Chapters 3 and 4:
Pidgins & Creoles, and
Codes
Outcomes of Language Contact

Language Death: no native speakers

Language Shift: One language replaces another

Language Maintenance: A relatively stable bi-/
multilingual society

Pidgin: a rudimentary system of communication

Creole: creation of a new language based on
pidgins or languages in contact

Lingua Franca

Global Languages
Endangered Languages

Prediction: half of the approximately 6,000
languages may become extinct within 100 years.
 90 Alaskan indigenous
2 being acquired by children.
 90 Australia Aboriginal
20 being used by all age groups.
 175 Native American
20 being acquired by children.
Part I.
Pidgins  Creoles
“Creole Courtyard” 1887
1. Pidgins & Creoles: Introduction
Pidgins and Creoles
Language varieties developed by speakers in
contact who share no common language.

Pidgin
 Limited functions of use
 Adjunct language (no one speaks only a pidgin)
 Linguistically simplified
 Develop their own rules and norms of usage
Examples
 West African Pidgin English
 Chinook Jargon, Native American, British, &
French traders in the Pacific Northwest, 19th c.
 Solomon Island Pidgin, Solomon Islands

Creole
 Languages developed from pidgins
 First language of some members of a speech
community
 Used for a wide range of functions
Examples
 Jamaican Creole (also called patois)
 Krio (Sierra Leone, Africa)
 Gullah (South Carolina & Georgia)
Creole Languages (82)
AFRO-SEMINOLE CREOLE USA
AMAPA CREOLE Brazil
ANGOLAR São Tomé e Príncipe
ARABIC, BABALIA CREOLE Chad
ARABIC, SUDANESE CREOLE Sudan
AUKAN [DJK] Suriname
BAHAMAS CREOLE ENGLISH Bahamas
BAJAN [BJS] Barbados
BAY ISLANDS CREOLE ENGLISH
Honduras
BERBICE CREOLE DUTCH Guyana
BETAWI Indonesia (Java and Bali)
BISLAMA Vanuatu
CAFUNDO CREOLE Brazil
CHAVACANO Philippines
CRIOULO, UPPER GUINEA GuineaBissau
CUTCHI-SWAHILI Kenya
DUTCH CREOLE U.S. Virgin Islands
FA D'AMBU Equatorial Guinea
FERNANDO PO CREOLE ENGLISH
Equatorial Guinea
FRENCH GUIANESE CREOLE FRENCH
French Guiana
GUYANESE CREOLE ENGLISH Guyana
HAITIAN CREOLE FRENCH Haiti
HAWAII CREOLE ENGLISH USA
INDO-PORTUGUESE Sri Lanka
INDONESIAN, PERANAKAN Indonesia
KARIPUNA CREOLE FRENCH Brazil
KITUBA Democratic Republic of Congo
KORLAI CREOLE PORTUGUESE India
KRIO Sierra Leone
KRIOL Australia
KWINTI Suriname
LEEWARD CARIBBEAN CREOLE
ENGLISH Antigua
LESSER ANTILLEAN CREOLE FRENCH St.
Lucia
LOUISIANA CREOLE FRENCH USA
and so on...
http://www.ethnologue.com/web.asp
Sources of Linguistic Features

Superstrate: the socially dominant language
Most vocabulary from superstrate language
(lexifier language)

