Pidgins and creoles are new varieties or types of languages, having developed from the contact between the colonial non-standard varieties of European and non-European languages from around the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Pidgin languages typically appeared in the trade colonies that had developed in and around existing trade routes, such as the West African coast. Reduced in structures and specialized in function, initially they served as non-native ‘lingua francas’ for those speakers who chose to use their native language for normal every day communications. Some pidgins have been able to expand into regular vernaculars, particularly in urban settings, and are rightfully labeled as ‘expanded pidgins’. An example would be the Pidgin-English from Nigeria or Cameroon, both as structurally complex as creoles. …show more content…
The Pidgin-English, from the West Coast of Africa, had developed in some of the colonies who primary industry had consisted of either sugar cane or rice fields, employed largely by indigenous slave labor. Other examples consist of ‘Criolou’ from Cape Verde, influenced by the Portuguese; ‘Papiamentu’ from the Antilles, influenced by the Spanish; Haitian, influenced by French; Jamaican, by the English . The terms creole and pidgin have also begun to be used to quantify some other varieties that had developed in the same time period and under similar sorts of circumstances and contact with primarily non-European languages. Examples of these are the Delaware pidgin, Chinook jargon, and Mobilian from North American variations; Sango, Kitubo, and Lingala from Central Africa; Hiri Motu from Papa New Guinea . Originally, the term ‘jargon’ actually was used to synonymously with the term pidgin. Some creolists, however, have come to claim that pidgins are a much more stable variety of language (as in, they have more legs to stand on), and that ‘jargon’ would fit elsewhere on a continuum: from jargon, to pidgin, to creole, to post-creole . Chaudenson says that creoles developed by “basilectizing away from the lexifier, i.e., acquiring a basilect, which is the variety the most different from the acrolect, the educated variety of the lexifier” . Mufwene stresses that creoles and pidgins had developed in different locations, in which European and non-European varieties networked differently: sporadically in the trade colonies, but rather regularly in the preliminary stages of settlement. Additionally, the term pidgin was introduced as a concept in 1807, two years after the term creole was used in relation to a variety of language. ‘Pidgin-English’ was a distorted version of ‘business-English’ that had developed in Canton, an area where no large plantation industry had taken hold nor has an distinguishable creole . Creole was originally created in or around the Iberian Peninsula sometime around the 16th century; used to refer to the non-indigenous people, mainly from the American colonies.
The concept was first adapted into the Spanish vernacular, then the French, and then into the English vernacular by the beginning of the 17th century. By the middle of the 17th century, creole was used generally in relation to Africans or Europeans who born in the so-called Romance-colonies . Semantics and syntax of the word tended to vary in usage of the term from one colony to another, used invariably in reference to types of plants or animals, or traditions specific to the indigenous peoples of each respective area (for instance, in America, outside of the realm of Linguistics or Anthropology, the term creole is used to refer to types of food or music).Creole, as a concept of language, was not really applied to the meaning of ‘language variety’ until around the end of the 18th century. This new definition of the word, seems to have come about from the need of Europeans to marginalize the indigenous varieties from colonial
varieties. One of the first claims that creoles had developed from pidgins came from Leonard Bloomfield, “when the jargon (pidgin) has become the only language of the subject group, it is a creolized (italicized for emphasis) language” . Hall had a somewhat different idea and associated vernacular function of creole varieties with nativization, leaving creole varieties to have been labeled incorrectly as being ‘nativized pidgins’, or, pidgins that “have acquired native speakers and have therefore expanded both their structures and functions and have stabilized” . Hall then introduced the Pidgin-Creole life-cycle, to which DeCamp, in Toward a generative analysis of a post-creole speech continuum , added a ‘post-creole’ stage. The first creolist to dispute this connection was Alleyne, in the article “Acculturation and the cultural matrix of Creolization” . 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.” . Chaudenson argues that “plantation communities were preceded by homesteads on which mesolectal approximations of European lexifiers, rather than pidgins, were spoken by earlier slaves” . He goes on to say that socioeconomic history literature suggests that in North American colonies Creole Blacks spoke the lexifier fluently, whereas in ads about runaway slaves in British North American colonies, bad English is typically associated with slaves imported as adults from Africa. Diachronic evidence of Creoles suggests that the basilects developed during the peak growth of plantations, when infant mortality was high, life expectancy was short, the plantation populations increased primarily by massive importation of slave labor, and the proportion of fluent speakers of the earlier colonial varieties kept decreasing . “As a Creole continues to coexist with its lexifier, the latter exerted pressure on it to shed some of its `Creole features.'” This hypothesis of the development traces back to Schuchardt's (1914) explanation of why African- American English (AAE) is structurally closer to North American English than Saramaccan is to its lexifier: coexistence with it in North America and absence of such continued contact in Suriname. DeCamp and several creolists who followed suit resurrected the position by invoking `decreolization' (`loss of ``Creole'' features') to account for speech continua in Creole communities. It is in this view that DeCamp