Introduction to pidgins and creoles

  Sibel Uygun  

  Applied Linguistics SoSE  2007

  Contents  

  Introduction  2

1.  Theories about the Origin of Pidgins  2

2.  Geographical facts  3

3.  Definition of a Pidgin  6

4.  Melanesian Pidgin Text  7

5.  Grammar  8

5.1  Pronouns  8

5.2  Nouns  8

5.3  Gender distinction  9

5.4  Verbs  10

5.5  The copula to be  10

5.6  Articles  10

5.7  Prepositions  11

5.8  Word order  11

6.  Definition of a Creole  12

7.  Conclusion  13

  Bibliography  15

Sibel Uygun

Applied Linguistics SoSE 2007

Introduction

This term paper aims to analyse the pidgin and creole languages. In the first part it introduces a brief history description about the development of pidgin languages. In addition, it will inform the reader about pidgins and creoles distributions by adding some geographical facts. In the next part, a definition and the grammar of pidgins will be briefly exposed. Finally, the last part of that term paper will focus on the creoles and examines the reasons for their development.

1. Theories about the Origin of Pidgins

In the nineteenth century, in times of slavery, people were brought over from Africa to North America to work on the plantations. In order to prevent an escape from the country, slaves were mixed with various other communities without a common language. Therefore, it was hardly possible for them to organize a plot to leave and go back to their homeland. Thus it was indispensable for the slaves to find a way to communicate to each other while working on plantations. As a result, the only solution was to “create” and use a simplified and limited form of English, the so-called pidgin.

Pidgin languages have also developed while English speaking sailors traders or adventurers travelled to America, Africa, Asia and Australia. And that is in a natural way that the pidgin languages came into being.

In addition, colonization influenced the formation of pidgins including languages such as French, Spanish, Portuguese, English and Dutch. The history shows that many circumstances and factors led to the development of a pidgin.

However, until recently, the new formed language suffered from comparison to the official language and was regarded as an ungrammatically, lazy, bad or broken English. In the 1930’s and 1940’s native speakers even considered that kind of language as a “speech defect”. 1

1

www.logos.uoregon.edu/explore/sociolling/pidgin.html

2

Sibel Uygun

Applied Linguistics SoSE 2007

2. Geographical facts

According to figures, there are more than 76.8 million speakers of pidgin and creoles worldwide, including 35.1 million of expanded pidgins and 41.7 million of creoles, mainly used by indigenous populations and immigrants. The following map illustrates that Pidgin and Creole languages are spread in more than fifty countries.

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