Pidgin and Creole Languages

Suzanne Romaine

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315504957
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Filología
• Subtopic: Lingüística

This book defines and describes the linguistic features of these languages and considers the dynamic developments that bring them into being and lead to changes in their structure.

Chapter 1
Introduction to the study of pidgins and creoles

In his speech to the English-Speaking Union Conference in Ottawa (29 Oct. 1958) the Duke of Edinburgh made reference to Tok Pisin (New Guinea Pidgin English), in observing that 'I am referred to in that splendid language as "Fella bilong Mrs Queen'" (Cohen and Cohen 1971:67). This book will deal with a group of languages which linguists call pidgins and Creoles, and some of the issues arising from their study.

It would be logical to begin a book on pidgins and Creoles by offering definitions of these languages; however, this is easier said than done. Although all scholars would agree that there is such a group of languages, perhaps one of the biggest disputes at present among those who study them centres on how they are to be defined, how they originated and what their relationship is to one another. It is partly for this reason that research in this area is at the moment one of the most exciting and rapidly growing fields of linguistics. Indeed, some now refer to a field of study called creolistics (cf eg Mühlhäusler 1983d).¹

Although pidgins and Creoles were long the neglected stepchildren of linguistics because they were thought to be marginal, and not 'real' full-fledged languages, they have now emerged as the centre of attention for a number of reasons. In fact, one creolist, Bickerton (1981a) believes that Creoles hold the key to understanding how human languages originally evolved many centuries ago. But even as early as 1914 Schuchardt (who is regarded as the founder of the field of pidgin and creole studies cf 1.2) noted that the significance of Creoles for general lingustics was not fully appreciated.

If we pause to think for a moment of the circumstances in which pidgin languages arise, (by comparison with so-called 'natural' languages) very suddenly in contact situations, where they are used by speakers with different language backgrounds to fulfill certain basic communicative functions (eg trade), it is not hard to imagine that their rise, spread and development should reveal things of interest for linguists concerned with language acquisition, language change and universal grammar.

Hymes (1971:84), tor example, describes pidgimzation and creolization as complex processes of sociolinguistic change. Pidginization involves reduction of linguistic resources and restriction of use, while creolization involves expansion along both these dimensions. Bickerton (1977a) has more recently characterized both pidginization and creolization as processes of acquisition under restricted conditions. In pidginization the acquisition process involves the learning of a second language by speakers of different language backgrounds who have limited access to the language of the dominant group. In creolization the restricted input occurs as part of the first language acquisition process. Bickerton's (1981a) hypothesis is that under such conditions children have recourse to innate universals which govern the process of expansion of the pidgin into a fully adequate native language. Thus, one can justify treating both pidgins and Creoles as related phenomena. Both involve developing systems which arise in different contexts of language acquisition (cf Chs 6 and 7)

Another kind of link between these languages is historical. Hall (1966), for instance, includes a pidgin origin as an essential feature of Creoles. He elaborated the notion of a linguistic life cycle, discussed in Chapter 4, linking the development of pidgins and Creoles. Others such as Bickerton, however, have been concerned to identify Creole features which have no origin in a prior pidgin stage (cf Ch. 2) My discussion in Chapter 2 of various attempts to define and type pidgin and Creole languages in terms of shared features shows that there is a great deal of overlap between the two. Chapter 3 treats theories of origin, while Chapters 4 and 5 illustrate the dynamic nature of developments which characterize the pidgin-creole life cycle.

