Creoles of the World

2017 Creole Language Distinctiveness
*Title:* Grammars are robustly transmitted even during the emergence of creole languages *Authors*: Damián Blasi, Susanne Michaelis and Martin Haspelmath
*Abstract:* Most languages of the world are taken to result from a combination of a vertical transmission process from older to younger generations of speakers or signers and (mostly) gradual changes that accumulate over time. In contrast, creole languages emerge within a few generations out of highly multilingual societies in situations where no common first language is available for communication (as, for instance, in plantations related to the Atlantic slave trade). Strikingly, creoles share a number of linguistic features (the 'creole profile'), which is at odds with the striking linguistic diversity displayed by non-creole languages1,2,3,4. These common features have been explained as reflecting a hardwired default state of the possible grammars that can be learned by humans1, as straightforward solutions to cope with the pressure for efficient and successful communication5 or as the byproduct of an impoverished transmission process6. Despite their differences, these proposals agree that creoles emerge from a very limited and basic communication system (a pidgin) that only later in time develops the characteristics of a natural language, potentially by innovating linguistic structure. Here we analyse 48 creole languages and 111 non-creole languages from all continents and conclude that the similarities (and differences) between creoles can be explained by genealogical and contact processes, as with non-creole languages, with the difference that creoles have more than one language in their ancestry. While a creole profile can be detected statistically, this stems from an over-representation of Western European and West African languages in their context of emergence. Our findings call into question the existence of a pidgin stage in creole development and of creole-specific innovations. In general, given their extreme conditions of emergence, they lend support to the idea that language learning and transmission are remarkably resilient processes.

Paywall: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0192-4
Free: http://sci-hub.bz/10.1038/s41562-017-0192-4

American English Speech Recordings: A Guide to Collections.
A directory of collections of audio recordings of varieties of American English spoken in North America and including English-based creoles contains information about collections of any size, classified according to the primary state in the U.S. represented by the speakers in the sample and cross-referenced when more than one state is represented in the collection. Collections covering areas outside the United States are grouped separately, and include the Bahamas, Canada, Central America, Puerto Rico, England, and world-wide sources. The data, based on a survey, include information on each collection's location, institutional affiliation, content, characteristics of the sample, number of subjects recorded, number of hours recorded, dates and locations of taping, average length of the samples, contexts (free speech with or without interviewer directed interview, data elicitation, reading, or other), predominant or outstanding features of the content, subject or technical characteristics, access to Collections, and availableresearch reports concerning the collection. The survey questionnaire is provided in the introductory section of the directory. PDF

English around the World - Internet + English = Netglish

Definitions of Various Creoles

Creole - Kreyol Alphabet Alphabè Kreyòl la The Kreyol Alphabet

JAMAICAN ENGLISH CREOLE

AMERICAN DIALECTS

LOUISIANA CREOLE

HAWAIIAN PIDGIN CREOLE

  • HAWAIIAN PIDGIN/CREOLE The People, Culture and Language of Hawai'i Learn a little about consonants and vowels in Hawaiian Pidgin.
  • Hawaiian War Chant - also see
  • Ha Kam Wi Tawk Pidgin Yet ['Why do we still talk in Pidgin']: A series of three clips about Hawai'i Creole ('Pidgin') made by High School Students. [ link ]

HAITIAN CREOLE

Bermudian English Creole

  • The Bermewjun dictionary
  • Southern Bahamian: Transported African American Vernacular English or Transported Gullah? (Stephanie Hackert and John Holm) published in vol. 15 (2009) of The College of the Bahamas Research Journal, pp. 12-21
    Holm argued (wrongly) in the 1990s that proof of AAVE's creole origins lay in the creole speech of the southern Bahamian islands, populated almost entirely from the US mainland after the American Revolutionary War. It has since come to light that most of the immigrants came from Gullah-speaking areas of the US, suggesting that AAVE was from its beginnings the product of partial rather than full creolization.

Jamaican Creole

Development of the Jamaican Language
Sources of language influence on Jamaican Creole Source of Jamaican population, 1500 - 1700 [ more ]

Trinidad Creole

English English

Spanish Based Creole

  • Papiamento A creole based on Portuguese and pidginized Spanish and spoken in the Netherlands Antilles.
  • Chabacano/Spanish The Philippine Linguistic Identity.
    John Lipski     Professor of Spanish and Linguistics. His main areas of research include Spanish phonology, language contacts, Spanish dialectology, creole languages, and the African contribution to Spanish and Portuguese. He is the author of numerous books and articles in these fields, and has recently completed a book on varieties of Spanish in the United States. See Filipino American National Historical Society's Pinoy Archives
  • St. Lucia
    St. Lucia, West Indies is a creolophone island of the lesser Antilles. This E-Group is concerned by the preservation of the creole culture in this country.

