction between pidgins and creoles, the various theories explaining their origin, and their transformation through time. The second part raises issues linked to the social life of these languages, an area of research that, though present since the beginning of creolistics, has remained limited. Using the framework of linguistic ideology, this review surveys the social status of pidgins and creoles, the prejudices that exclude them from being used at schools, and their lack of linguistic legitimacy. It concludes with a discussion of pidgins and creoles on social media.

Avoiding bias in comparative creole studies: Stratification by lexifier and substrate

One major research question in creole studies has been whether the social/diachronic circumstances of the creolizaton processes are unique, and if so, whether this uniqueness of the evolution of creoles also leads to unique structural changes, which are reflected in a unique structural profile. Some creolists have claimed that indeed the answer to both questions is yes, e.g. Bickerton (1981), McWhorter (2001), and more recently Peter Bakker and Aymeric Daval-Markussen. But these authors have generally overlooked that cross-creole generalizations require representative sampling, especially when working quantitatively. Sampling for genealogical and areal control has been a much discussed topic within world-wide typology, but not yet in comparative creolistics. In all available comparative creoles studies, European-based Atlantic creoles are strongly overrepresented, so that typical features of these languages are taken as “pan-creole” features, e.g. serial verbs, double-object constructions, or obligatory use of overt pronominal subjects. But many of these Atlantic creoles have the same genealogical/areal profile, i.e. European (lexifier) + Macro-Sudan (substrate). I therefore propose a new sampling method that controls for genealogical/areal relatedness of both the substrate and the lexifier, which I call “bi-clan” control (where “clan” is a cover term for linguistic families and convergence areas).

Variation, Versatility and Change in Sociolinguistics and Creole Studies, by John Russell Rickford

Variation, Versatility and Change in Sociolinguistics and Creole Studies, by John Russell Rickford

Variation, versatility and change in sociolinguistics and creole studies. By John R. Rickford

This article reviews Variation, versatility and change in sociolinguistics and creole studies Hardback £95/EUR 94.35/US $104.00

Broadening creole studies

Broadening creole studies

How ‘Portuguese’ are Palenquero and Chabacano really?

AbstractA long-lasting debate within creole studies concerns the scarcity of Spanish-based creoles and the theoretical implications this may have. However, there is no agreement as to how many genuinely Spanish-based creoles there are in the world, and identifying the size of that group can generate controversies. Papiamentu, for instance, is canonically classified as a Spanish-based creole, even though most scholars at present seem to agree its origins are Creole Portuguese. A Portuguese lineage has on various occasions and by various authors also been claimed for Chabacano (Philippine Creole Spanish) and Palenquero (spoken in Colombia). These creoles, too, were supposedly once Portuguese-based, only to subsequently be ‘relexified’ towards Spanish. This paper argues that there is little linguistic basis for that claim. Although both creoles do indeed seem to have received some Portuguese (Creole) input, we maintain that this input was limited and substratal in nature, and thus has no bearing on the classification (whether diachronic or synchronic) of the two creoles as truly Spanish-based.

Toward racial justice in linguistics: The case of Creole studies (Response to Charity Hudley et al.)

Toward racial justice in linguistics: The case of Creole studies (Response to Charity Hudley et al.)

On case loss and svarabhakti vowels: the sociolinguistic typology and geolinguistics of simplification in North Germanic

AbstractWork in sociolinguistic typology and creole studies has established the theory that intensive language contact involving second language acquisition by adults tends to lead to grammatical simplification. This theory is built on many anecdotal case studies, including developments in the history of Continental North Germanic associated with contact with Middle Low German. In this paper, we assess the theory by examining two changes in the history of Norwegian: the loss of coda /Cr/ clusters and the loss of prepositional genitives. If the theory is correct, these changes should have been innovated in centers of contact with Middle Low German. We find that both changes in fact spread into southeastern Norwegian from Swedish. Since contact with Low German also took place in Sweden and Denmark, this is consistent with the theory. It opens questions for future research about the role of dialect contact in simplificatory change in North Germanic.

UNDERSTANDING OF WORLD ENGLISHES

World Englishes means that the different forms and varieties of English used in various sociolinguistic contexts in different parts of the world. It include the English Studies approach, sociolinguistic approaches (sociology of language, features-based, Kachruvian, pidgin and creole studies), applied linguistic approaches, lexicographical approaches, the popularizers approach, critical approaches, and the futurology approach. English studies approach is focus on the analysis of varieties of English from a synchronic and historical perspective, against a tradition of English Studies (Anglistik), dating from the late 19th century. Sociology of language is focus on English Research in relation to such issues as language maintenance/shift, and ethnolinguistic identity. Features-based is focus on the description of English through dialectological and variationist methodologies. The paper aim is to describe about what is world Englishes and English different form and English varieties used in sociolinguistic context. By knowing about world Englishes will help the language user be easy to use the language.