Substrate: socially subordinate language(s)
Most grammatical structure from the substrate
language(s)
Example: Solomon Islands Pidgin
Superstrate: English
Substrate: Oceanic languages
What does -im mean?
Mino luk-im pikipiki
I
not
see-HIM?
(“I didn’t see your pig.”)
bulong
pig
*Mi no luk pikipiki bulong iu.
English
I shot the burglar.
I shot ‘im.
*I shot’im the burglar.
iu
belong
you
Example, continued
Solomons Pidgin
luk
luk-im
sut
sut-im
transitive intransitive
‘look’
‘see something
‘shoot’
‘shoot something’
Kwaio (Oceanic language)
aga
‘look’
aga-si
fana
fana-si
‘see something’
‘shoot’
‘shoot something’
Can you identify the superstrate of these Creoles?
1. mo pe aste sa banan.
I am buying the banana.
French: Seychelles Creole
2. de bin alde luk dat big tri.
They always looked for a big tree.
English: Roper River Creole
3. a waka go a wosu.
English: Saran
He walked home.
4. ja fruher wir bleiben.
Yes at first we remained.
German: Papua New Guinea
5. olmaan i kas-im chek.
The old man is cashing a check.
English: Cape York Creole
6. li pote sa bay mo.
French: Guyanais
He brought that for me.
Discussion Question 1, Wardhaugh page 64
“If someone told you the pidginized varieties
of a language are ‘corrupt’ and
‘ungrammatical,’ and indicated that their
speakers are either ‘lazy’ or ‘inferior,’ how
might you try to show that person how wrong
he or she is? What kinds of evidence would
you use? (Is this question too PC? Why
“how” wrong?)
Five creoles for you to remember 1. Jamaican
Creole 2. Gulluh 3. Krio 4. Chinese pidgin
English 5. Yiddish (Wardhaugh 64-5)
Now have a look at discussion question 2 on
p. 69 of Wardhaugh
The theories of Pidgin origin

1. Polygenesis (not from a single source, but
develop independently when the social situation
requires communication among speakers who do
not share a common language, but need to
communicate.
 Monogenetic and relexification theories of pidgin
origin are almost certainly wrong (Wardhaugh 745)
Discussion question 1 on page 77 of
Wardhaugh is worth at least a few minutes of
our time.
2. Creole Development
Creoles: Structural Similarities
1. zero copula
di kaafi kuol
the coffee cold
(The coffee is cold.)
2. serial verbs: one verb fulfills a grammatical role
Gullah Creole English (So. Carolina & Georgia)
I tol pas mi
he tall pass me
(He’s taller THAN me.)
Theories of Creolization
1. When children learn a pidgin as a native
language
2. Grammaticalization and phrases become
words ‘ma bilong mi’ (my husband) to
mabilongmi (Wardhaugh 78)
Levels of creole/language status
and the continuum
1. Acrolect “high speech”
2. Mesolect “middle speech”
3. Basolect “low speech”
Groups often recognize status distinctions
subconsciously
Creolization
1. When children learn a pidgin as their mother
tongue, within a generation or two, native
language use becomes consolidated and
widespread. The result is a creole.
2. Major expansion in the structural linguistic
resources: vocabulary, grammar, and style.
3. Shift in the overall patterns of language use in the
community.
Decreolization
 Shift toward standard form of the language
from which the creole derives.
 The standard language has the status of
social prestige, education, wealth. Creole
speakers find themselves under great
pressure to change their speech in the
direction of the standard.
Hypercreolization
 Aggressive reaction against the standard
language on the part of creole speakers, who
assert the superior status of their creole, and
the need to recognize the ethnic identity of their
communication. Such a reaction can lead to a
marked change in speech habits as speakers
focus on what they see as the “pure” form of
the creole.
Recreolization
As Jamacians living in England who “deliberately
recreolize the English they use in an attempt to
assert their ethnic identity and solidarity bacause
of the social situation in which they find
themselves (Wardhaugh 84)
 Look at discussion question 1 on page 85 (an
analagous way to think about these redical
linguistic evolutions is to consider the
metamorphosis of the whale. Radical change
because of special enviornment.
 Look also at discussion question 5

3. Pidgins & Creoles: Conditions for Development
1. The Slave Trade
The forcible exile of over 12 million Africans to
work the plantations of European colonists.
Profile of a Slave Ship
Name of ship:
Left Sãn Tomé
Slaves on board
White crew
Arrived in Jamaica
Slaves deceased
Crew deceased
Slaves sick on arrival, likely to die
Price per slave in Jamaica
from The Memoirs of Granville-Sharp
(text p. 284)
Zong
6 September 1781
440
17
27 November 1781
60
7
greater than 60
20-40 pounds
Two Locations

