creoles - uni- · pdf fileand creoles. pidgins: “a pidgin is a reduced language that...

CREOLES

a presentation by

Jan Florian Bender, Kai Friedrich, Vincent Gouws & David Woitoschek

OutlineIntroductionCreole Languages

Jamaican PatoisSuriname Creole EnglishTok Pisin

Introduction

OriginIn 15th century, western Europeans began establishing overseas coloniesFrom the beginning of the 17th century…

Great Britain was a world power……exerted enormous influence on the economies and the societies of many parts of the world

“This influence can be seen in the wide spread of the English language in all parts of the world.”

(Gramley & Pätzold 2004: 336)

OriginAmong the numerous varieties of English are the so-called mixed languages. Two kinds of mixed languages are pidgins and creoles.

Pidgins:“A pidgin is a reduced language that results from extended contact between groups of people with no language in common; it evolves when they need some means of verbal communication, perhaps for trade […]”.

(Holm 2000: 5)

“From the linguistic point of view pidgins are second languages; no one has a pidgin as a mother tongue.”


CreolesA creole…

… is a pidgin which has become the first language of its speakers.… may be either a mother tongue or a primary language, i.e. the speakers’ dominant language.… is an enriched, expanded and regularized language; it has the full complexity characteristic of any natural language.


Example: plantations of the New World

Superstrate / LexifierA lexifier is the dominant language of a particular pidgin or creole language that provides the basis for the majority of vocabulary.Language spoken by the (European) explorers, colonists, and merchants

contributes wordsseen as more prestigious (by the native speakers of this language)

e.g. ENGLISH

SubstratumA stratum is a language level that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substrate language is one which has lower power or status than another, while a superstrate language has higher power or status.Language spoken by the indigenous population

contributes syntaxgenerally perceived as inferior (by the speakers of the lexifierlanguage)

e.g. BANTU

Language ContactLanguage contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact.

ENGLISH BANTU


ENGLISH BANTUPidgin

-

Creole


The contact language is something new:It is neither a variety of the lexifier nor substratumPidgins are used by both groups in the contact situation

They use simplified syntax, pronunciation and morphology

ENGLISH BANTUPidgin

-

Creole

“At present English-based pidgins and creoles are spoken in three general areas, the Caribbean, West Africa and the Pacific…”


Jamaican Patois

Some Facts about JamaicaPopulation: 2,825,928 (July 2009 estimate)Density: 252/km2

Capital: KingstonOfficial Language: EnglishNational Language: Jamaican Patois

(https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/jm.html)

HistoryOriginal inhabitants: Arawak1494: Arrival of Columbus1655: Conquered by the British1962: Independence

(Patrick 2004: 1)(Le Page 1960: 13)

Origins of Jamaican Patoisbetween 17th and 18th century

Lexifier language: EnglishSubstrate: mostly African languages

Also: influences from Spanish, Portuguese, and Hindustani

The Jamaican Creole Continuum - An Idealized Abstraction

Jamaican Creole; nostandardized orthography

home language to mostspeakers

rural connotations

Standard English

not available to all speakers;taught at school; also: language predominantly used in media & politics

prestige

(Patrick 2004: 2-5)

basilect ----mesolects---- acrolect

PhonologyAbout 21 phonemic consonants, between 9 and 16 vowels

No dental fricatives (θ, ð)/bu:θ/ /bu:t/ (booth)

Voiced stops in the onset of syllables become implosive/bi:t/ /ɓi:t/ (beat)

(Harry 2006: 127)

No distinction between alveolar and velar consonants before a syllabic /l//aIdl/ /aIgl/ (idle)

Two types of vowel harmony: peripheral vowel harmony (only /i/, /u/, and /a/ allowed in one syllable)back harmony (/i/ and /u:/ now allowed within one syllable)

/baik/ (bike)/taun/ (town)/buut/ (booth)

(Harry 2006: 128 f.)

Personal Pronouns

Jamaican Patois

miwiyuunui demim

Standard English

Iweyou (singular)you (plural)he, she, ittheyit (animal or thing)

(Bailey 1966: 22 f.)

Tense MarkingPreverbal particles with unmarked verb stems to express grammatical categories

non-stative verbs:

Preverbal marker Meaning Example Translation

- past Mi run I ran(b)en/did past-before-past Mi ben ron I had run

stative verbs:

Preverbal marker Meaning Example Translation

- present/habitual Mi lov im I love her(b)en/did past Mi ben lov im I loved her

Past tense forms not morphologically marked

(Patrick 2004: 6 f.)