Anti-Tumour Necrosis Factor in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Inventory and Outlook

Biosimilars have contributed substantially to the evolving therapeutic landscape for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), enabling healthcare systems to offer access to a broader range of therapies at an affordable price. Despite the increasing confidence healthcare practitioners (HCP) place in the safety and efficacy of biosimilars, uncertainty remains around best practice when switching a patient from a reference product to a biosimilar. This symposium aimed to uncover the importance of a managed switch programme by exploring real-world data from the University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, Southampton, UK, and University Hospital Erlangen, Erlangen, Germany. The roles of therapeutic drug monitoring and predictive outcome scoring were discussed based on evidence from the SECURE and the CREOLE studies, respectively. Finally, in light of the recent European Union (EU) approval of adalimumab biosimilars, the future therapeutic landscape and how physicians and patients can make well-informed decisions when multiple versions of the same biologic are available were discussed.

Error correction and social transformation in Creole studies and among Creole speakers: The case of Haiti

Mark Lewis asks that socially engaged linguists go beyond Labov's (1982) principle of error correction (PEC) so that we can enlist critical race theory (CRT) to address ‘more difficult and fundamental questions of the sociohistorical conditions of a representation of language, challenging its premises and showing its connections to racial, economic, or other forms of violence’ (Lewis, this issue, p. 341). The ultimate goal is the actual transformation of the socioeconomic structures responsible for structural violence against speakers of stigmatized languages.

An Interview with Françoise Lionnet. Crossing Boundaries, Thinking Intersectionally: Pedagogy, Methodology, and the Challenges of Relationality

ABSTRACTIn this conversation with Emmanuel Bruno Jean-François, literary scholar and critic Françoise Lionnet (Harvard University) discusses both the epistemological implications and methodological challenges of transdisciplinary approaches and transnational frameworks. With direct references to concepts such as métissage, transcolonialism, and minor transnationalism—that have emerged from her own intersectional approach to Francophone studies, postcolonial studies, Comparative Literature, Creole (Creolization) studies, and Gender studies—she exposes the structural limitations of the Area Studies model and its subsequent disciplinary arrangements, to focus on comparison and relationality as critical methodological principles for nurturing more inclusive and interactive readings of literary and artistic expressions across historical and cultural contexts.

Using features of a Creole language to reconstruct population history and cultural evolution: tracing the English origins of Sranan.

Creole languages are formed in conditions where speakers from distinct languages are brought together without a shared first language, typically under the domination of speakers from one of the languages and particularly in the context of the transatlantic slave trade and European colonialism. One such Creole in Suriname, Sranan, developed around the mid-seventeenth century, primarily out of contact between varieties of English from England, spoken by the dominant group, and multiple West African languages. The vast majority of the basic words in Sranan come from the language of the dominant group, English. Here, we compare linguistic features of modern-day Sranan with those of English as spoken in 313 localities across England. By way of testing proposed hypotheses for the origin of English words in Sranan, we find that 80% of the studied features of Sranan can be explained by similarity to regional dialect features at two distinct input locations within England, a cluster of locations near the port of Bristol and another cluster near Essex in eastern England. Our new hypothesis is supported by the geographical distribution of specific regional dialect features, such as post-vocalic rhoticity and word-initial 'h', and by phylogenetic analysis of these features, which shows evidence favouring input from at least two English dialects in the formation of Sranan. In addition to explicating the dialect features most prominent in the linguistic evolution of Sranan, our historical analyses also provide supporting evidence for two distinct hypotheses about the likely geographical origins of the English speakers whose language was an input to Sranan. The emergence as a likely input to Sranan of the speech forms of a cluster near Bristol is consistent with historical records, indicating that most of the indentured servants going to the Americas between 1654 and 1666 were from Bristol and nearby counties, and that of the cluster near Essex is consistent with documents showing that many of the governors and important planters came from the southeast of England (including London) (Smith 1987 The Genesis of the Creole Languages of Surinam; Smith 2009 In The handbook of pidgin and creole studies, pp. 98-129).This article is part of the theme issue 'Bridging cultural gaps: interdisciplinary studies in human cultural evolution'.