Fort Creole: developed at fortified posts along the west
African coast, where European forces held slaves until
the arrival of the next ship.
Guinea Coast Creole English

Plantation Creole: developed on plantations in the New
World colonies under the dominance of different
European languages.
Jamaican Creole Jamaica
English
Negerhollands Virgin Islands
Dutch
Haitian Creole
Haiti
French
Papiamento
Netherlands Antilles Spanish
Angolar
Sãno Tomé
Portuguese
2. Trade

Naga Pidgin
 Contemporary pidgin spoken by peoples in
mountain regions of north-east India.
 Acts as lingua franca (29 languages)
 Originated as a market language in Assam in
the 19th century among the Naga people
 Undergoing creolization among small groups
like the Kacharis in the town of Dimapur, and
among the children of interethnic marriages.
3. European settlement

movement of European settlers to places where
 the indigenous population had not been
decimated or moved into reservations
 a slave population did not form the labor force

Fanakalo
 spoken in parts of South Africa
 vocabulary from Zulu, and some from English &
Afrikaans)
 stable pidgin, shows no signs of creolizing
4. War

Korean Bamboo English
 American wars in Asia (Japan, Korea, Vietnam,
Thailand)
 marginal, unstable pidgin
 Read story of Cinderella-San, Wardhaugh pp.
71-2
5. Labor Migration

within colonized countries, people from different
ethnic groups may be drawn into a common work
sphere without being forced

Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea (Pacific Islands)
4. Linguistic Features of Pidgins
Examples
Two pidgins for which English supplied much of
the vocabulary
 Cameroonian Pidgin,
Africa
Cameroon, West
 Korean Bamboo English, Korea
Phonology
Tend to reduce
consonant clusters.
Lack Affixes
Morphology
Use Reduplication. (as in English ‘purple’)
Lexicon
Reduced vocabularies
Polysemy
Circumlocution
Lexicon
Compounding
Grammatical Structure
“Often complete lack of inflection in nouns,
pronouns, verbs, and adejectives”
Wardhaugh 67
• Lack articles (e.g. the, a, an)
• Preference for compound sentences, not complex.
• very few suffixes and grammatical markers
Time usually expressed with adverbs instead of inflection
Chinese Pidgin English
Before my
sellum for ten dollar
PAST 1sg
sell
for ten dollars
I sold it for ten dollars.
Not always “polite”
bagarap
ka bilong me I bagarap Wardhaugh, p. 68
Linguistic artifacts are absent. Spellings such
as ‘knight’ and words which show historical
vowel shift like ‘type’ vs ‘typical’ also, though
a shift in consonant pronunciation rather than
in vowel is ‘space’ ‘spacious’
It is as if these new languages are too young
to have the wrinkles that older languages
develop
5. Pidgin Development
Theories for structural similarities
1. Monogenesis & relexification (Portuguese)
2. Independent parallel development (“foreigner
talk”)
3. Linguistic universals
Classifying Pidgins: Grammatical Complexity
Less Complex
More Complex

Pre-pidgin (or jargon)

Stable Pidgin

Expanded Pidgin
Expanded Pidgins

Pidgins that have developed a more formal role, as
regular auxiliary languages. May have official
status as lingua francas.
 Linguistically more complex to meet needs.
 Used for more functions in a much wider range of
situations.

Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea) c. 1880
 expanded pidgin currently undergoing
creolization. Now has about 20,000 native
speakers.
 about 44% of the population
Codes
Sociolinguistics
Beyond Babel (2001)
a documentary Intonation
I.
The difficulty of defining language,
culture, sociolinguistics, dialect, creole,
pidgin, now complicated by the word
‘code’. According to Wardhaugh, the
term ‘code’ is useful because it is
neutral.
High (H) and Low (L) varieties of a language
are distinct, kept separate, and used in
different situations.
All children learn the L variety, but may not
learn the H viariety (Wardhaugh 89)
Bilingualism
•Individual bilingualism
–two native languages in the mind
–Fishman: “ a psycholinguistic phenomenon”
•Societal bilingualism
–A society in which two languages are used but
where relatively few individuals are bilingual
–Fishman: “a sociolinguistic phenomenon”
•Stable bilingualism
–persistent bilingualism in a society over several generations
•Language evolution:
–Language shift
–Diglossia
Try discussion questions 1, 2, and 5 on page
94.
1. Classical Latin and diglossia.
2. English, French, and 1066. Where did Latin
fit in if French was H and English L
5. Diglossia, dialect, and the vernacular in the
classroom
BENEFITS OF BILINGUALISM
(California Department of Education, Language Policy and Leadership
Office)
•Enhanced academic and linguistic competence in two
languages
•Development of skills in collaboration & cooperation
•Appreciation of other cultures and languages
•Cognitive advantages
•Increased job opportunities
•Expanded travel experiences
•Lower high school drop out rates
•Higher interest in attending colleges and universities
Potential problems with bilingualism
Interference between L1 and L2
Increasing proficiency in L2 leads to reduced
speed in L1
Table 1: Percent of Children Who
Speak Only English by Generation and
Group



By 3rd generation more than 70% of most groups,
Hispanic, Asian, ect. Are monoglot English speakers
Speaking only English is the predominant pattern
by the third generation, except for Dominicans,
who are known for frequent back-and-forth
travel between their homeland and the US.
Some very interesting multilingual situations occur in the world and we will
look at some of these in this lecture.
Tukano
The Tukano people of the northwest Amazon, on the border between Colombia
and Brazil, are multilingual. Men in this society must marry outside their
language group. To marry a woman who speaks the same language is seen to
be marrying one’s sister (one whose mother-tongue is the same). Men,
therefore, choose to marry from the various neighbouring tribes where other
languages are spoken. Once married the woman moves to the husband’s
household. As a result of this process most villages are multilingual as women
have moved into them as wives and taking with them their mother tongue.
Children are born into a multilingual environment speaking both the mother’s
and the father’s language and those of other children. When men from one
village visit another they will always find speakers of their own language who
have preceded them.
Multilingualism among the Tukano is the norm, they cannot readily tell an
outsider just how many languages they speak or how well they speak them.
Siane
A similiar circumstance occurs in New
Guinea with the Siane. It is normal for people
to know several languages and to choose the
most appropriate one for each occasion.
There is also a genuine interest in ‘language
learning’ among the Siane. Salisbury (1962)
tells of a situation where a group of laborers
returned from working on the coast where
they had learned pidgin English (Tok Pisin)
and almost immediately a village school was
established so that the rest of the males in
the community could learn the pidgin.
•India
A multilingual situation has been reported by Gumperz and
Wilson (1971) of Kupwar, a village of 3,000 inhabitants in
Maharashtra in India. Four languages are spoken: two IndoEuropean language, Marathi and Urdu, and two non-IndoEuropean languages: Kannada and Telegu. Language use is
determined by the caste system:
The highest caste, Jains, speak Kannada
The untouchables speak Marathi
The small population of rope-markers speak Telugu
The Muslims speak Urdu
Marathi dominates inter-group communication.
Bilingualism and even tri-lingualism is normal, especially
among men. A consequence of this situation has been some
convergence of languages with regard to syntax. As a result
the languages have become to differ more and more in their
vocabularies alone. (Wardhaugh 1998:99)
The Gastarbeiter impact
In Europe bilingualism has resulted from a longstanding coexistence of languages, as in Belgium, or from more recent
changes in social structure, such caused by the Gastarbeiter
or guest worker groups in Europe. Guest workers and their
dependents now constitute a population of 24 million in
northern Europe. They originate from Turkey, Greece, Italy,
Japan, the new Balkan states and Arabic-speaking countries.
In the early 1990s it was estimated that some 750,000 foreign
students attended German schools and about 1 million
attended French schools. Such populations need to be
catered for in terms of language programmes for maintaining
the children’s languages, translation services, interpreting
services etc. all of which have an impact on the multilingual
nature of society.
•Fluidity
An important feature of most multilingual societies is their
fluidity. The relationships between the languages are always
changing (with the exception perhaps of Paraguay). In some
areas the level of bilingualism is increasing which suggests
that the languages are becoming more equal, in others,
second and third generation immigrants are becoming more
monolingual as in the USA and in Australia. Several
scenarios might exist:
language maintenance whereby one language survives
despite powerful neighbours
language shift whereby speakers of a language may have
assimilated to the dominant culture and its language
Extensive vocabulary borrowing by one of the languages
The emergence of a new ‘hybrid’, eg creoles and pidgins
Language death
Three-Circle Model of
World Englishes
The Inner Circle


