Ling 122: English as a World Language - 18

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Ling 122 English as a World Language - 18

• Language Contact
• Pidgins Creoles
• Readings
• Lipski, Crystal, Holman,

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Sample Pidgins Creoles
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Pidgins and Creoles

• - Characteristics and origins of Pidgins and
  Creoles
• - Expanded pidgins
• - Creole origins
• - From pidgins to creoles
• - Hawaiian Creole English
• - Developments in the UK and the US
• Notes based on Jenkins, J. 2003. World
  Englishes, Routledge, pp. 55-60, 99-106, 154-162.

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Pidgins

• Limited functions (esp. trade)
• No native speakers (nobodys mother tongue)
• Contact language involving at least two, often
  three different language groups
• That is, it is the product of a multilingual
  situation in which those who wish to communicate
  must find or improvise a simple language system
  that will enable them to do so.

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Pidgin Origins

• So Pidgins, in the stereotypical case, are formed
  when speakers of one language engage in trade
  with speakers of another, or work on plantations
  managed by speakers of another, and neither knows
  the others language.
• In plantation settings, their manual function is
  to enable workers to communicate with each other,
  since plantation laborers very often do not speak
  the same language.

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Pidgins

• Very simple languages that develop just
  linguistically and functionally enough to satisfy
  their purposes
• Usually involve a European language (esp.
  English) and non-European languages
• Very often, the situation (i.e. the context of
  origin) is one in which there is an imbalance of
  power among the languages. The speakers of one
  language dominate the speakers of the other
  languages economically and socially.
• That is, the superstratum language supplies most
  of vocabulary (new domain of use for
  non-Europeans)
• The substratum language supplies much of the
  grammar

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Expanded Pidgins

• Pidgins usually have limited life-span can die
  out when the interactions that they serve end
  (e.g., the end of a trade route)
• Pidgins will survive longer if at least two
  substratum language groups are involved.
• E.g. Non-European language groups not in frequent
  contact with each other until arrival of
  trans-oceanic trade will continue to use the
  Pidgin created.

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Expanded Pidgins

• So the pidgin becomes a link language among the
  non-Europeans, who sometimes continue to develop
  and use it after the Europeans have left
• True in many West African countries and South
  Pacific islands (e.g., Sierra Leone in Story of
  English).
• So it can become an expanded pidgin, like the
  Nigerian pidgin Genesis, and remain in wide use.
• Grammar and vocabulary expand as types of
  interaction become broader and more complex.
• But still no native speakers.

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Expanded Pidgins

• However, under certain circumstances, expanded
  pidgins can start to have native speakers
• Imagine that as trade along the rivers and the
  coastal areas continues to expand,
• Communities (ultimately cities) develop in which
  speakers of different non-European languages
  interact frequently for many purposes
• The only language that they share is the pidgin
• If woman and man from different native language
  backgrounds meet frequently and eventually marry,
  they can only communicate with each other in the
  pidgin.

10
Expanded Pidgins

• What happens when they have children? What
  language will the children speak?
• The children will be native speakers of the
  pidgin, and they will grow up with other children
  having similar language backgrounds.
• As they grow up and become involved in broad
  range of activities (education, music, religion),
  their language becomes more complex in terms of
  grammar, vocabulary, and discourse.

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Creole Origins

• The pidgin has now developed into a creole, which
  is the mother tongue of a community.
• Creoles can become dominant languages of
  communities and even post-colonial nations
• e.g., Jamaica, Haiti
• Creoles often co-exist with standard dialect of a
  former colonial European language, which remains
  the language of official power.

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Creoles

• Thus,
• -A Creole is often defined as a pidgin that has
  become the first language of a new generation of
  speakers, i.e. creoles arise when pidgins become
  mother tongues.
• - A creole, therefore, is a normal language in
  almost every sense.
• - 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.

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Pidgins and Creoles

• English-Based Pidgins and Creoles (35), E.g.
• - Hawaiian Creole
• - Gullah or Sea Islands Creole (spoken on the
  islands off the coasts of northern Florida,
  Georgian and South Carolina)
• - Jamaican Creole
• - Krio (spoken in Sierra Leone)
• - Sranan and Djuka (spoken is Suriname)
• - Cameroon Pidgin English
• - Tok Pisin
• - Chinese Pidgin English (a modified form of
  English used as a trade language between the
  British and the Chinese, first in Canton, China,
  and later in other Chinese trade centers (e.g.,
  Shanghai).

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From Pidgins To Creoles

• When a pidgin has become nativized, the history
  of the resultant Creoles is, in essence, similar
  to that of any other language.
• Hence, whereas a pidgin is identifiable at any
  given time by both linguistic and social
  criteria, a Creole is identifiable only by
  historical criteriathat is if we know that it
  has arisen out of pidgin.
• There are no structural criteria which, in
  themselves, will identify a Creole as such, in
  the absence of historical evidence.