1.1 Some introductory issues and problems

My introductory anecdote about the Duke of Edinburgh's encounter with Tok Pisin serves as a convenient point of departure for some of the theoretical issues to be dealt with in subsequent chapters. There is some truth and falsehood in his remarks. Elsewhere in his speech the Duke wrongly includes pidgin as a dialect of English. In doing so, however, he touches on some issues of interest to those who study pidgins and Creoles: namely, whether these languages are to be regarded as dialects (ie socially and linguistically subordinate varieties) of the language which appears to contribute most of their lexicon (ie the superstrate, lexifier language or lexical base). In this case, for instance, the question would be whether Tok Pisin is a dialect of English, on a par with say, Scottish English, or whether it is a language in its own right (cf eg Chambers and Trudgill 1980 on the problem of defining the terms language and dialect). From a linguistic point of view part of the problem in coming to a decision on this matter lies in the fact that the vocabulary of a pidgin is usually drawn primarily from the prestige language of the dominant group in a situation of language contact. Its grammar, however, retains many features of the native languages of the subordinate groups. The prestige language which supplies the bulk of the vocabulary is the one which is usually thought of as being pidginized, hence, the name Pidgin English for Tok Pisin and Chinese Pidgin English etc. (cf 1.3).

The process of pidginization, as I will argue, involves some universal principles for putting together linguistic material of different origins by speakers trying to communicate over linguistic barriers. Schuchardt addressed these and other questions fairly early, but concluded that in the case of Creoles we are dealing with independent systems. Questions about the relatedness of Creoles, in particular, to their superstrate languages are still a concern of the field, eg in the debate about Black English in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s (cf 5.4). Schuchardt included Black English in the category of Creole languages.

Thus, the Duke is right in this quotation to refer to Tok Pisin as a language. He is, interestingly, wrong about his designation; he would be referred to as man biiong (misis) kwin.

There is, however, still a bit more I can add to the anecdote at this stage, and that is to note the increasing anglicization of some varieties of Tok Pisin through renewed contact with English. Thus, it is probably more likely that the Duke of Edinburgh would be referred to in this kind of Tok Pisin as the Duke of Edinburgh or perhaps the Duke bilong Edinburgh. In fact, Hall (1966:45) noted the 'weird mixture' in the following report of the Duke's arrival in Rabaul:

Today i bikpela de bilong ol i welcomim Duke of Edinburgh i kamap long aerodrome bilong citi Rabaul.

He says that in 'normal' Melanesian, this should be:

Tude i bikpela de bilong ol i heloim Dyuk bilong Edinboro i kamap long pies balus bilong siti Rabaul.

'Today is the big day for all to welcome the Duke of Edinburgh to Rabaul airport.'

Hall remarks (1966:45-6) that:

Dyuk 'Duke' and Edinboro 'Edinburgh' would presumably be inevitable loanwords in any case, but the phrase Duke of Edinburgh is a crass Anglicism, as are also welcomim for normal heloim 'to greet', and aerodrome for ples balus 'airport'; and today and city are Anglicised spellings for normal tude and siti.

These kinds of developments will be discussed in Chapter 4.

1.2 Early studies in pidgin and creole languages: a brief history of the field

The study of pidgin and Creole languages goes back more than a century. DeCamp (19713:31) and others recognize Schuchardt as the greatest of the early scholars and the founding father of the field. Schuchardt (1842-1927) is more generally known for his contributions to Romance philology and Basque studies, but within the field of pidgin and creole studies he is known for a series of papers entitled Kreolische Studien published in the 1880s. Significant studies have continued to appear since that time. For example, Hesseling's (1897) controversial study of Afrikaans, which claimed creole ancestry for the language, deals with issues which are still being debated today (cf eg Markey 1982, and 2.9). Linguistic descriptions of Capeverdean Crioulo also date from the latter part of the nineteenth century, when Coelho published a series of three articles on what he called the Romance or Neo-Latin dialects of Africa, Asia and America. This study inspired two further descriptions by native speakers, also published at the end of the century (Costa and Duarte 1886 and Brito 1887). Brito's study is actually written in Capeverdean Crioulo with an accompanying translation into Portuguese. Studies of pidgin and Creoles written by native speakers of these languages are rare today (cf however, Silva 1985 and Rickford 1979 for two examples). As far as I know, no scholarly treatments have been written by native speakers in their own languages except for Brito (1887) and Veiga (1984) on Capeverdean. One volume which deserves mention, even though it is not written by native speakers, is the special issue of Kivung (McElhanon 1975) devoted to Tok Pisin, in which some of the articles are written in that language.