The Creole of Diu in Hugo Schuchardt’s Archive

With close to 200 speakers, the Indo-Portuguese Creole of Diu is currently spoken by a fraction of the island’s population and, despite a centuries-old history, has been largely unacknowledged. In the last decade, it was the object of linguistic documentation and description, making it available to researchers in the field of Creole Studies. Before that, however, the only significant source of linguistic information was a seminal 1883 article by Hugo Schuchardt, all the more relevant by the fact that it was one of the first publications dedicated to a creole by the pioneer of Creole Studies. To write it, Schuchardt relied on data obtained through a vast network of correspondents scattered across the globe. The recent edition of Schuchardt’s letter and manuscript archive, a collective effort coordinated by the Institute of Linguistics of the University of Graz, now makes it possible to reconstruct nineteenth-century interest in this language and ensuing scholarly debates. Here, we explore this archive and complementary sources to: (a) retrace Schuchardt’s steps in search of adequate informants; (b) observe Schuchardt’s process of data collection and analysis; (c) recover the opinions of several interlocutors about the status of Diu Creole; and (d) reconstruct the impact of the article’s publication.

Creole studies: Phylogenetic approaches ed. by Peter Bakker et al.

Reviewed by: Creole studies: Phylogenetic approaches ed. by Peter Bakker et al. John McWhorter Creole studies: Phylogenetic approaches. Ed. by Peter Bakker, Finn Borchsenius, Carsten Levisen, and Eeva Sippola. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2017. Pp. 414. ISBN 978902721249. $143 (Hb). Creole studies has a well-deserved reputation, well known even to linguists with no special interest in the area, of being highly contentious. Many are aware that the main disagreement in our time is no longer over whether universals (Bickerton 1981) or substrate contributions (Holm 1988) were most important in creole genesis—a major debate in the 1980s into the 1990s—but over whether creoles constitute a type of language at all. Influential publications by Mufwene (2001, 2008), DeGraff (2001a), and more recently Aboh (2015) argue that creolization is simply a kind of language hybridization, qualitatively indistinct from that which produced Romanian or Yiddish, especially considering that second language acquisition, while clearly important in creole genesis, is hardly irrelevant to the histories of perhaps most languages. The idea is that the classification of creoles as a kind of language, born from a radical break in transmission such as pidginization, has been an impressionistic reification, informed by racism and colonialism, and unmoored from the procedures of modern science. The work chronicled in Creole studies: Phylogenetic approaches serves as a counterpoint to this tempting reconception of creole studies and language contact. While other studies have attempted to demonstrate that creoles are unique in combining certain features (McWhorter 2011, 2018, Daval-Markussen 2013), this book evidences a computational phylogenetic approach to the question, in line with an approach increasingly de rigueur in linguistic work overall. Presenting the work of a project overseen by Peter Bakker at Aarhus University, this volume now stands as a key statement in the debate over the nature of creole languages. Claims that creoles are not a kind of language will henceforth qualify as incomplete without engagement with the works in this book. The phylogenetic approach tabulates a set of features in a range of languages and then represents the data in diagrams generated by programs such as SplitsTree (Huson & Bryant 2006), graphically revealing clusterings between languages. According to the commonly asserted idea that creoles are not a kind of language, creole languages should not cluster together in diagrams like these. This computational approach, presumably, should show creoles distributed randomly amid other languages, with the folly in the supposed essentialization of creoles duly and conclusively revealed. But this is not the case, and this volume collects a now imposing amount of evidence in illustration. After three introductory chapters summarizing the general project outlined in the book, creole genesis theories past and present, and the phylogenetic approach, Ch. 4 and Ch. 6 neatly communicate, through various experiments published previously, the weight of evidence in support of the claim that creoles do constitute a structural type of language. Bakker, Daval-Markussen, Parkvall, and Plag (2011) began with the data in Holm & Patrick 2007, comparing ninety-seven features from eighteen creoles. They winnowed that set of features down to sixty-nine, eliminating those not shared by two thirds of the creoles. Phylogenetic analysis shows that in these features, regardless of their lexical base, creoles cluster quite clearly compared to other languages—that is, that there are indeed features typical of creole languages (123). It is reasonable to wonder whether the 'creole' features in question are simply those of analytic languages in general. However, in Ch. 4, Peter Bakker, Eeva Sippola, and Finn Borchsenius find the same result when creoles are compared only with analytic languages (72). Parkvall (2008) compared forty-three complexity-gradient structures from The world atlas of language structures (Haspelmath et al. 2005) in order to avoid possible bias in proceeding from a source like Holm & Patrick 2007, which is focused on features common in creoles. Parkvall's study compared, on the [End Page 710] basis of these features, 188 creoles and older languages, and the creoles clustered similarly. This supports the claim that creoles display less grammatical complexity than older languages, presumably due to their ancestry in broken transmission and pidgins (123). Further chapters strengthen the...

