Dialects Course
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Transcript of Dialects Course
DIALECT
Definition
The word ‘dialect’ appeared first in the 16th century. In French it is dialecte, in Latin
dialectus, in Greek diálektos, and it means ‘speech’, ‘debate’, ‘way of local language’, ‘style’. It
is known as a general and technical term for a form of a language, for example a southern
French dialect; the Yorkshire dialect; the dialects of the United States.
Although the term usually refers to regional speech from a geographical perspective, it can
be extended to cover differences according to class and occupation; such terms as regional
dialect, social dialect, class dialect, occupational dialect, urban dialect, and rural dialect are all
used by linguists. In addition, the extracted element lect has become a term for any kind of
distinct language spoken by an individual or group, with such derivatives as acrolect (a high or
prestigious variety), basilect (a low or socially stigmatized variety), mesolect (a lect in a socially
intermediate position between these two).
Dialect, language, and standard
Most languages have dialects, each with a distinctive accent, grammar, vocabulary, and
idiom. Traditionally, however, dialects have been regarded as socially lower than a 'proper' form
of the language (often represented as the language itself), such as the King's or Queen's English
in Britain, and le bon français in France, or in general terms the standard language. Such a
variety like standard language also has regional roots, but because it developed into the official
and educated usage of a capital like London or Paris, it tends to be seen as non-regional, often as
supra-regional, and therefore not a dialect proper.
Certain processes create a social and linguistic difference between this variety and the
dialects of a language:
- degrees of standardization in accent, grammar, orthography, and typography;
- its special development through literature and use as the medium of education and
literacy;
- social empowerment through its use by the governing cultural and scholarly elite.
Many users of a standard variety have tended to despise dialect speakers as more or less
'illiterate' and teachers have often sought to impose the standard throughout a country and
eliminate or greatly reduce all other 'deviant', 'low', or 'vulgar' forms, with the occasional
exception of some limited 'good' dialect. Such dialect is usually rural, seen as part of a romantic
folk tradition or the instrument of a famous but unconventional writer (usually a poet, such as
Robert Burns in Scotland or the prose writer Ion Creangă in Romania). As a result of such
factors, there is a long-lasting disagreement concerning the definitions of such words as dialect,
standard, and language.
A dialect continuum
During the 19th and the 20th centuries there was considerable study of dialects proper and in
relation to the standard variety of a language. As a result of this study, philologists and dia-
lectologists generally regard a dialect as a historical subtype of a language and a language as the
summative form of the features of its dialects.
Within a language, there is usually a dialect continuum: speakers of Dialect A can
understand and be understood by speakers of Dialect B, and C by B, and so on, but at the
extremes of the continuum speakers of A and Z may be mutually unintelligible. The A and Z
communities may therefore be right thinking or arguing that A and Z are different languages. If
politics intervenes and the speakers of A and Z come to be citizens of different countries (as with
Spanish and Portuguese, or Swedish and Danish, or all Romance languages having as their
common ancestor Latin), the dialects may well be socially re-valued as 'languages' (in due course
with their own dialects and standard variety).
Despite their differences, dialects have more shared than differing features, and those in
which they agree (phonological, syntactic, lexical, idiomatic, etc,) serve as the defining core of a
language, while the clusters of differences serve as the defining cores of the various dialects.
Thus, a language X that has dialects A, B, C, D, E, may have 14 features, 10 of which are shared
by A, B, C, 9 by B, C, D, 11 by B, D, E, and so on. Perhaps only 8 features are common to all
five. If they are, they form the core or common features of X, to which may be added additional
features acquired through the conventions necessary for a standard language.
