THE HISTORY OF PIDGINS AND CREOLE
Pidgins and creole are new language varieties, which
developed out of contacts between colonial nonstandard varieties of a European
language and several non-European languages around the Atlantic and in the
Indian and Pacific Oceans during the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries.
Pidgins typically emerged in trade colonies which developed around trade forts
or along trade routes, such as on the coast of West Africa. They are reduced in
structures and specialized in functions (typically trade), and initially they
served as non-native lingua francas to users who preserved their native
vernaculars for their day-to-day interactions. Some pidgins have expanded into
regular vernaculars, especially in urban settings, and are called `expanded
pidgins.' Examples include Bislama and Tok Pisin (in Melanesia) and
Nigerian and Cameroon Pidgin English. Structurally, they are as complex as
Creoles.
The terms Creole and pidgin have also been
extended to some other varieties that developed during the same period out of
contacts among primarily non- European languages. Examples include Delaware
Pidgin, Chinook Jargon, and Mobilian in North America; Sango, (Kikongo-)Kituba,
and Lingala in Central Africa, Kinubi in Southern Sudan and in Uganda; and Hiri
Motu in Papua New Guinea (Holm 1989, Smith 1995)
Mufwene (2001) emphasizes that Creoles and pidgins developed
in separate places, in which Europeans and non-Europeans interacted differently
–sporadically in trade colonies (which produced pidgins) but regularly in the
initial stages of settlement colonies (where Creoles developed).
The term `Creole' was originally coined in Iberian
colonies, apparently in the sixteenth century, in reference to non indigenous
people born in the American colonies. It was adopted in metropolitan Spanish,
then in French and later in English by the early seventeenth century. By the
second half of the same century, it was generalized to descendants of Africans
or Europeans born in Romance colonies. Usage varied from one colony to another.
The term was also used as an adjective to characterize plants, animals, and
customs typical of the same colonies.
Creole may
not have applied widely to language varieties until the late eighteenth
century. Such usage may have been initiated by metropolitan Europeans to
disfranchise particular colonial varieties of their languages. It is not clear
how the term became associated only with vernaculars spoken primarily by
descendants of non-Europeans. Nonetheless, several speakers of Creoles (or pidgins)
actually believe they speak dialects of their lexifiers.
Among the earliest claims that Creoles developed from
pidgins is the following statement in Bloomfield (1933, p. 474): `when the
jargon [i.e., pidgin] has become the only language of the subject group, it is
a creolized language.' Hall (1962) reinterpreted this, associating the
vernacular function of Creoles with nativization. Thus, Creoles have been
defined inaccurately as `nativized pidgins,' i.e., pidgins that have acquired
native speakers and have therefore expanded both their structures and functions
and have stabilized. Hall then also introduced the pidgin-Creole `life-cycle'
to which DeCamp (1971) added a `post-Creole' stage.
The first creolist to dispute this connection was Alleyne (1971).
He argued that fossilized inflectional morphology in Haitian Creole (HC) and
the like is evidence that Europeans did not communicate with the Africans in
foreigner or baby talk, which would have fostered pidgins on the plantations.
It has also been claimed that Creoles have more or less the
same structural design (Bickerton, 1984). This position is as disputable as the
counterclaim that they are more similar in the socio historical ecologies of
their developments, or even the more recent claim that there are Creole
prototypes from which others deviate in various ways (McWhorter 1998). The very
fact of resorting to a handful of prototypes for the general Creole structural
category suggests that the vast majority of them do not share the putative set of
defining features, hence that the features cannot be used to single them out as
a unique type of language. On the other hand, variation in the structural
features of Creoles (lexified by the same language) is correlated with
variation in the linguistic and sociohistorical ecologies of their developments
(Mufwene 2001). The notion of `ecology' includes, among other things, the
nature of the lexifier, structural features of the substrate languages, changes
in the ethnolinguistic makeup of the populations that came in contact, the
kinds of interactions between speakers of the lexifier and those of other
languages, and rates and modes of population growth.
To date the best known Creoles have been lexified by English
and French. Those of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean are, along with Hawaiian
Creole, those that have informed most theorizing on the development of Creoles.
While the terms `Creole' and `creolization' have often been applied
uncritically to various contact-induced language varieties, several distinctions,
which are not clearly articulated have also been proposed, for instance,
between pidgin, Creole, koine! , semi-Creole, intertwined varieties, foreign
workers' varieties of European languages (e.g., Gastarbeiter Deutsch),
and `indigenized varieties' of European languages (e.g., Nigerian and
Singaporean English). The denotations and importance of these terms deserve
re-examining. THE
DEFENITION OF PIDGINS AND CREOLE
Most
studies of pidgins and Creoles (PC) have focused on their origins, despite an
undeniable increase during the 1990s in the number of works on structural
features
Pidgins
A Pidgin, or contact language, is the name given to
any language
created, usually spontaneously, out of a mixture of other languages as a means
of communication between speakers of different tongues. Pidgins have
rudimentary grammars and restricted vocabulary, serving as auxiliary contact languages.
They are improvised rather than learned natively.
Pidgin language
(origin in Engl. word `business'?) is nobody's native language; may arise when
two speakers of different languages with no common language try to have a
makeshift conversation. Lexicon usually comes from one language, structure
often from the other. Because of colonialism, slavery etc. the prestige of
Pidgin languages is very low. Many pidgins are `contact vernaculars', may only
exist for one speech event.
A pidgin is “ a language with a reduced range of structure
and use, with NO native speakers.” It grows up among people who do not share a
common language but who want to communicate with each other.
(Source:
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language).
A pidgin, or contact language, is the name given to any
language created, usually spontaneously, out of a mixture of other languages as
a means of communication between speakers of different tongues. Pidgins have
simple grammars and few synonyms, serving as auxiliary contact languages. They
are learned as second languages rather than natively.