English-Haitian Creole Bilingual Dictionary by Albert Valdman, Marvin D. Moody, and Thomas E. Davies

Reviewed by: English-Haitian Creole Bilingual Dictionary by Albert Valdman, Marvin D. Moody, and Thomas E. Davies Cécile Accilien Valdman, Albert, Marvin D. Moody, and Thomas E. Davies. English-Haitian Creole Bilingual Dictionary. iUniverse, 2017. ISBN 978-1-5320-1601-1. Pp. 1103. Haitian Creole is the most spoken Creole around the world, with over 11 million speakers. There are several Haitian Creole dictionaries, but this is one of the most recent, with over 30,000 entries. The dictionary provides a concise introduction to the national language of Haiti, emphasizing that Haitian Creole is a language born out of historical struggles in the slave plantation system. It highlights the geographical and sociolinguistic variations in terms of vocabulary use and pronunciation. One of the strengths of the dictionary is the list of detailed examples of words, idiomatic expressions, and complete sentences to be used in different contexts. For instance, for the word"chance" (chans in Creole), there are several definitions, as well as examples from sentences and idiomatic expressions: "chance of a lifetime" (chans li p ap jwenn konsa ankò);"if by chance" (sisanka);"not give s.o. the chance for advancement" (kokobe yon moun); "take a chance" (ale a lavanti, pran chans [li]) (148). The comprehensive but brief sketch of grammar features will be especially useful to non-Haitian Creole [End Page 229] speakers. The section on"Verbal system" is critical because verbs in Haitian Creole are invariable but contain markers to differentiate elements such as tenses and moods. In addition to the"User's Guide"and"Abbreviation List,"English-Haitian Creole Bilingual Dictionary contains an in-depth trilingual bibliography that goes beyond simply listing other Haitian Creole dictionaries and grammar books to include books on proverbs, folktales, and poetry in Haitian Creole. This expanded source material underlines the richness of the language. While the content of the dictionary foregrounds Haitian Creole clearly and respectfully, the image of the vèvè on the cover could be construed as contributing to stereotypical ideas about the Vodou religion (frequently misrepresented), and by extension of Haiti. A more neutral image would have been more appropriate for a general bilingual dictionary. However, this is an important contribution to the development of Haitian Creole. The dictionary will be of interest to students and scholars of Haitian studies, linguistics, French and Francophone studies, Creole studies, and Caribbean studies. Instructors of Haitian Creole at all levels will find it beneficial as well. Cécile Accilien University of Kansas Copyright © 2018 American Association of Teachers of French

On the importance of legal history to Afro-Hispanic linguistics and creole studies

This paper claims that legal history has much to offer to the study of the Afro-European languages that developed in the Americas. In particular, it is suggested that a comparative analysis of colonial slave laws may help us better understand why certain colonies were more conducive to the formation/preservation of creole languages than others. This study builds on the recently-proposed Legal Hypothesis of Creole Genesis (Sessarego, 2015, 2017) and, in so doing, it provides data that weaken the assumptions on which the Afrogenesis Hypothesis was based (McWhorter, 2000).

Unstressedbeen: Past and Present in African American English

Unstressed bin is the African American English (AAE) verbal form occurring in sentences such as I bin paid that bill last week ‘I paid that bill last week’. Contrary to what has been claimed in much of the literature, unstressed bin does exist in the grammars of some contemporary AAE varieties. Unstressed bin occurs in many clausal environments where it can be mistaken for stressed bin, which is not always stressed, and the past participle been, which in many English varieties, AAE and other, may occur with the preceding form of the auxiliary have deleted, as in I Ø been at their house many times ‘I've been at their house many times’. Complicating matters is unstressed bin's occurrence in the homophonous I bin at their house many times ‘I was at their house many times’ and ‘I've been at their house many times’. The concept merging labels this process, whereby AAE forms such as bin occur in identical syntactic environments with homophonous but grammatically distinct forms, creating a type of grammatical camouflage. More important, merging is part of a larger process of mainstreaming, whereby one language variety, AAE in this case, converges qualitatively and quantitatively over time toward a sociopolitically dominant language variety or cluster thereof. The notion of mainstreaming avoids problems with the notion often used in creole studies, decreolization, which can obscure fundamental events in the genesis and evolution of AAE. Recognition of the grammatical status of unstressed bin, along with the consideration of other heretofore undiscussed or little discussed AAE forms with creole language counterparts, prompts a call for revisiting the question of whether AAE may have U.S. mainland creole origins.