The evolution of dialects
If we consider language as a living body, dialects can be described as a kind of species
evolution. The tendency of all languages is to change in one detail or another and so developing
of dialects is controlled only by the need of communication between speakers, preserving a
common core. Although written forms, accompanied by the teaching of a standard, slow the
process of change, they cannot prevent it. In fact, dialects are often less changeable than the
standard; their speakers tend to live in stable communities and to preserve forms of the language
which are 'older' in terms of the development of the standard. Such a standard, however, is in
origin also a dialect and, in the view of some linguists, can and should be called the standard
dialect (although for many this phrase is a contradiction in terms). Dialects are stronger
regionally while the standard is the usage of the nation at large, or at least of its most prominent
and dominant representatives. As a consequence, many native speakers of a dialect may learn the
standard as a secondary variety of their own language.
The distribution of dialects
Geographically, dialects are the result of people’s settlement throughout history. As
populations increase and spread out, they generally follow the natural features of the land. The
sea and rivers serve as both boundaries and roadways. People settle first in lowlands and groups
of settlers may be separated by mountains. Dialect development can be understood to some
extent in relation to topography: where populations can communicate easily, dialectal differences
develop more slowly than where they lose immediate (or all) contact. An effective method of
studying such matters is the science of linguistic geography. Individual features (sounds, words,
grammatical forms, etc.) can be displayed on maps showing where one or another feature
prevails in use and where competing forms are found. Lines on a dialect map outline the area
within which any form is regularly used.
Alternatively, the differing features may be shown on maps with dots or other symbols,
giving a visual dimension to the data. Certain features of dialect can also be seen in relation to
social factors not necessarily connected with geography. The type of language one speaks (a
social dialect or sociolect) depends on community, family background, occupation, degree of
education, and the like. Where a standard form has become established, the tendency is to
consider it 'right' and to denigrate other varieties, whose only fault may be that they are out of
style in the mainstream of a language. Distinctive dialects are most fully preserved in isolated
areas (e.g. along sea coasts, on islands, in mountain areas) where they are little influenced by
outsiders and the population is relatively self-sustaining. The dialects of large cities, however,
include the social wide range of the language, with outside features being brought in and new
features being created more or less continuously.
Dialect myths and reality
What do the popular uses of the term dialect say about the general public's perception of
dialect, as it varies from the neutral technical definition presented initially? There is a popular
mythology about dialect differences developed by the society which is at variance with the
linguistic facts about dialects. Following are some of these myths, as they contrast with linguistic
reality:
MYTH: A dialect is something that someone else speaks.
REALITY: Everyone who speaks a language speaks some dialect of the language; it is not
possible to speak a language without speaking a dialect of the language.
MYTH: Dialects always have highly noticeable features that set them apart.
REALITY: Some dialects get much more attention than others; the status of speaking a dialect,
however, is unrelated to public commentary about its special characteristics.
MYTH: Only varieties of a language spoken by socially disfavoured groups are dialects.
REALITY: The notion of dialect exists apart from the social status of the language variety; there
are socially favoured as well as socially disfavoured dialects.
MYTH: Dialects result from unsuccessful attempts to speak the "correct" form of a language.
REALITY: Dialect speakers learn their language by mimicking members of their speech
community who speak the same variety, not by failing in their attempts to mimic speakers of the
standard variety.
MYTH: Dialects inherently carry negative social connotations.
REALITY: Dialects are not necessarily positively or negatively valued; their social values are
derived strictly from the social position of their community of speakers. (Wolfram 1991: 4-5)
PIDGIN
Definition
Used first in the 1870s as a linguistic term, it is widely considered to be from the Chinese
pronunciation of business, also rendered as pigeon, as in that's not my pigeon (‘that's not my
business or concern’). Other linguists suggested sources such as Portuguese ocupaçao ‘business’,
and pequeno ‘small’ (suggesting baby talk), and Hebrew pidjom ‘barter’. It is a term used in a
general and a technical sense for a contact language which draws on elements from two or more
languages: pidgin Portuguese; a Spanish pidgin.