coined the term `post-Creole continuum,' which must be interpreted somewhat tolerantly. “If a variety is Creole because of the individual sociohistorical ecology of its development, and not its structural peculiarities, it cannot stop being a Creole even after some of the features have changed. Besides, basilectal and mesolectal features continue to coexist in these communities, suggesting that Creole has not died yet” . Tied into this issue is the common theory that Creoles are different from their lexifiers and ex-colonial varieties spoken by descendants of Europeans. So, the nonstandard French varieties in Quebec and Louisiana are considered dialects of French as opposed to Creoles. Likewise, New World nonstandard varieties that descended from Spanish and Portuguese are not considered Creoles either, despite their structural similarities which they share with other Creoles which share the same lexifiers . The classification seems to have been connected generally with whether the majority in the largely proletarian communities speaking the new, colonial vernaculars is of European or of non- European descent. Otherwise, all colonial varieties of European languages are restructured and contact based; the current classification of vernaculars into Creoles and non-Creoles seems to be a question that has yet to be answered conclusively (according to my brief research for this paper at least). The ‘unknowingness’ comes largely from the absence of a proverbial yardstick for measuring structural divergence from the lexifier. The claim has also been made that Creoles have more or less the same structural design . This point though is as disputable as the counterclaim that they are more similar in the aforementioned ‘sociohistorical ecologies of their developments’, or even the more recent claim that there are Creole examples from which others differ in various ways. The very fact of resorting to a handful of examples 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 . 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. As of the most current research (from what I have found, but by no means all that currently exists) the best known Creoles are lexified by both English and by French (Jamaican and Haitian). Those of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean are, along with that of the Hawaiian Creoles, those that have informed most theorizing on the development of Creoles. While the terms `Creole' and `creolization' have often been applied to various contact-induced language varieties, several distinctions are not clearly articulated have also been proposed, for instance, between pidgin, Creole, semi-Creole, intertwined varieties, foreign workers' varieties of European languages, and `indigenized varieties' of European languages (e.g., Nigerian and Singaporean English) . The denotations and importance of these terms seem to deserve a re-examining.
What does Bethell mean when he writes, "If the Creoles had one eye on their masters, they kept the other on their servants"? conscious social position, not friendly w/ peninsulares but worried from lower class revolution
Hawaii is greatly known as a “mixing pot of ethnicities”, due to the early plantation years; because of the mix in ethnicities a common language structure developed and produced a language that stemmed from diverse backgrounds. With the development of various ethnicities forming into one common language, Hawaii Pidgin was produced. Common sentence structures used today result in sentence structure such as, “How-zit sistah!” “Ehh, Aunteh no get nutz” “Da buggah was ono”. This form of language is commonly spoken today by majority of the locals throughout Hawaii. It is usually known that once one is born and raised in Hawaii, they tend to regularly speak Hawaii’s native tongue in their daily life. As a result, Hawaii Pidgin, also
The word community is defined as a group of individuals residing in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. We all, whether we know this or not, belong to particular communities and even sub communities (self contained community within an unusually large area). One particular community that I've been a part of during my entire life is the Haitian community. An Haitian Community is usually a place where a group of Haitian nationals reside, we share many cultural beliefs and practices together. In this paper I will be investigating some of the beliefs and practices of the Haitian Community.
Rickford, John R. "The Creole Origins of African American Vernacular English: Evidence from Copula Absence." Http://www.modlinguistics.com/. Http://www.modlinguistics.com/, 1998. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.
The Creoles wanted to somehow get political power, but they were being rejected of it; however, they were gaining nobility. They owned the “largest and richest mines and haciendas” (Hook Exercise), but even with wealth, the Creoles “held few high-ranking jobs in the government” (Hook Exercise); hence, those jobs went to the peninsulares. They were also the “least oppressed” (Modern World History) of those who were born in the Latin America as well as the most educated, for they adopted the Enlightenment ideas. Also, when the monarchy collapsed, the Creoles wouldn’t let the “political vacuum to remain unfilled, their lives and
The increase and changing demography in the United State today, with the disparities in the health status of people from different cultural backgrounds has been a challenge for health care professionals to consider cultural diversity as a priority. It is impossible for nurses and other healthcare professionals to learn and understand theses diversity in culture, but using other approaches like an interpreter is very helpful for both nurses and patients. In this paper of a culturally appropriate care planning, I will be discussing on the Hispanic American culture because, I had come across a lot of them in my career as a nurse. The Hispanic are very diverse in terms of communication and communities and include countries like Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, South and Central America, and some of them speak and write English very well, some speaks but can’t write while some can’t communicate in English at all but Spanish.