Du français aux créoles: phonétique, lexicologie et dialectologie antillaises par André Thibault

Reviews 205 of faux amis that Maillet explores in his second chapter, the pair library ≠ librairie is instructive. At an earlier stage, the words were nearly synonymous. However, French abandoned the meaning of bibliothèque in the seventeenth century, whereas English retained it, resulting in a disconcerting difference for the learner. As an exemplar of “deceptive” pairs inventoried in his final chapter, Maillet turns to aunt/tante. Both derive from Latin amita, but the French acquired the initial consonant from children’s usage of the possessive (t’ante), whereas the English is a more faithful rendering. Although superficially similar, they may not be considered cognates. Maillet succeeds in sustaining a nuanced analysis of the crosslinguistic components that have determined the modern French lexicon. But he seems unable to expand his prescriptive argumentation beyond the tiresome battle metaphor. His epilogue disappoints by its weakly formulated cohortative: “Sus aux anglicismes! Chassons-les, corrigeons-les” (418). For better or for worse, the dynamic nature of language change can hardly be constrained by such an idealized manifesto. Although not a pedagogical handbook, it has important implications for the classroom. If students encounter an Anglicism in an authentic text, can—or should—they adopt its usage? Which have achieved droit de cité? What pragmatic factors might determine their word choice? Unfortunately, absolute prescriptions ignore these complex considerations. Cabrillo College and Graduate Theological Union (CA) H. Jay Siskin Thibault, André. Du français aux créoles: phonétique, lexicologie et dialectologie antillaises. Paris: Garnier, 2015. ISBN 978-2-8124-3843-1. Pp. 505. 49 a. Following Thibault’s Le français dans les Antilles, this volume shifts focus to the region’s French-based creoles (FBCs). Thirteen scholars are represented across eleven chapters, divided into three areas: Historical Phonetics and Lexicology, Dialectology, and Historical Sociolinguistics, areas that often receive less attention than morphosyntax in creole studies. In the first section, Bollée studies the development of h aspiré in the Caribbean FBCs, showing that this sound, still pronounced in the colonial French that represents the terminus a quo of Caribbean creoles, has rarely remained [h] but more often become [r] or [w]. Chauveau examines words that survived into FBCs variously from lower class European French sociolects, ephemeral or dated vocabularies, or regional dialects to show that the colonial French serving as the starting point for FBCs was not the prestige dialect of the time. Though not a new idea, Chauveau’s demonstration provides fascinating and well-documented examples. Hazaël-Massieux’s and Jansen and Hoffman’s contributions explore figurative language in the development of Creole lexicons. Hazaël-Massieux develops the thesis of the relative invisibility of creole metaphor, both in lexicography and in translation, but argues that FBCs have a rich contemporary metaphorical language awaiting documentation , whereas Jansen and Hoffman empirically challenge the view that creole lexicons abound (etymologically) in so-called pragmatic metonymies. Rézeau examines lexical items in letters written from Guadeloupe in 1843–46 by a visiting Frenchman, whose vocabulary contains forms of interest for the French of the period as well as his native Burgundian dialect and the regional French and creole of Guadeloupe. Finally, Scholz studies lexicons of magic and voodoo, concluding that this specialized vocabulary is not more likely to be of African origin in most FBCs than is the general vocabulary, though the semantic domain of magic deploys French strategies of derivation and composition in interesting ways. In the Dialectology section, Fattier takes on the oldest text in any Atlantic FBC, La passion de notre Seigneur selon saint Jean en langage nègre. Despite its antiquity, the text has only been known to the scholarly community since 1994, and its language is variously seen as a hybrid of different dialects, or as the precursor of a modern FBC. Fattier argues convincingly that it is an early stage of northern Haitian Creole. Le Dû and Brun-Trigaud, authors of a recent linguistic atlas of the Lesser Antilles, report on a linguistic survey of the creoles of Guadeloupe, Dominique, Martinique, and Saint Lucia, with sixty-one color maps showing the dialectal distribution of various phonological forms and lexical items. In the Historical Sociolinguistics section, Ferreira catalogs work done on...