The general sense
As generally understood, a pidgin is a hybrid 'makeshift/improvised language' used by and
among traders, plantations (especially with and among slaves of various backgrounds), and
between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of Asia, Africa, and the Americas, especially
during the heyday of European expansion (17th -20th centuries). Because the word has often been
used and discussed pejoratively, it carries such connotation as 'childish', 'corrupt', 'lazy',
'inferior’, 'oversimplified', and 'simple-minded’. The term has been extended with such a
negative sense into wider use, that we can find it in expressions such as 'writing pidgin Latin' and
'not satisfied with pidgin Marxism'. This view of pidgin languages has often appeared in works
of reference, as in Brewer's Dictionary' of Phrase and Fable 1965:
Pidgin-English. The semi-English lingua franca used in China and the Far East,
consisting principally of mispronounced English words with certain native grammatical
constructions. For instance, the Chinese cannot pronounce r, so replace it with l-te-lee for
'three', solly for 'sorry', etc. Also, in Chinese, between a numeral and its noun there is
always inserted a word (called the 'classifier') and this, in Pidgin-English, is replaced by
piece - e.g. one-piece knifee, two piece hingkichi (handkerchiefs). Pidgin is a corruption of
business. Pidgin English is a utilitarian form of basic English and is widely used in varying
forms by many native peoples with whom the English have come in contact. (revised by
Evans 1993: 832)
Etymologically, there appears to have been only one pidgin: Pidgin English, also
known as Business English, Pidgin-English, pidgin-English, Pigeon English, Pigeon-
English, bigeon, pidgeon, pidjin, pidjun. This was a trade jargon used from the 17 th century
onward between the British and Chinese in such ports as Canton. In 1826, B. Hall wrote: 'I
afterwards learned that “pigeon", in the strange jargon spoken at Canton by way of
English, means ’business'. In 1845, J. R. Peters noted: 'Pidgeon is the common Chinese
pronunciation of business'; and in 1872, A. D. Carlisle observed: 'The dialect … current
between Englishmen and Chinamen ... goes by the name of Pigeon-English' (Oxford
English Dictionary). It should be noted, however, that Chinese (Coastal) Pidgin English or
China Coast Pidgin is now a technical term referring to a contact language used between
speakers of English and Chinese from the first half of the 18 th century until the early 1970s.
(McArthur 1996: 698-99)
The technical sense
Sociolinguists use the term to describe a phenomenon whose study has greatly increased
since the Second World War. For them, a pidgin is a marginal language which arises to fulfil
certain restricted communicative functions among groups with no common language. This more
scientific approach now tends to predominate in works of reference, as in the Concise Columbia
Encyclopedia (1994: 689):
Pidgin, a lingua franca that is not the mother tongue of anyone using it and that has a sim-
plified grammar and restricted, often polyglot, vocabulary. An example is the pidgin
English used in Eastern Asian ports, principally for trading between the English and
Chinese. The majority of the vocabulary and grammar are of English origin, but there are
also Malay, Chinese, and Portuguese elements. Pidgins are important national languages in
Papua New Guinea and some Pacific island countries.
In sociolinguistic terms, there have been many pidgins and the process known as
pidginization is likely to occur anywhere under appropriate conditions. This process of
simplification and hybridization involves reduction of linguistic resources and restriction of use
to such limited functions as trade. The term is sometimes extended to refer to the early stages of
any instance of second language acquisition, when learners acquire a minimal form of the target
language often influenced by their own primary language.
There is, however, some disagreement among scholars over the number of languages in
sufficient contact to produce a pidgin. Some investigators claim that any two languages in
contact may result in a degree of linguistic improvisation and compromise, and so lead to
pidginization. Such a viewpoint includes in the category of pidgin foreigner talk and other
classes of makeshift and often transitory communication. Other investigators argue that only in
cases where more than two languages are in contact are true pidgins born. In situations where
speakers of more than two languages must communicate in a medium native to none of them, the
kinds of restructuring are more radical than in other cases and likely to be more durable.
The names given to pidgin languages by linguists refer to their location and their principal
lexifier or base language: that is, the language from which they draw most of their vocabulary.
