PIDGINS AND CREOLES

Pidgins and Creoles

Pidgins and Creoles

Introduction

A 'lingua franca' is a language widely based on many native languages, expected to be learned and used by people with diverse local languages (generally in the similar language type). Historically, speakers of mutually unintelligible languages have been brought into contact under specific socioeconomic and political conditions and have developed a language to communicate with one another that is not native to anyone. Such a language is called a pidgin.

Many pidgins developed during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, in trade colonies beside the shores of the New World, China, and Africa. These pidgins arose through contact between speakers of colonial European languages such as English, French, Portuguese, and Dutch, and the indigenous, non-European languages. Some pidgins arose among extended groups of slaves and slave owners in the United States and the Caribbean in the nineteenth century. Other cases include Hawaiian Pidgin English, which was established on the pineapple plantations of Hawaii among immigrant workers from Japan, China, Portugal, and the Philippines; Chinook Jargon, which evolved among the Indian tribes of the Pacific Northwest as a lingua franca among the tribes themselves as well as between the tribes and European traders; and various pidgins that arose during the Korean and Vietnam Wars for use between foreign soldiers and local civilians.

Discussion

These languages are developed with locals who live in places where the contact is too specific and the societies too extensively alienated for the native language of any one group to function effectively as a lingua franca. Instead, the two or more groups use their native languages as a basis for developing a rudimentary lingua franca with reduced grammatical structures and small lexicons. Also in these situations, it is generally the case that one linguistic group is in a more powerful position, economically or otherwise, such as the relationship of plantation owner to worker or slave owners to slaves. Most of the lexical items of the pidgin come from the language of the dominant group. This language is called superstrate or lexifier language. For example, English (the language of the plantation owners) is the superstrate language for Hawaiian Pidgin English, Swahili for the various forms of Pidgin Swahili spoken in East and Central Africa, and Bazaar Malay for pidgins spoken in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. (Whiteley 2011, 712-722)

The other language or languages also contribute to the lexicon and grammar, but in a less obvious way. These are called substrate languages. Japanese, Chinese, Tagalog, and Portuguese were the substrate languages of Hawaiian Pidgin English and all contributed to its grammar. Chinook Jargon had features both from indigenous languages of the area such as Chinook and Nootka, as well as French and English.

Theoretical Foundations of Pidgins and Creoles

Many linguists believe that pidgins form part of a linguistic “life cycle.” In its very early stage of development, the pidgin has no native speakers and is strictly a contact language. Its use is reserved for specialized functions, such as trading or work-oriented tasks, and its speakers speak ...