English as dominant language
“Standard Englishes”
British Isles (UK)
US & parts of Caribbean
Canada
Australia
New Zealand
65 million
300 million
27 million
18 million
4 million
414 million
The Outer Circle



former colonies
co-exists with other languages
“Standardizing Englishes”
African territories
(Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ambia)
300 million
Indian subcontinent
(India, Paistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka)
1.2 billion
Pacific rim
(Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines)
80 million
The Expanding Circle



English of those for whom the language serves no purpose
within their own countries.
Historically, learned English to use with native speakers in
the U.S. and UK. Now, more likely to use it for
communication with other non-native speakers.
Number is more difficult to assess since it depends on the
level of competence
Far East (China, Indonesia, Japan,
Korea, Nepal, Taiwan)
Middle East (Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia)
Africa (Zimbabwe)
1.7 billion
70 million
10 million
Worldwide Speakers of English

20% of the world’s population speak English
as a first or second language

additional 45% use English in some important
capacity in their lives

Total: Nearly two-thirds of the world population
“Outer Circle”: Indian English
Social Tensions
“I think it’s too late to resist anything. I mean
there’s no point. You know, you’ve got English,
it’s become part of the fabric of the country. It’s
an Indian language, it’s not a foreign language,
not any more. And I think the task at hand is to
be able to own it. You know, and define your
own version of how you use the language.”
—Arnab Chaudhuri
Spoken Indian English: Grammatical
omission of articles
SOV word order
prepositional variation
comparative
itself/only
existential ‘there’
politeness markers
tense & aspect
question non-inversion
generic tag question
I borrowed book from library.
I door open.
I my aunt to visited.
good, more good, most good of all
Can I meet with you tomorrow
itself?
Meat is there, vegetables are there.
These mistakes may please be
corrected.
I am having a cold.
Who you have come to see?
You are going home soon, isn’t it?
Spoken Indian English: Lexical
bandh
crore
lathi
biodata
co-brother
‘regional labor strike’
‘10 million’
‘bamboo iron-clad police truncheon’
‘CV/Curriculum Vitae’
‘wife’s sister’s husband’
Indian English Audio Sample
We started by setting up exhibitions on railway stations,
ordinarily you know that nobody will come and see an
exhibition if it is uh... organized in a hall, but in a railway station
there are always people and have a little time to spare. They
started coming to the exhibition, they started looking around,
and of course we tried to reach their minds by telling them
what the various matters are and you'd be surprised that we
could motivate quite a number of people in this very simple
fashion. People always like elephants — they're fantastic
looking — and we decided to acquire an elephant, paint it and
we all taught it some tricks.
Listen for trilled /r/ and retroflex stops
II. English as a Global Language
What is a Global Language?

Is English a global language because more people
speak it than any other language?