Papuan Pidgin English therefore refers to the pidgin that is spoken in what was formerly the
Territory of Papua, and that draws most of its vocabulary from English and is therefore an
English-based pidgin; Hawaii Pidgin English is the pidgin English spoken in Hawaii. In addition
and often prior to such academic names, pidgins may or may not be identified as such and often
have specific names retained by linguists when discussing them, such as Bazaar
Hindustani/Hindi, Korean Bamboo English, français petit-nègre. Even after a pidgin develops
into a creole, the name may continue to be used, such as Roper Pidgin, also known as Roper
River Creole. A language may also have both pidgin and creole varieties, as with Tok Pisin in
Papua New Guinea.
Characteristics
A pidgin is characterized by a small vocabulary (a few hundred or thousand words) drawn
largely from the superstrate language (that is, the language of the socially dominant group),
together with a reduction of many grammatical features, such as inflectional morphology, as in
Tok Pisin where mi kam can mean 'I come', 'I am coming', 'I came', and wanpela haus means
'house' while tupela haus means 'two houses'.
One source of grammar is the socially subordinate substrate language(s). Often, though not
always, where pidgins develop, one group is socially superior and its full language is more or
less inaccessible to the other group(s), so that there is little motivation or opportunity to improve
performance. Where the needs of communication are minimal and restricted to a few basic
domains such as work and trade, a casual and deficient version of language can be enough, as
has been the case with Kisettla (settlers' language), the pidgin Swahili used between the British
and Africans in Kenya. Many pidgin languages arose in the context of contact between European
colonizers who enslaved or employed a colonized or transported population on plantations, in
ports, in their homes, etc.
An important feature of pidgins is the lack of grammatical complexity; for this reason, they
are often referred to at best as simple or simplified languages, at worst as bastardized or broken
forms of another language. Simplicity is attributed by many people to lack of grammar, but lin-
guists agree that pidgins have a distinctive grammatical structure.
The grammar of a pidgin language is constructed according to a principle which states that
there should be a close relation between form and meaning. There is a tendency for each
morpheme (or word element) to occur only once in an utterance, and for it to have only one
form. Non-pidgin languages generally have built-in redundancy and require the expression of the
same meaning in several places in an utterance: for example, in the English sentences One man
comes and Six men come, singular and plural are marked in both noun and modifier, and concord
is shown in both noun and verb. However, the equivalents in Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea
Pidgin English) show no variation in the verb form or the noun: Wanpela man i kam and Sikspela
man i kam.
Because they lack redundancy, pidgins depend heavily on context for their interpretation.
Most pidgins have little or no inflectional morphology. Where English marks possession by
adding 's (as in John's house), Tok Pisin has haus bilong John. Here, bilong has been taken from
English, but has shifted its function from verb to preposition, and can be paraphrased as
'belonging to'.
Pidgin languages tend to have only a small number of prepositions and they use them to
mark a variety of grammatical relations which in other languages would be expressed by a much
greater number of prepositions. Pidgins are highly regular and have fewer exceptions than many
other languages, which makes them easier to learn.
Another property is multifunctionality: the same word can function in many ways. In
English, the word ill functions as an adjective (in He is ill, an ill wind). The corresponding noun
is illness, derived by a regular process of word-formation. In Tok Pisin, however, the word sik
can function as both noun and adjective: Mi sik ‘I am ill’; Em i gat sik malaria ‘He has malaria’.
Pidgins may compensate for lack of vocabulary by circumlocution: in Tok Pisin, Singsing taim
maus i pas ‘to sing with the mouth closed’ (= to hum). Where English has branch, Tok Pisin has
han bilong diwai ‘hand of a tree’.
In analysing the syntactic elements of pidgins, it is often impossible to separate the
influence of substrate from superstrate language: as in the case of Tok Pisin, the influence of
local languages from that of English. In Tok Pisin, the particle i is a so-called predicate marker,
occurring in such sentences as Ol man i kisim bigpela supia (The men – predicate marker – got
big spears). This marker can be derived from the use of personal pronouns in non-standard
English, such as he as in John, he got a new car, as well as from similar syntactic patterns in
Austronesian languages. Such a use of pronouns as predicate markers is widespread across
pidgins, occurring in some of the French-based Indian Ocean creoles as well as in Chinook
Jargon.