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Characteristics of Pidgins Creoles

• Lexis (vocabulary)
• Pronunciation
• Grammar
• Social Functions

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Lexis

• Drawn from dominant (lexifier) language (English,
  French, Portuguese, Dutch)
• Lexis rules for pidgins are simpler than for
  mature languages
• Concepts encoded in lengthy ways
• Yumitripela we, us
• Gras bilong pisin feathers
• Extensive use of reduplication
• Pikpik pigs
• Gutpela liklik fairly good

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Pronunciation

• Five vowel sounds / i e a o u /
• deep / dip -gt /dip/
• work / walk -gt /wak/
• Simplification of consonant clusters
• /-nd/ -gt /-n/ /paun/ pound
• /-ks/ -gt /-kis/ /sikis/ six
• Conflation of consonant sounds
• /f/ -gt /p/ /pren/ friend
• /š/ -gt /s/ /bus/ bush
• Larger number of homophones
• /ti?/ -gt thing / think

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Grammar

• Pidgins
• Variable from speaker to speaker
• Few if any inflections
• Simple negation no X
• Simple clause structure
• From pidgins to creoles
• Consistency across speakers
• Assimilation reduction processes
• Expanded vocabularies
• Tense system
• Greater sentence complexity

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Social Functions

• Pidgins Limited range of social functions
• As contact languages, used for minimal
  communication purposes
• Extended pidgins and creoles Wide range of
  social functions
• Oral and written literature
• Education
• Mass media
• Advertising
• Religion

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Creole Developments in the UK

• London Jamaican
• Patois of British blacks
• Origins in the Caribbean
• Spoken by London-born youth
• Reflects process of re-creolization (shift back
  to earlier forms of the creole)
• Also spoken by young whites, Asians
• Language crossing use of minority varieties
  by ethnic outgroups

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Jamaican Creole Grammatical Features

• Interchangeable pronouns - /em/ he, she, it,
  him, her, etc.
• Present tense forms for present past reference
  /ai se/ I said.
• Elimination of tense suffixes (-s, -ed) /yu bret
  stink/ Your breath stinks.
• Pre-phrasal no for negation /no bret stink/ My
  breath doesnt stink.

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Jamaican Creole Phonological Features

• /?/ /ð/ -gt /t/ /d/ /bret/ breath
• Labialization after /b/ /bwoy/ boy
• Deletion of final consonants /b?l?/ bullet
• /a/ /?/ -gt /a/ cloth -gt /klaat/
• /?/ open o as in
• Lack of unstressed schwa the -gt /da/ /di/

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The US From Pidgin to Creole to African American
English?

• Ebonics
• African American English (AAE)
• Not all African Americans speak it
• Some non-African Americans speak it
• The language of descendents of slaves
• Traces origins to original slave pidgin and
  subsequent creoles
• Shows possible traces of African languages
• Non-standard
• Rule-governed

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Ebonics Grammatical Features

• Deletion of past tense suffixes
• Yesterday he played -gt /ple/
• Deletion of auxiliaries where SAE can contract
• Hes going -gt /hi gowi?/, but not
• how pretty you are -gt /haw prIti yu/
• Multiple negation
• He dont know nothing.
• Habitual be
• Sometime she be angry but not
• Sometime she angry.
• Existential Its
• Theres a beer in the frig ? Its a beer in
  the frig

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Ebonics Phonological Features

• Reduction of final consonant clusters
• burned my hand ? /brn ma hæn/
• messed up ? /mes ?p/
• SAE /d/ and /t/ ?
• good man ? /g? mæn/
• Monophthongization
• time /Taim/ ? /Tam/
• SAE /l/ and /r/ ? /?/
• steal /stil/ ? /sti?/ more /mor/ ? /mo?/
• SAE /ð/ and /?/ ? /d/, /t/, /f/, /v/
• thin ? /tin/ they ? /de/
• brother ? /br?vr/ three ? /fri/

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HAWAIAN PIDGIN

• In Hawaii, a creole developed from an earlier
  pidgin (though what is spoken today is often
  called Hawaiian Pidgin!)
• On the colonial plantations, frequent contact
  among several Asian immigrant language groups
  (Chinese, Japanese, Korean), indigenous
  Hawaiians, and Caucasian Americans
• As interactions among them become more frequent
  and complex, expanded pidgin develops
• Communicative functions expand, which requires
  more complex grammar and vocabulary
• When they intermarry, creole develops, which
  becomes first language of their kids

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Hawaiian Creole English

• A sample from the Bible