Excerpt from "Andrew and the Old Witch" by Emanuel Rowe

(Transcription from tape recording)'nou, da a 'neks 'stuori, bout 'andro, 'roniŋ 'an tu di 'lain a di 'siemuol 'wich gwain 'in.nou 'andro waz a uol 'wich 'bwai, a 'puor 'likl... had 'suors... brok out ina 'suor.den i hav 'trii 'sista, 'kwiinan, 'jienan, an 'sali. nou di 'ada 'tuu 'big 'sista 'didn 'lov 'andro, far 'andro 'uol an ma'sheted an...bot 'yet i a 'uol 'wich.so hin 'nuo wa hin 'de 'duu. hin 'niem 'andro.

Now that's a next story, about Andrew, running on to the line of the same old witch going in.Now Andrew was a old witch-boy, a poor little... had sores... broke out in a sore.Then he have three sisters, Queen Anne, Jane Anne, and Sally. Now the other two big sisters didn't love Andrew, for Andrew old and macheted [pock-marked from yaws] and... but he is/was an old witch.So he know what he is/was doing. His name Andrew.

(Le Page 1960: 156)

Suriname Creole English

HistoryFirst a colony of the English in 1651→ ceded to the Dutch in 1667Official language: DutchEnglish is not the diglossically High language→ no process of de-creolizationMajor creole of Surinam: Sranan (Taki Taki)→ only historically related to English,

not in the least mutually intelligible with itIndependent language→ developing its own literary tradition

(Gramley & Pätzold 2004: 339/341)

VocabularyCharacterized by simple morphology

One word can function as a verb, a noun or an adjective without any change in form→ i.e.: sukru (sugar)

Mi bai tu kilo sukru na wenkti.`I bought two kilograms of sugar at the store.´A te sukru tumsi.`The tea is too sweet.´Sukru en pikinso moro.`Sweeten it a little more.´

(Wilner 2007: 4)

PronunciationCombinations of syllable-final n followed by a syllable-initial g sound

→ tongo `tongue, language´ → ['to ŋo]but: bongo `a kind of drum´ → ['boŋ go]

Pronunciation of consonants is different:

→ k and g sometimes pronounced [tʃ] and [dʒ] before i or ei.e.: gi `give´ → ['dʒi] or geri `yellow´ → ['dʒe ri]

→ sometimes s is pronounced [ʃ] before i or ei.e.: si `see´ → [ʃi] or swen `swim´ → [ʃweŋ]

(Wilner 2007: 6)

GrammarLoss of English inflections:

no use of the noun plural morpheme {-S}→ wiki `week´ or `weeks´

missing past tense marker {-D} in the basilect→ bribi `believe´ or `believed´

past tense optionally marked with the pre-verbal particle ben/bin→ ben de `was somewhere, existed´


PhonologyFive vowel system: /i,e,a,o,u/

/i/ [i]/e/ [ɛ ~ I]/a/ [a ~ ɑ]/o/ [ɔ ~ ʊ]/u/ [u]

Example for use of [ɛ ~ I] instead of /e/:bed – bédi or bread – bréde

(Schneider & Kortmann 2004)

Tok PisinSource:

http://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/tokpisin.html#bkgd-hce

Tok Pisin today is...not only a creole but also a language on its ownone of the official and national languages of Papua New Guinea (PNG)PNG’s lingua francanative language to ~120,000 PNGnians

How did it become a native language?

Increasing numbers of people moving to the urban areas

The young generation growing up with Tok Pisin(parents from different linguistic backgrounds, primary school language is partly Tok Pisin)

How did it become a native language?

