Contact linguistics – when languages come into contact

1. Contact linguistics – when languages come into contact • Pidgin – a language created by people to communicate (usually for commerce). Usually uses the lexical items from the dominant language (superstrate) (colonizing language like English, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, French) and uses other aspects of grammar from the native languages where the pidgin occurs (substrate languages). Always acquired as a second language, and is relatively transparent and simplistic. Where pidgins are used are limited – usually in the marketplace. • Creole – the development of a pidgin when spoken as a first/native language by children. At this point, the language becomes more complex as it evolves. The use of creoles are expanded to all aspects of social life (at home, in the church, as well as in the marketplace).

2. Lingua Franca = a common language that speakers use to communicate • Greek koine, vulgar Latin, Chinook jargon, English today • Pidgin = a contact language that does not have native speakers (can serve as a lingua franca). • Social and cultural phenomenon - product of multilingual contact • 3 or more languages usually make up a pidgin • Need social difference (1 lang more dominant - usually used as lexifier (where the words come from)) • Very negative reactions to pidgin as lesser variety of the dominant (superstrate) language • Used for limited reasons - usually for trade - not used in all aspects of life • Pidgin involves a more transparent lang system - simplified syntax, morphological and phonological structure

3. Ch 3 - Pidgins and Creoles • Creole = when a pidgin has advanced and becomes the first language of speakers it is a creole • Some (Tok Pisin and Nigerian Pidgin Eng) exist as both a pidgin and creole at the same time • Creole is more complex with expansion of morphology and syntax including irregular forms as well as increase in number of functions language is used for (to talk to family members as well as trade)

4. Ch 3 - Pidgins and Creoles • Pidgins and Creoles are socially created languages - usually around the slave trade. • English, Dutch, Portuguese, French and Spanish are the most common pidgin/creole bases • These are not simply L2 varieties of these languages, but really different languages - you would have to learn as if you were to learn Icelandic • See discussion on p. 66 for Tok Pisin examples

5. Pidgins and Creoles Solomon Islands Pidjin

6. Pidgins and Creoles

7. Pidgins/creoles with same European lexifier language are somewhat mutually intelligible • Some consider them to be this way because they are just dumbed-down version of that language (not the best explanation) • Polygenesis - similarities arise from shared circumstances of creation, but the many pidgins/creoles come from many different sources • Maybe they are similar due to the same substrate (the native languages that the p/c is based on) • Monogenetic theories of origin - all from one source (all from one P/C and variation has occurred in different regions) • Relexified single source - all from one pidgin and each modern pidgin has just put in new words into the same structure using whatever European language was in contact • P/Cs have often similar grammatical structure but different vocabularies

8. Bickerton - Language Bioprogram hypothesis - universal principles of first lang acquisition are involved • Creoles are the clearest and most pure forms of language that represent innate language abilities since there is no current model to choose from

9. Not all pidgins become creoles! Some die out • Tok Pisin example - acquired as first language and expanded linguistic forms (p. 75) • As a sign of the new culture - became a language of identity • Used in many domains - government, religion, education • Reduction and assimilation in phonetics are found in creole (not so much in pidgin) • Because we know the origins of a creole is how we know it is any different than any other language

10. A continuum may form if there is continual contact with lexifier language • Decreolization when some varieties of the creole develop more toward the lexifier language (look more like English for example) • Jamaican situation is this continuum (See Table 3.1 on page 82) http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540/handouts/pijcreol/continuum.html • Diglossic situation = 2 varieties are kept socially and functionally apart (can be true of bilingual situations too) with one being more prestigious than the other (Haiti) • Jamaica has changed and Jamaican Creole has been gaining covert prestige • Creoles show the same relationship between standard and non-standard varieties of the same language - correct vs. pleasant perceptual diffs