Many people moved from their country to another to have a better life, moreover; they would adopt another culture and shifted to new culture. when I first come to the United States, it is hard for me to interact with culture because American culture is different from Ethiopian culture. For some Ethiopian people is easy, they actually adopt American culture. today, it is going to be hard to leave and to come in the United States as immigrant because of the new president of The United States, Donald Trump. There are two differences between Ethiopian and American culture such as, have a right to speak and how they are respect the elders.
The two cultures that I identify myself with Haitian culture and American culture. The American culture is more dominant and I identify myself most with this culture. Although I was born in Haiti and Haitian culture was once my dominant culture, it is now my co-culture. Nonetheless, a combination of these two cultures would be Haitian-American culture.
Once Enlightenment philosophies created new views on individual’s natural rights and their place in society, resistance to oppressive government was inevitable. The core beliefs of freedom and equality above all served as a catalyst for the revolutions in America, France, and Haiti. Because of these shared ideals each revolution is interconnected with the revolution before it. However, the waves of this revolutionary movement that swept through the Atlantic World became increasingly radical with each new country it entered. By looking at the citizen involvement and causes of the American, French, and Haitian revolutions, the growing radicality of these insurrections can be better understood.
Language is a mean of communication in any given society. It represents the ability to evolve and progress through the ongoing process of living with other human beings. Many can perceive this instrument as tool of liberation and transformation but others as an instrument to enslave, manipulate or oppress a group of people. Whichever the case one need to acknowledge that it is necessary and not a waste of time the many different discussions about this ongoing topic regardless of the time period or social context any country might have. In Puerto Rico, there has been an ongoing dilemma about languages; Dr. Alicia Pousada examines on her essay what many might define “the language madness on the island”. Throughout this paper some of her most interesting ideas will be shared and discussed so that this already extended topic might find another page to take place.
Spanglish is known as a hybrid language combining words and idioms from both Spanish and English especially Spanish speech that uses many English words and expressions. Around the US, millions of citizens in major cities are speaking what some are calling a third language. According to an essay forum on Spanglish, some consider Spanglish a language disease, slang that should be taken care of immediately. A threat to the purity of both languages as a whole. To others they seek to develop their Spanglish speaking skills. Spanglish has changed the world, corporations have discovered it and it’s on television, radio, novels, rap and rock music. In this essay I will explain the significance the language ‘Spanglish’
Latin jazz research Latin jazz is a form of jazz that was inspired by Afro Cubism and has been affected by amazing jazz artist like Dizzy Gillespie and Mongo Santamaría. Latin jazz got its big start between 1940-1950 in New York City. Latin jazz is a mixture of classic jazz and Afro-Cuban music. One of the great jazz artist was DIzzy Gillespie an extraordinary trumpeter who was one of the founders of latin jazz. Another Latin Jazz artist, Mongo Santamaría was a Latin Jazz percussionist who wrote the song Watermelon Man which is a song that is played all over the world by jazz bands.the third and final jazz artist is Stan Getz a Jazz tenor saxophonist who grew up loving music and eventually made careers in latin jazz music.
Jean Rhys writes Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) as a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre (1847) in order to give life to Bertha Mason, a Jamaican creole who is locked in the attic as a madwoman by her English husband, Rochester. Rhys thinks that Bertha is completely undermined and negated in Bronte’s novel. Bronte’s silences over Bertha’s identity and history enforce Rhys to break the unspoken and deliberately neglected white creole’s identity; and give her a voice that humanizes this supposedly inferior creole, and validates her quest for identity and belonging while also challenging Western hegemonic expectations and conditions. Rhys, in an interview with Hannah Carter, reveals:
Jean Rhys’ novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) depicts Antoinette Cosway, a white creole girl and descendent of the colonizers, torn between her white creole identity and her affiliation with and attachment to the colonized, colored people of postcolonial Jamaica. Antoinette is neither fully accepted by the blacks nor by the white European colonizers. She continuously struggles to negotiate between the completely opposing expectations and spaces of black Jamaican and white European culture. Consequently, Antoinette precipitates into a state of ‘in-betweenness’ as she loses her sense of belonging to either culture.
French culture and society has evolved from many different aspects of French life. From the mastery of French cuisine to the meaning of French art, the French have changed and evolved in many ways to produce a specific modern culture, the dignified culture of the French. One thing that parallels the progress and continuation of French culture is the role of women throughout France. Compared to other nations, the role and rights of women in France were confronted earlier and Women’s suffrage was enacted earlier. The role of women in France, because of the early change in perception of women, enabled France to develop faster and with less conflict than other competing nations.