Haitian Creole

French Creole

  • A Dual Approach to French Creole Genesis
    by Mikael Parkvall M. A. Thesis, presented in April 1995 at the Department of Linguistics at Stockholm University. French-lexicon creoles of the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean (minus Réunionnais) were the result not of one, and not of several, but of two geneses, one on St. Kitts and one in Senegal.The varieties presently spoken on the Lesser Antilles would be descended from the former, and those spoken in the Indian Ocean and in Louisiana would be derived from the latter. I suggested that Haitian and Guianese would be of the Kittitian type, but with certain influences from the Senegalese proto-pidgin.

Guinea-Bissau Creole

Dissertation: Guinea-Bissau Creole by Chiara Truppi

Brief description : My dissertation is a syntactic-semantic study of GBC bare nouns and the theoretical implications. Moreover, GBC nominal system and its bare nouns are compared to a number of other creole and noncreole languages: Cape Verdean Creole, Santome, Papiamentu, Brazilian Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese and Gbe languages.

Future in Nova Scotian Black English

2000 Global Internet Statistics (by Language) lists many languages, how many people speak each language, how many people who speak that language have internet access, the GDP (gross domestic product) per capita for each language ... "We classify by languages instead of by countries, since people speaking the same language form their own online community no matter what country they happen to live in."
"While English is the language of choice on the Internet, it will hasten the extinction of thousands of indigenous languages. By the end of this century, 90 percent of the world's language could become extinct. The culture, customs and knowledge embedded in these languages will also become extinct. As we embrace the languages of former colonial masters, the world losses valuable information passed down by word of mouth over several generations. The extinction of any language is an irretrievable loss to humanity. If the early years of educational instruction are not in an indigenous language, then that language is headed for extinction." -- Dr. Philip Emeagwali



Author: Kofi Yakpo Dissertation Title: A Grammar of Pichi
Linguistic Field(s): Language Documentation
Subject Language(s): Fernando Po Creole English (fpe)
Language Family(ies): Creole
Dissertation Abstract: Pichi (also know as Fernando Po Creole English) is an Atlantic English-lexicon Creole spoken on the island of Bioko, Equatorial Guinea.
With at least 70,000 speakers, Pichi is an offshoot of Krio (Sierra Leone) and shares many characteristics with its West African sister languages Aku (Gambia) and Nigerian, Cameroonian and Ghanaian Pidgin. At the same time,
contact with Spanish, the colonial and official language of Equatorial Guinea, has made a significant impact on the lexicon and grammar of Pichi.
This first comprehensive description of Pichi is based on extensive fieldwork in Equatorial Guinea. It presents a detailed analysis of the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language and addresses language contact between Pichi and Spanish. The annexes contain a collection of interlinearised and annotated texts as well as Pichi-English-Pichi vocabulary lists.
Pichi has a seven vowel system and twenty-two consonant phonemes. The
language features a mixed prosodic system which employs both pitch-accent and tone. The morphological structure of Pichi is largely isolating. However, there is a limited use of inflectional and derivational morphology in which affixation, tone and suppletive forms are put to use. The categories of tense, modality and aspect are primarily expressed through preverbal particles. In Pichi, aspect rather than tense, plays a dominant role in expressing temporal relations. The modal system includes an indicative-subjunctive opposition. Pichi verbs fall into three lexical aspect classes: dynamic, inchoative-stative and stative. The language exhibits a subject-verb word order in intransitive clauses and a subject-verb-object order in transitive clauses. Pichi also features various types of multiverb constructions. These include secondary predication, clause chaining and serial verb constructions.

Trinidad Creole Language Resources

Back to World Creoles

Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago
On Historical Principles by Lise Winer
The first comprehensive, historical, scholarly dictionary of the English and English Creole languages of Trinidad & Tobago.

Winer, L. (1990). Orthographic standardization for Trinidad and Tobago: Linguistic and sociopolitical considerations. Language Problems and Language Planning, 14 (3), 237-268.

Linguistics Gullah Geechee First, it is shown that there are mismatches between the description of Gullah phonology in the body of 'Africanisms' and the phonology of the narratives. Thus, a number of patterns described in the main text are not represented in the transcription conventions of the narratives. On the other hand, close study of the narratives reveals patterns that are not described in the text, such as Nasal Velarization (NV) and the deletion of unstressed syllables in pre-stress position (PSD) in English cognates.
In addition, the transcription of the narratives often provides phonological variants, thus enabling the study of phonological variation in Gullah.
As shown in this paper, NV in the narratives in 'Africanisms' transforms an etymological alveolar nasal into a velar nasal after the diphthong /aw/. Similar patterns are found in related Creoles such as Jamaican, Guyanese and Trinidadian/Tobagonian Creole English.

