Creole and Pidgin Languages. General Characteristics

Pidgin and Creole Languages

Malaki Marina, 3LM3

Issues to discuss

Pidgin language: general characteristics and peculiar features, varieties

Creole Languages : general characteristics, theories of creolization

Structural characteristics of PL and CL.

Pidgin Language

is a simplified form of speech formed out of one or more existing languages and used by people who have no other language in common.

is nobody's mother tongue, and it is not a real language at all: it has no elaborate grammar, it is very limited in what it can convey, and different people speak it differently (R.L. Trasc, Language and Linguistics: The Key Concepts, 2007)

Pidgin -

originally used to describe Chinese Pidgin English, was later generalized to refer any pidgin.

Creole Tok Pisin = talk Pidgin

Usually have limited power and do not last long(Pidgin Russian in Manchuria disappeared when

Russian settlers left China after WWII )

Varieties of Pidgin

18 Pidgins used around the world (4 extinct and many in the process of disappearing)

Chinglish

Chinese Pidgin English

Originated as lingua franca for trade between British and Chinese people.

1839 – began to decline in the late 19

Chinglish

Chinglish

Chinglish

Chinglish

Other Varieties:Maroon Spirit Language (Jamaica, West

Africa, )West African Pidgin (West Africa, Equatorial

Guinea, Sierra Leone )African Pidgin (su-su= gossip, pyaa-

pyaa=sickly, koro-koro=clear vision, doti-doti=garbage, yama-yama=disgusting)

you sabi do am? = do you know how to do it?

Hawaiian Pidgin

Was influenced by: English, Portuguese, Cantonese, Hawaiian, Korean , Philippine, Mexican

"People no like t'come fo' go wok." = People don't want to have him go to work

"Inside dirt and cover and blanket, finish" = "They put the body in the ground and

covered it with a blanket and that's all."

Peculiar characteristics of PL:

Simple Grammar (ex. 2 prepositions – blong= of,for , long= all the other)

Very small vocabulary (Chinglish=700 words, gras blong het=hair)

Creole Languages-

developed in colonial European plantation settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries as a result of contact between groups that spoke mutually unintelligible languages.

Since the 1930s some linguists have

claimed that creoles emerged from pidgins

Theories of Creolization

Substrate (languages previously spoken by enslaved Africans)

Superstrate (colonial nonstandard varieties of the European languages )

Universalist (universals of language development , developed by adults according to universals of second language acquisition)

Pidgins/Creoles

Pidgins have no native speakers; creoles have native speakers.

Pidgins have a limited range of uses; creoles have a considerably expanded range of uses.

Pidgins typically evolve out of contact situations; creoles evolve out of pidgins.

Pidgins/Creoles

Just 5 vowels in Pidginalmost complete lack of inflection in nouns,

pronouns , verbs and adjectives.Nouns are not marked for number and gender Negation may only include a single particle no.Vocabulary similar to standard language