No. Only about one-fourth of the world's population
speaks English as its primary or second language.
A global language plays some role in most countries.
1. Mother-tongue
• USA, Canada, Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand,
South Africa (but compare to Spanish in 20 countries)
2. Official language: government, law, media, education
• some kind of special status in over 70 countries (e.g.
Ghana, Nigeria, India, Singapore, Rwanda)
• more than any other international language, present and
past (e.g. French, Spanish, Arabic)
3. Priority status in countries’ foreign-language teaching
• most widely taught foreign language (100+ countries)
• becoming the chief foreign language (e.g. 1996, replaced
French in Algeria (a former French colony)
Number of English Speakers Growing Rapidly

The three roles English plays throughout the world
suggest that English will eventually come to be used by
more people than any other language.

The number of speakers fluent/competent in English is
growing more rapidly for English than any other
language (although Spanish is growing more rapidly
than English in terms of mother-tongue use).
Should we have a global language?
Advantages

International Lingua Franca
 International business
 International air transportation
 International organizations
• 1945 UN, World Bank
• 1946 UNESCO, UNICEF
• 1948 World Health Organization
 International academic-scientific community
• conferences
• publication
• Internet
Disadvantages

Mixed feelings for native speakers
 Pride? Ownership?

Linguistic complacency
 Are monolingual English speakers
disadvantaged?
 Should everyone speak at least two
languages?

Language death

Access to power
 English spoken by world elite.
 Internet
How English Became a Global Language
Why English?


It is more beautiful/logical?
It has “less grammar”?
 What about Latin, Greek, Arabic?

It is easier to learn?
 However, children learn “more complex” languages at
the same rate as children learning English

It is willing to borrow words?

It is more democratic because it doesn’t have a
grammatical system of coding social class differences?
 Javanese, Japanese
NONE of the above.
1. Religious proselytizing & current religious significance)
In the 1600s, the King James Bible traveled farther and faster than the
spoken word could. The Bible was in print when the British Empire was
being built. From 1611, voyages to America, to India through the East
India Company, and later to South Africa.
Australian aborigine villagers and
Caucasian missionary, 1930
2. The Slave Trade
The forcible exile of over 12 million
Africans to work the plantations of
European colonists.
3. Imperialism
India, independence 1947
© Underwood &
Underwood
CORBIS VV1190
Hindu Man Serving Tea to Colonial Woman
(ca. 1910-1930)
New Zealand
Maori Warriors (ca. 1854)
In the 19th century the Maori resisted
colonization and warred with British
settlers.
©CORBIS BK002387
4. Economic significance
England led world in production and trade in
1900
USA led world in industrial production in 20th
century.
5. Cultural Capital
Japan
English doesn’t have a historic foothold in Japan.
Western movies, fashion, music
Japanese teenagers have grown up with
American and UK music.
“Chris Peppler: “I am a bilingual DJ and my
forte is more on western music rather than the
local music and I feel that when you’re
introducing American or British songs I like to
do it in English. It’s just like you know, you don’t
eat sushi with a knife and fork.”
Babamania
Japanese pop
group performs
exclusively in
English.
チェルシーホテル "say baba TOKYO" 予約受け付け
Myths about English as a Global Language
Myths about English as a Global Language
1. Will everyone soon be speaking English?
2. Will globalization lead to homogeneity?
 People have more choices, not fewer (you can
order customized jeans from Levi Strauss and
a customized computer from Dell).
 Establish virtual communities (e.g. fly fishing)
3. Are nation-states crumbling (e.g. European
Union)?

The EU promotes uniform standards for food
production and currency; however, it also
promotes Catalan autonomy and Scottish
devolution.
Resources
International Dialects of English Archives:
http://www.ukans.edu/~idea/index2.html
Varieties of English
http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~lsp
British English, Canadian English, AfricanAmerican English, American Indian English,
Chicano English, Northeast U.S., Southern
States English
Worldwide Accents of English
Text, transcription, audio, some explanations
of linguistic features. Comparison of British RP
with General American, Scottish, USA
Southern Mountains, Texan, Asian Indian,
Nigerian