Classification
Pidgins can be classified into four types according to their development:
- jargon,
- stable pidgin,
- extended or expanded pidgin, and
- creole, each characterized by a gradual increase in complexity.
(1) Jargon. In this stage, there is great individual variation, a very simple sound system,
one- or two-word utterances, and a very small lexicon. Jargons are used for communicating in
limited situations: trade jargons generally, and Chinook Jargon, a trade language spoken along
the north-west Pacific coast of North America from the 18th century.
(2) Stable pidgin. This is more regular and more complex and there are social norms
regarding its use, as with Russenorsk, a trade pidgin used in northern Norway by Russian
merchants and Norwegian fishermen over some 130 years (1785-1917). Because the language
was used for seasonal trade, it did not expand much structurally and had a core vocabulary of
about 150-200 words.
(3) Extended or expanded pidgin. Other pidgins, such as Tok Pisin, not only stabilized but
expanded to become more grammatically complex, and to serve as well-established lingua
francas, sometimes with official or other status.
(4) Creole. At this stage, the pidgin is creolized: that is, it is acquired as a first language by
children, particularly in urban areas. This is the stage of, for example, Tok Pisin in Papua New
Guinea and Kriol (also known as Roper River Creole) in the Northern Territories of Australia. It
is generally impossible to identify structural features which distinguish expanded pidgins from
emerging creoles, since both exhibit increased structural complexity and share many features.
The difference lies more in social use than in form.
Theories of origin
Various theories have been proposed to account for the origin of pidgin languages, and fall
into three broad types: monogenetic, polygenetic, and universalist.
Monogenesis. This theory asserts a common origin for all European-based pidgins. Some
monogenetic theorists claim that they all descend from a nautical jargon used for communication
among sailors from different backgrounds. Others have argued that they descend from a 15 th
century Portuguese pidgin which could in its turn have been a relic of Sabir, the lingua franca of
the Crusaders and a Mediterranean trading language. It is claimed that this language was
relexified (that is, renewed with vocabulary from different sources) as it came into contact with
such other European languages as English and Dutch.
Both the nautical-jargon and Sabir theories take as supporting evidence the fact that many
pidgins share common words like save (to know: compare English savvy = the ability to
understand and judge people and situations well) and pikinini (child: compare English
pickaninny = a black child. This word is sometimes used by older white people but black people
consider it offensive). Both words are of Spanish/Portuguese origin, from saber/sabir (to know)
and pequeño (small), and are widely used in English-based pidgins and creoles in the Caribbean
and Pacific. Such words could either have been directly inherited locally or transmitted from one
location to another by sailors, who undoubtedly account for some of the lexical sharing across
unrelated pidgins, although their role in the formation of stable pidgins was probably not great.
However, it is difficult to account for the many differences among pidgins by appealing entirely
to relexification, and neither approach explains the origin of the many non-European-based
pidgin languages.
Polygenesis. This theory stresses distinctness and refers to the influence of substrate
languages, such as the influence of African languages in the formation of the Atlantic pidgins.
According to one view, pidgins arise out of the imperfect learning of a model language by slaves
or as a result of deliberate simplification, for example by Europeans in a master/slave
relationship. There is evidence that the Portuguese taught a simplified version of their language
to those they traded with along the west coast of Africa.
Universalism. This view argues for the universal nature of the social and psychological
factors which occur in language contact. The baby-talk theory is based on the idea that certain
systems of communication emerge in response to particular social and historical circumstances.
There is evidence for this hypothesis in the fact that baby talk, foreigner talk, and pidgins show
certain similarities of structure. Baby talk expressions such as Daddy go bye-bye are similar to
the reduced versions or language used to address foreigners.
There is no doubt that the native languages of colonized, enslaved, and transplanted
populations provided important input to pidgins, but there are also many features which can be
explained only by reference to the superstrate languages of the colonizers, enslavers, and
transplanters. At present, therefore, no single theory can adequately explain the origin of pidgin
languages.