Derek Walcott Pulitzer Prize Winner : was born in 1930 in Saint Lucia, Windward Islands, West Indies. He graduated from the University College of the West Indies and was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to study American drama in 1957. Presently, he divides his time between Trinidad and Boston and teaches Drama and Poetry in the English Department at Boston University.

Contact Englishes of the Eastern Caribbean
A different type of research problem is taken up by Robin Sabino, Mary Diamond and Leah Cockcroft in their chapter, ''Language variety in the Virgin Islands: Plural marking''. Not that plural marking is particularly troublesome, but the authors use this data to explore the effect of audience on production. The so-called 'observers paradox' is a particularly troublesome aspect of fieldwork.

According to some sources , the Caribbean is home to nearly 400,000
Muslims. Mostly East Indian in origin, they live on at least a dozen
Caribbean islands, including Trinidad , Suriname, Guyana, Barbados,
Grenada, Dominica, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Jamaica.

Black French which developed by the middle of the 17th C around the French bases and colonies on both sides of the Atlantic. Goodman points out the African features of Creole French dialects in the Caribbean - Guadeloupe, Martinique, Trinidad , Haiti, etc & Louisiana in N.America, [Gumbo], Cayenne in S. America but also half a world away, in Mauritius, Reunion and the Seychelles. Black French survives in West Africa, the Wolof of Senegal has left an imprint on the creole of Mauritius.

Focusing specifically on the contemporary Carib community in Arima, Trinidad , a site that focuses primarily on written documents is that of the Santa Rosa Carib Community.

Trinidad Music- Performing Rights Societies

The Harder They Come inspired Michael X to return to Trinidad where he met his death / murder at the hands of American tools. Blood and Music . I think Jim Pines writes about the theme in Black cinema articles.

Spanish Based Creole Languages like Papiamento

Back to Definitions

American Virgin Islands Creole, American Indian words in Louisiana, DIALECT SPEAKERS,African American Vernacular, AAVE, Dialect, Creole, Patois, Pidgin , ESL

Sandra Madeira's "Towards an annotated bibliography of restructured Portuguese in Africa" is now posted on the ACBLPE website. Go to http://www.acblpe.org/ (you don't need to register)
and then click on "documents" in the left menu.
This takes you to a page that allows you to click on:
Attached Files: Bibliography.pdf
http://www.acblpe.org/modules/news/visit.php?fileid+7
(a PDF File is attached to this email in case you want to download it and
print it out to avoid having to scroll down every time you use it.)
You can also click on a short document called
Instructions 1-7-09.pdf
http://www.acblpe.org/modules/news/visit.php?fileid=8

Source: "Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, which lie near Venezuela in the Caribbean Ocean. Arawak Indians lived there when the Spanish arrived in 1527. The Dutch took possession in 1634, forcing the Spaniards and most Indians to leave. They took some Indians as slaves on Curaçao, and sent others to Bonaire and Aruba. This change in power did not necessarily lead to a change in language spoken, however, because the Dutch often preferred to use Spanish or Portuguese or Creole Portuguese with conquered peoples, and Dutch amongst themselves (Holm 2000).
The Dutch brought the first West Africans in 1648; at least some probably spoke pidgin Portuguese.
Sephardic Jews relocated from Brazil beginning in 1659, probably speaking a regional variety of Portuguese or Spanish. After 1660, Jews played a major role in the administration of slave camps, often trading with Spanish Americans. By the 1680s, the African population equaled the white population. Most slaves did domestic work.

Dutch and Jews learned the emerging creole for contact. ~ Holm (2000)

estimates that the creole stabilized on Curaçao around 1700, then spread to Bonaire and Aruba. PP words are attested in Jewish ship names in 1706, and Dutch documents in the 17th and 18th centuries. By the time the creole was fully established in the late 18th century, Dutch missionaries preached in PP.
After slavery was abolished, the islands remained under Dutch control, but later achieved some autonomy.

Curaçao and Bonaire now belong to the group of islands called the Netherlands Antilles. Aruba was part of the N.A. until 1986, when it became independent of this group. (It remains under the jurisdiction of the Netherlands.) Today, about 80% of island residents speak PP as a first language. Dutch remains the language of government and education.