This nativisation necessitates and leads to a functional and grammatical expansion

→ vocabulary from a broader range of fields→ enhanced grammatical possibilities with new

features

VocabularyFrom Tolai (a PNG language):

lapun - ‘old’kumul - ‘bird of paradise’palai - ‘lizard’kiau - ‘egg’

VocabularyFrom Malay:

binatang - ‘insect’lambo - ‘chili’sayor - ‘leafy vegetable’

VocabularyFrom German:

gumi - ‘rubber, tube’beten - ‘pray’raus – ‘get out!’bros - ‘chest’

VocabularyFrom Portuguese:

pikinini - ‘child’ (remember last week?)save - ‘know’

GrammarNo plural {-s}

wanpela pik - 'one pig‘tripela pik - 'three pigs'

Grammardifferent pronouns to refer to one, two, three, or more than three persons:

yu - ‘you’ (singular)yutupela - ‘you two’yutripela - ‘you three’yupela - ‘all of you’

GrammarInclusive / exclusive non-singular pronouns: English

The girls said to Miriam,"Fred invited us to the party!”

→ Whom? Including me or just you?

GrammarInclusive / exclusive non-singular pronouns: Tok Pisin

“Fred i bin singautim yumi long pati.“→ Fred invited us including you...

“Fred i bin singautim mipela long pati.”→ Fred invited us, just us...

Grammar‘i’ (predicate marker) must occur in a sentence when subject is em or a noun

Mi wok - ‘I worked’Yu wok - ‘You worked’Em i wok - ’He/she worked’Tom i wok - ‘Tom worked’

SampleL: Ahm, wanpela sit i stap lo fotint. Hmm, there is a seat on the 14th. D: Oke, putim mi lo dispela. OK, put me on that one.

Ating bihain long apinun o tumora mi ... Perhaps later this afternoon or tomorrow I...

... mi gat wanpela tiket bai mi... ... I’ve got a ticket that I...

... mi no bin yusim from Lae kam long hia. ... I haven’t used it from Lae to here. L: OK. Em i bilong go long we? Lae o Mosbi? OK. What’s its destination? Lae or Port

Moresby? D: No, long hia i go long Mosbi. No, from here to Port Moresby. L: Oke. OK. D: So tiket mi toktok long en, mi holim long Mosbi, So the ticket I’m talking about, I had it from

Port Moresby, ... i kam bilong Kavieng tasol mi bin wokabaut ... to Kavieng, but I’ve come here

long narapela rot. by another way. L: Ah, oke, oke. Ah, OK, OK.

Sample

D: Iya. Bai yumi senisim, tasol. Yeah, we’ll just change it. L: So yu holim tiket i stap? Tasol em i...? So you’ve got a ticket? But it... D: Ti... tiket i stap ... mi no karim i kam, I’ve got a ti... ticket ... I didn’t bring it,

mi raunraun tasol... I was just out... ... na mi tok orait, bai mi paimin dispela ... and I thought I’d go get this

wanpela ... sit ... ... a seat ... ... na bai i rediim i stap ... and they can prepare it. Ating apinun o tumora bai mi kam kisim. Maybe this afternoon or tomorrow I’ll come

and get it.L: OK, bai mi givim yu kopi long buking. Yu weit. OK. I’ll give you a copy of the reservation.

Just a minute. D: Yes. Oke. Yes. OK.

(http://roberteklund.info/PNG-TokPisin.htm)

A / V Sample

“The Creation Of The World“ in Tok Pisin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laTpd2ofjKg

SourcesBailey, B. L. (1966): Jamaican Creole Syntax. Cambridge: CUP.Gramley, S. / K.-M. Pätzold (2004): A Survey of Modern English. 2nd ed. London:

Routledge.Harry, O.G. (2006): "Jamaican Creole“ in: Journal of the International Phonetic

Association 36 Holm, J. (2000): An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles. Cambridge CUP.Le Page, R.B. (1960): Jamaican Creole, London: Macmillan. Patrick, Peter L. (2004): “ Jamaican Creole Morphology and Syntax” In: A

Handbook of Varieties of English. Vol 2: Morphology and Syntax, ed. Bernd Kortmann, Edgar W Schneider, Clive Upton, Rajend Mesthrie & Kate Burridge. (Topics in English Linguistics, ed. Bernd Kortmann & Elizabeth ClossTraugott.) Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Schneider, E.W. / B. Kortmann (2004): A Handbook of Varieties of English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Wilner, J. (2007): Wortubuku fu Sranan Tongo. Sranan Tongo – English Dictionary. SIL International.

http://roberteklund.info/PNG-TokPisin.htmhttp://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/tokpisin.html#bkgd-hcehttps://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/jm.html

http://roberteklund.info/PNG-TokPisin.htm

http://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/tokpisin.html#bkgd-hce

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/jm.html

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