Pidgins and

creoles
The main points:

Introduction
 Lingua franca
Pidgins
Pidginization
creole
Creolization
Decreolization
Introduction:
When two or more people
from different languages
meet and tried to
communicate, what should
they do ?
Answers :
1. Use a third language (Lingua
Franca)
2. Mix the two languages (Pidgin
/Creole)
Lingua Franca
A lingua franca is a language
whichis used habitually by people
whose mother tongues are different
in order to facilitate communication
between them.
Other terms that are used to refer
to Lingua francas:

 a trade language e.g., Swahili in

East Africa.
 A contact language e.g., Greek
koine
 An international language e.g.,
English
 An auxiliary language e.g., Esperanto.
 A mixed language .e.g., Mitchif in
Canada
English –lingua franca:
Spoken in many countries as a
native language .
Spoken as a second language
in other countries e.g., India and
the Philippines.
Other languages –lingua francas:
• Many Languages throughout the history
served as lingua franca:
o Chinese
o French
o Arabic
o
Chinook Jargon (American Indian)
• We can conclude that mainly political
and economical power defines
the Lingua Franca.
pidgins
 Origin:
 Assumed to be coming from a Chinese
attempt to pronounce the English word
business during trades in the Far East.
 Historically, pidgins arose in colonial
situations where the representatives of
the particular colonial power, officials,
tradesmen, sailors, etc., came in contact
with natives
 Definition:
 A pidgin or contact language is a restricted
and extended language which arises with
an urgency of communication to serve
specific needs between social groups that
are ethnically and linguistically different from
each other .
 One of these groups is in a more dominant
position than the other; the less dominant
group is the one which develops the pidgin.
Pidginization:
Is a complex combination of
different processes of change,
including reduction and
simplification of input materials
,internal innovation, and
regularization of structure, with L1
influence also playing role.
 Characteristics of pidgin language:
 No native speakers yet .
 spoken by millions as means of communication
 Not used as a means of group identification.
 A product of multilingual –3 languages –oneis
dominant. The dominant language  superior
because of economical or social factor.
 Twolanguages involved  a power struggle for
dominance.
 The dominant group –more vocabulary (lexifier –
superstrate) ,while the less dominant languages
–grammar (substrate).
 Main function –trading
• Reduced grammatical structure:

 Phonology:  CV syllable preferred

 Morphology:  Poor affixation
 -Reduplication is common
 Syntax:  SVO pattern preferred
 -Articles usually omitted
 Lexicon:  Limited vocabulary
 Semantics:  Semantic extensions
 
 Narrower range of
Pragmatics: functions
Possible outcomes of Pidgins
 Die out (when original reason for
communication diminishes or disappears)

 Develop to more formal roles (lingua

franca); which is called an ‘expanded
pidgin’

 Develop into a creole

Creoles
 Origin:
An adaptation of the Castilian Spanish
criollo (home, local)
from Portuguese criar (to rear, to bring up),
from Latin creo ("tocreate").
 Definition:
Acreole is a pidgin that has
become the first language of a
new generation of speakers.
 Creolization:
Isa process where a pidgin
expanded in structure and
vocabulary in order to express the
range of meanings and serve the
range of functions required of a first
language.
characteristics of Creoles
o pidgins adopted as the native language.
 Nativization is when pidgin passed onto
new generations and became a mother
tongue which isacquired by children.
 Often classified as English/French/Spanish…
based
 speech becomes faster,
 Expansion of morphology and syntax.
 Expansion of phonology.
 Expansion of the lexicon.
Decreolization
Itis a hypothetical phenomenon
whereby over time a
creole language reconverges with
one of the standard languages from
which it originally derived. the
theory of creole continua.
Bickerton (1975)has proposed a number
of terms to refer to the creole continuum in
Guyanese English:
 Acrolect : which refers to educated
Guyanese English which has very few
differences from other varieties of standard
language.
 Basilect:refers to a variety that would be
least comprehensible to a speaker of the
standard
 Mesolects: are intermediate varieties which
are used to fill the space between the
Acrolect and basilect.
Life-Cycle Model of Pidgins and
Creoles
 Jargon  Pidgin  Pidgin Créole  Creole
⇩ ⇩ ⇩
⇩ Post-creole continuum ⇩
Post-pidgin continuum ⇘ ⇙
Nativized version
of lexifier

 e.g.,
 - Russenorsk Solomon Islands Haitian
 - Chinese PE Tok Pisin Jamaican
 An example of a creole:
• Jamaican creole is mixed with English and
African.
For example:
• instead of saying me they say mi.
• Thissentence is written in Jamaican creole:

• Unu cya lissen to we mia say!

English is:

• Cant you listen to what I'msaying!