CREOLE
Definition
It appeared first in the language in the 16th century and comes from French créole, Spanish
criollo, Portuguese crioulo, from criar ‘to nurse’ or ‘breed’, from Latin creare/creatum ‘to
beget’. The term relates to people and languages especially in the former colonial tropics and
subtropics, in the Americas, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. In Portuguese, crioulo
appears to have referred first to an animal or person born at home, then to a black African slave
in Brazil who was born in his or her master's house. In the 17 th – 18th centuries, particularly in the
West Indies, the term could mean both a descendant of European settlers (a white creole) or a
descendant of African slaves (a creole Negro or Negro creole). Later, the term came to apply
also to life and culture in creole societies: for example, the (French) Creole cuisine of Louisiana.
The complexity of the term is captured by the comment of J. M. Ludlow: 'There are creole
whites, creole negroes, creole horses, etc.; and creole whites are, of all persons, the most anxious
to be deemed of pure white blood' (A Sketch of the History of the United States, 1862 in
McArthur 1994: 247). Since the later 19th century, the term has extended to include a language
spoken by creoles and has acquired a new sense in linguistics, associated with the development
of pidgin languages.
Creole languages
In sociolinguistic terms, these languages have arisen through contact between speakers of
different languages. This contact first produces a makeshift language called a pidgin; when this
is nativized and becomes the language of a community, it is a creole. Such languages are often
known locally as pidgin or creole, but may have such specific names as Aku in Gambia and
Papiamentu in the Netherlands Antilles.
They are usually given labels by sociolinguists that refer to location and principal lexifier
language (the language from which they draw most of their vocabulary): for example, Jamaican
Creole, in full Jamaican Creole English or Jamaican English Creole, the English-based creole
spoken in Jamaica.
Haitian Creole French is spoken in Haiti and is French-based. Creoles based on English,
French, Spanish, and Portuguese occur in the Americas, Africa, and Asia. There are three Por-
tuguese creoles in islands off the West African coast: Cape Verde, Annobon, and São Tomé.
Papiamentu is the only such creole in the Caribbean, spoken by inhabitants of the Netherlands
Antilles (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao), with an admixture of Dutch. The Dutch-based creole
Negerhollands (Black Dutch) is spoken by a small number of people in the Virgin Islands.
Creoles not based on European languages can be found in parts of Africa (such as Swahili
when used as a trade vernacular) and in Papua New Guinea (such as Hiri Motu).
Creole English. There are many English-based creoles. In West Africa, they include Aku in
Gambia, Krio in Sierra Leone, Kru English in Liberia, and Kamtok in Cameroon. In the
Caribbean and the neighbouring mainland they include Bajan in Barbados, Creolese in Guyana,
Miskito Coast Creole in Nicaragua, Sranan in Surinam, Trinbagonian in Trinidad and Tobago,
and the creoles of the Bay Islands of Honduras.
In North America, they include Afro-Seminole, Amerindian Pidgin English, and Gullah. In
Oceania, they include Bislama in Vanuatu, Broken in the Torres Straits, Hawaii English Creole,
Kriol in Northern Australia, Pijin in the Solomon Islands, and Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea. It
has been argued that Black English (Vernacular) in the United States has creole origins since it
shares many features with English-based creoles in the Caribbean. In the UK, British Black Eng-
lish, spoken by immigrants from the Caribbean and their children, has features inherited from
Caribbean English Creole.
Common characteristics
Typical grammatical features in European-based creoles include the use of preverbal
negation and subject-verb-object word order: for example (from Sranan in Surinam) A no koti a
brede ‘He didn't cut the bread’. Many use the same item for both existential statements and
possession: for example, get in Guyanese Creole Dem get wan uman we get gyal pikni ‘There is
a woman who has a daughter’. They lack a formal passive: for example, in Jamaican Creole no
distinction is made in the verb forms in sentences such as Dem plaan di tri (They planted the
tree) and Di tri plaan (The tree was planted).