Some pidgins have expanded into regular vernaculars,
especially in urban settings, and are called `expanded pidgins.' Examples
include Bislama and Tok Pisin (in Melanesia) and Nigerian and
Cameroon Pidgin English.
Creole
Creole (orig.
person of European descent born and raised in a tropical colony) is a language
that was originally a pidgin but has become nativized, i.e. a community of
speakers claims it as their first language. Next used to designate the
language(s) of people of Caribbean and African descent in colonial and
ex-colonial countries (Jamaica, Haiti, Mauritius, Réunion, Hawaii, Pitcairn,
etc.)
A
creole is “a pidgin which has become the mother tongue of a community,” and
therefore has native speakers (Source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language).
A creole language, or just creole,
is a well-defined and stable language that originated from a non-trivial
combination of two or more languages, typically with many distinctive features
that are not inherited from either parent. All creole languages evolved from
pidgins, usually those that have become the native language of a community. The
most kinds of pidgin but now be a creol as like Melanesia pidgin (Tok Pisin in
Papua New Guinea. Another example from this is Bislama pidgins in Vanuatu.
THE
DEVELOPMENT OF PIDGIN AND CREOLE
The Development Of Pidgin
A Pidgin, or contact language, is
the name given to any language created, usually spontaneously, out of a mixture of
other languages as a means of communication between speakers of different
tongues. Pidgins have rudimentary grammars and restricted vocabulary, serving
as auxiliary contact languages.
They are improvised rather than learned natively.
As they develop, they can replace
the existing mix of languages to become the native language of the current
community (such as Krio in Sierra Leone
and Tok Pisin
in Papua New Guinea). This stage requires the
pidgin to be learned natively by children, who then generalize the features of
the pidgin into a fully-formed, stabilized grammar (see Nicaraguan Sign Language). When a pidgin
reaches this point it acquires the full complexity of a natural language, and
becomes a creole language. However, pidgins do not always become creoles - they can die
out or become obsolete.
Caribbean
pidgin is the result of colonialism. As tropical islands were colonised
their society was restructured, with a ruling minority of some European nation
and a large mass of non-European laborers. The laborers, both natives and slaves, would often come
from many different language groups and would need to communicate. This led to
the development of pidgins.
The word is derived from the Chinese
pronunciation of the English word business. Pidgin English was the name given to a Chinese-English-Portuguese
pidgin used for commerce in Canton during the 18th
and 19th
centuries. Some scholars dispute this derivation of the word
"pidgin", and suggest alternative etymologies, but no alternative has
been deemed convincing enough to garner widespread support. In Canton, this
contact language was called Canton
English.
The Development Of Creole
In linguistic, creole is pidgin which
from time to time and from one generation to the next generation that continues
to develop into a variety of languages. By the time adults use pidgin as an
intermediate language, a group of children or grandchildren they acquire and use
the language as a first language (mother language).
For children or grandchildren, no longer
called Pidgin, but creole.
Creole is also often referred to as the language Pijin that has native speakers.
In the language of the user community Pidgin shift or different naming of the language
used. Pijin for the older generation, and Creole to the younger generation.
At the level of creole, grammar and vocabulary
begin to intricate and complex. Creole is a language extension Pidgin, both grammatical
complexity and vocabulary. Expansion of Pidgin be equated with creole languages
in other countries that have it.
There are hundreds of different creole
languages in the world. Example is the creole language Tok Pisin in Papua New
Guinea, Papiamentu in Arubia, South Venezuela, Curacao and Bonaire Leeward islands
of the Netherlands Antilles (influenced by Portuguese, English and Spanish). Haitian
Creole in the Caribbean, the western part of the island of Hispaniola (having six
million speakers). The speakers can be found throughout the Caribbean and North
American comunity, and creole from Dominica (influenced by Spanish, French and
English).
THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT FROM PIDGIN
TO CREOL
In general, overall language can be
changed. Sometimes the language changes occur in a short time as a result of
contact between two languages used by people with backgrounds different
languages. In such circumstances may arise that name pidgin. Pidgin usually
have a very simple grammar with a vocabulary of different languages so that
mixing the two elements of the language led to a mixture of languages.
A pidgin has no native speakers
(native speakers). If you have a native speaker's language is called a creole
language. So, creole is a pidgin development that has had a parent language
(mother tongue). Some languages are considered creole language in Indonesia,
among others, is the Malay language and Betawi Malay Ambon. So, creole is the
result of language contact as well which is the development of a pidgin.
Pidgin creole arises when a mother
tongue in a particular community. The structure is still describe the structure
of pidgin, creole but called for being their mother tongue. Pidgin can be a
creole when the foreign speakers and used by his descendants were then frozen
as their first language. It just said creole pidgin language if this has been
going on for generations.
Creoles have more speakers than
pidgin. Because creoles evolved through his children and grandchildren, and
only a pidgin language of the original. When someone mentions a creole
language, then the language should have first been proven historically about
its origins. Because in determining whether or not a creole, a language
historically has a very important role and have a very close relationship.
Creolization is a linguistic development that occurs because the two languages
in contact for a long time which is pidgin speakers had breed. And so on if
creole able to survive and continue berkembanga it would creole language bias
to larger and more complete example is the language of Sierra Leone in West
Africa which later became the national language.
Creole language developed from
pidgin language. First of all, a language is used as a first language in an
area, then the youth, especially the merchants, activities interaction by
trade.
From various origins traders, when
they interact with other countries that are much different languages have
either structural or functional, so they created a new language with quotes,
and to paraphrase of their own languages understood by all traders concerned
that they are able to interact well. First language in an area that depends on
whether the area is the result of colony, who occupier, and the influence of
what is left.