Spanish is culturally important. Portuguese was used during the early slave trade, but fell out of use by 1800. English has only recently (1915 on Curaçao, 1928 on Aruba) entered the picture on the islands with the introduction of the petroleum industry, and is economically important in oil and tourism. Today, residents speak PP, Dutch, Spanish, and English."

Palenquero
Palenquero (also Palenque) is a Spanish-based Creole spoken in Colombia.

The ethnic group which speaks this Creole consists only of 2,500 people, as of 1989. It is spoken in Colombia, in the village of San Basilio de Palenque which is south and east of Cartagena, and in some neighborhoods of Barranquilla. The village was formed by escaped slaves (Maroons) and Native Americans. Since many slaves had not been subjected to a lot of contact with white people, the palenqueros spoke Creole languages from Spanish language and their African ones. Spanish speakers are unable to understand Palenquero. There are some influences from Kongo in Democratic Republic of Congo. As of 1998, 10% of the population of age under 25 years speaks Palenquero. Most common to the elderly.

The current issue (13 = 2009) of RILI (Revista Internacional de Linguistica Iberoamericana) includes an obituary of the Spanish creolist German de Granda, pp. 271-280. De Granda was the co-discoverer (with Derek Bickerton) of Palenquero's creole identity, and he wrote a number of publications about African influence on Caribbean varieties of Spanish, as well as contact varieties in (Spanish) Equatorial Guinea.

More on Spanish-based creole languages

Chavacano

Chavacano (also Chabacano) is a Spanish-based Creole language and the name of the Six Dialects of Spanish loan words turned into a Creole language spoken in the Philippines.

The BIBLE for creole speakers

Bible from Dutch into Negerhollands Dutch Creole on St. Croix USVI. Eric Woring Wold was a Lutheran Missionary on St. John. He translated a spelling book and a hymnal into Creole. Danish Lutheran missionary J.C. Kingo taught himself Dutch Creole and translated this spelling primer in 1770. As early as 1700, the Lutheran Church was encouraging free blacks and slaves to join the congregation. The black population on St. Croix USVI spoke in many West African Languages and few understood Danish. Lutheran Missionaries understood that there would have to be a common language for full religious education. They chose "Dutch Creole" because many early planters were Dutch.

The Book of Matthew Hawaii Creole English ( HCE, 'Pidgin ' ) http://www.booklineshawaii.com/spiritualism.html
$3.95 US retail plus shipping.

West African Pidgin English Version of Bible
Sierra Leone New Testament in Krio
Gud Yus Foh Ohlman: Di Nyu Testament
published by
Lutheran Bible Translators
Attn: Walt DeMoss
PO Box 2050
Aurora IL 60507-2050
Send Check for $20.00

Rev. Walter L. DeMoss
Director of Program Ministries
Lutheran Bible Translators
1-800-532-4253
Walt@LBT.org

New Testament translated into Gullah
Fo God mek de wol, de Wod been dey. De Wod been dey wid God, an de Wod been God. - De Good Nyews Bout Jedus Christ Wa John Write 1:1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. - John 1:1.

Online Haitian Creole Bible on CD
http://www.labibleonline.com/
Jeff Allen's software review (in 2003)
http://www.geocities.com/jeffallenpubs/bible.htm

St. Lucia (French) Creole New Testament Bible CD
"David Frank" <david_frank@sil.org> can mail you a CD
that you could use to install it on your computer. It is searchable, and it is possible to cut and paste from it.

"The Yiddish linguist Max Weinrich once famously said, "A shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un a flot" (or "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy")."

How Linguists and Missionaries Share a Bible of 6,912 Languages
By MICHAEL ERARD July 19, 2005 Source

The sponsors of Ethnologue a catalogue of spoken languages are the Summer Institute of Linguistics and its sister organization, the Wycliffe Bible Translators . The latter name tends to be emphasized when fundraising in Christian countries, the former when proposing literacy projects to governments hostile to Christian evangelism. Source
The Ethnologue Name Index lists over 39,000 language names, dialect names, and alternate names. The Ethnologue Language Family Index organizes languages according to language families, pidgin and creole entries in the database.
The 1996 Ethnologue on the web lists published Scripture in creole and pidgin languages known at that time but unfortunately doesn't tell in all cases if they are still in print or where you can get them. There is an index of creole and pidgin languages in the back. The 2000 edition of the Ethnologue is expected about mid-year 2000 in print, on CD-ROM, and on the web.

Barbara F. Grimes, Ethnologue Editor Editor_Ethnologue@sil.org

SIL International http://www.silinternational.com/