Creoles tend to have no copula and adjectives may function as verbs: for example,
Jamaican Creole Di pikni sik ‘The child is sick’. Most creoles do not show any syntactic
difference between questions and statements: for example, Guyanese Creole I bai di eg dem can
mean 'He bought the eggs' or 'Did he buy the eggs?' (although there is a distinction in intonation).
Question words in creoles tend to have two elements, the first generally from the lexifier
language: for example, Haitian Creole ki kote (from qui and coté, 'which' and 'side') meaning
where, and Kamtok wetin (from what and thing) meaning what. It has been claimed that many
syntactic and semantic similarities among creoles are due to an innate 'bioprogram' for language,
and that creoles provide the key to understanding the original evolution of human language.
Creolization
The process of becoming a creole may occur at any stage as a makeshift language develops
from trade jargon to expanded pidgin, and can happen under radical conditions, such as where a
population of slaves speaking many languages has to develop a common language among slaves
and with overseers. In due course, children grow up speaking the pidgin as their main language,
and when this happens it must change to meet their needs.
Depending on the stage at which creolization occurs, different types of structural expansion
are necessary before the language can become adequate. In the case of Jamaican Creole, it is
thought that a rudimentary pidgin creolized within a generation, then began to de-creolize
towards general English. Tok Pisin, however, first stabilized and expanded as a pidgin before it
became creolized; in such cases, the transition between the two stages is gradual rather than
abrupt.
The term is also applied to cases where heavy borrowing disrupts the continuity of a
language, turning it into a creole-like variety, but without a prior pidgin stage. Some researchers
have argued that Middle English is a creole that arose from contact with Norse during the
Scandinavian settlements (8th - 11th centuries) and then with French after the Norman Conquest
(11th century).
In addition to massive lexical borrowing, many changes led to such simplification of
grammar as loss of the Old English inflectional endings. It is not, however, clear that these
changes were due only to language contact, since other languages have undergone similar
restructurings in the absence of contact, as for example when Latin became Italian.
De-creolization
It is a further development in which a creole gradually converges with its superstrate or
lexifier language: for example, in Hawaii and Jamaica, both creoles are moving toward Standard
English. Following the creolization of a pidgin, a post-creole continuum may develop when, after
a period of relatively independent linguistic development, a post-pidgin or post-creole variety
comes under a period of renewed influence from the lexifier language. Decreolization may
obscure the origins of a variety, as in the case of American Black English.
Conclusion
Pidgin and creole languages were long neglected by the academic world, because they
were not regarded as 'real' or developed languages, but, their study is currently regarded as
significant for general linguistics as well as the study of such languages as English.
The study of pidgins and creoles has been rapidly expanding as linguists interested in
language acquisition, language change, and universal grammar have taken more notice of them.
Because these varieties arise and often expand rapidly, they provide an excellent testing ground
for theories of historical change. Speakers must bring some general and possibly innate
principles and strategies to bear on the task of learning to communicate under such
circumstances. These languages have also attracted the attention of sociolinguists, owing to the
amount of variation among them, and the study of such variation has had repercussions on the
study of the totality of languages like English, in which variety is as much the norm as
uniformity.
Since pidgins and creoles are generally spoken in Third World countries, their role and
function are closely connected with a variety of political matters concerned with national, social,
and economic development and transition into post-colonial societies. Some countries give
official recognition to pidgin and creole languages, among them Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu,
and Haiti. In Haiti, the 1983 Constitution declared both Haitian Creole and French to be national
languages, but recognized French as the official language; in 1987, Creole was declared official
too. The former Papua New Guinean Prime Minister, Michael Somare, has on occasion spoken
abroad in Tok Pisin, even though he endorses the use of English for official purposes. Pidgin and
creole languages also function as symbols of solidarity in many parts of the world where their
use is increasing. In Haiti, it is often the case that to speak creole is to talk straight, while to
speak French is synonymous with duplicity.