DeCamp (19713:14) says that since the Second World War, and especially in the 1960s, the nature of pidgin and creole studies has changed radically in several ways. For one thing, the field has become unified. Before the 1950s few linguists dealt with both pidgins and Creoles; and few studied more than one geographical area or more than one language. Each language was treated as a separate sphere of interest. One can compare this state of the field with that of the more general state of enquiry into language before concepts such as the general theory of grammar, universal grammar, the logical problem of language acquisition and so on became central to linguistic theory (cf eg Smith and Wilson 1979).

Secondly, DeCamp cites the fact that pidgin-creole studies have now become a respectable academic field. In 1969 the Modern Language's Association annual bibliography groups pidgin-creole studies in a separate section rather than treating them as appendages to other languages such as French etc. DeCamp (19713:14) dates the true birth of the field to 1959, when the first international conference on creole language studies was held in Jamaica. The proceedings of the conference (Le Page 1961) have formed the basis for much discussion and research since. For example, the Portuguese origin hypothesis had been advanced some 60 years earlier by Hesseling, but not until the 1959 conference were its implications discussed seriously from a general perspective, and the possibility of a monogenetic theory of pidgin-creole origin considered (cf Ch. 3). DeCamp singles out as the greatest contribution of this conference the fact that a group of scholars recognized that they were 'creolists'.

The second hallmark in the development of the field was the second international conference held nine years later in Jamaica (cf the papers in Hymes 1971). There some of the topics raised at the previous conference were considered again, this time by a wider range and larger number of scholars. Other issues were treated such as the possibility of prior creole origins for Black English in the United States and Marathi. The emergent field of pidgin-creole studies benefited from the growing interest in sociolinguistics, and contributions from other fields such as historical linguistics. In fact, DeCamp (1971a:14) says that 'if a genuine sociolinguistic theory ever does appear, it will certainly be indebted to pidgin-creole studies'. Hymes (1971:5) has remarked that pidginization and creolization represent the extreme to which social factors can go in shaping the transmission and use of language. Due to this and also to the fact that pidgin-creole speaking communities usually display a considerable range of varieties of speech, these languages have occupied an important place in sociolinguistics, particularly within that area often referred to as variation theory (cf eg Bailey 1973). A number of important methods of analysis, such as implicational scaling (c/5.3) have been introduced into the study of variation by those working with data from pidgin and Creole languages.

Since that time conferences in the field of pidgin-creole studies have become regular events (cf eg Day 1980; Valdman and Highfield 1980; York Papers in Linguistics 1983); and the number of collections of papers and books on pidgin and creole languages continues to increase. At the beginning of the 1980s the field derived new impetus from Bickerton's bioprogram hypothesis (cf Ch. 7), and the study of pidgin and creole languages now attracts an even wider range of scholars from fields such as first and second language acquisition, (cf eg the papers in Andersen 1983).

Having given this brief synopsis of the growth of the field (cf also Hellinger 1985:1.3-4 and Mühlhäusler i986:Ch. 2), let us now consider some of the reasons why it took so long to become established as a respectable academic discipline. In order to understand them, we have to consider the historical context in which the field of linguistics became established, and how various ideas about language influenced its development. (Robins 1967 provides a useful historical overview.)

The earliest grammarians regarded the so-called classical languages, such as Latin and Greek, as the only ones deserving study. Languages without highly developed inflectional morphology such as modern English or French, were thought of as 'grammarless'; and therefore by definition they fell outside the scope of the study of grammar as it was conceived in earlier centuries. The notion that there were developed and undeveloped languages gave way largely in the late nineteenth century, partly due to the finding that th...