Creolization Process and Birth of a New Language | Linguistics

[00:00:13]Welcome to class. Today we are going to  talk about the process of creolization   and how a new language emerges out of  this process. It is a very productive   phenomenon and it happens within less span  of time compared to other natural languages.   Before going to creole, we need to  understand the socio-political and   historical background of such developments. So post Trinessa, and the European navigation   that took the entire world into stride by  exploring new places, going to new places,   opening of new frontiers because of good  navigation system developed in the 16th century,   and the European powers went to different  coastal areas of Asia, Africa, Americas,   and established trade and business relations. Now that period also saw growth in slavery   and slave extraditions people and large  populations moved from one place to another,   settling in a new area where they did not find any  language common between the indigenous population   and the newly arrived group of traders.  And the communication need forced them   to develop a minimal shared code for carrying  out everyday business, routine businesses.  If you look at this Creole or  Creole languages, they are the   result of the last 500 years in human history,  and in 500 years more than 100 creoles emerged   all over the world, specifically, in coastal  areas, and some of them have become instinct,   some of them still survive with  certain changes in a changed form.   So, we will look at the process of  creolization and how a new code, a new variety   emerged. This is what we are  going to do today in our class.

[00:02:51]So, when you look at Creole is a  consequence of Pidgin. Now, what is Pidgin?   So Pidgin is a language or a  variety a hybrid variety which is   minimally expanded it has very simple  grammar a limited number of words, and   no stable grammatical rules but it helps it  help them carry out their everyday business.  That is a very restricted code Pidgin a mix of two  languages, language A and language B, the language   of the community and the language  of the newly arrived traders,   and this Pidgin over a period of time gets  established, gets expanded, rules get regularized   and then it is expanded to an extent where the  structures become stable and over a period of time   coming generations acquire this newly emerged  variety as mother tongue and it becomes a Creole.  So, essentially a creole is a stable language  variety that develops from the simplifying   and mixing of different languages into  a new one within a brief period of time   that is the beauty of it because other natural  languages have taken hundreds of years to emerge   but creole is relatively quick development. And we can say, a creole is a neutralized and   naturalized stable language that comes into  existence through mixed parent languages.   And mixed parent languages mean languages  of the community and languages of the newly   settled population and because no code was common  Pidgin emerged out of these two courts and that   established variety of Pidgin, a developed variety  of Pidgin, expanded variety of Pidgin, extended   variety of Pidgin ultimately becomes creole. So, it is a consequence of the Pidgin that evolves   into a full-fledged language. So in that sense,  we can say that creoles are characterized by   number one, a tendency to systematize  their inherited grammar by eliminating   irregularities or regularizing the  conjugation of otherwise irregular verbs   or so on and so forth the entire morphological  process right making plural, so they stabilize   the rules these rules are established and  then it becomes a stabilized stable variety.  Like any other language creoles are characterized  by a consistent system of grammar, so mind you   Pidgin, Pidgin had a very simplified restricted  grammar and grammatical rules but creole has   expanded and extended grammatical rules  which are naturalized and established.  And the third characteristic  of creole is that this extended   Pidginized variety becomes  stable and emerges into a creole,   it emerges into creole when the coming generations  acquire this variety as their first language.   And this is how it is nativized, and once  it is nativized it is called a creole.  So, creole is an extended Pidgin with elaborate  social functions and native speakers of the   variety who constitute a speech community.  So you understand the development of creole   from having no language, and no code in common  to the emergence of a common code with restricted   grammar and limited vocabulary simplified grammar  and limited vocabulary that is called Pidgin,   over a period of time when this Pidgin is  extended it expands rules are established   new words have added the word forms are  regularized and it becomes a stable grammar   with a natural variety. And then it is acquired as  a mother tongue by coming generations, and this is   nativized and this is how a new speech community  emerges with this newly immersed language.

[00:07:55]So, moving on,   so it has a grammatically structured form and many  of its vocabularies are derived from superstate   language. So, when you say super straight language  that means we are talking about linguistic   hierarchy. So, when you talk about linguistic  hierarchy superset language refers to the language   spoken by the immigrants or the other newly  settled population of traders, they are basically   Europeans, English, French, and Portuguese. So, the majority of creoles that we have   today or that emerged during 500 years of last 500  years have their English origin or French origin   or Portuguese origin and of course, the  resources were controlled by these newly   emerged settled traders, their language  like English, like French, like Portuguese,   they tend to be super straight language. So, the majority of vocabulary comes from   there that is what it means here when we  say it has a grammatically structured form   and many of its vocabularies are derived  from the superstate language. So,   the superstate language becomes a lexifier for  this new variety, so words are drawn from there   lexifier means words so words are done from  there the mother or the parent language becomes   electrified for it the superstate language. Thus, a creole is a consequent development out of   a Pidgin that becomes stable and learned by the  next generation. This much is clear I guess now,   so, this is how from no language  in common to a restricted code   for everyday communication and carrying out  everyday business with restricted grammar and   limited vocabulary called Pidgin to established,  naturalized, and extended variety acquired by the   coming generations next generations as mother  tongue and finally nativized is called creole.

[00:10:22]And in the last 500 years because  of many political and historical   incidents and factors, the slave trade  was one of the big…biggest factors,   around more than 100 creoles emerged, And,  if you look at a few examples of such creoles   based on their parent language, look at  a few of them like, Arabic based creoles.  One creole you find also in India and is  Nagamese, Assamese based creole Chinese   based Tang-Wang a creole language, Dutch-based  creole languages, English-based creole languages,   French-based creole languages, German-based  cruel languages, Hindi basically language one   in Andaman Creole Hindi. Japanese-based  Yilan creole, Japanese Kanbun Kundoku,   Kongo based Kituba, Malay based creole languages. Ngbandi based Sango, Portuguese-based creole   languages, Spanish-based creole languages, Sinhala  based Vedda languages. So, these languages have   emerged in the last 500 years, and if you look  at human history 500 years are nothing. So,   within a very short span of time a new language,  and a range of new languages were born.

[00:12:08]But creoles do not enjoy the linguistic  super messy as other natural languages enjoy,   because of multiple socio-political factors.  As these creoles are the consequence of   colonialism, the process of colonization and  the colonial powers looked at these languages   and treated them as inferior languages, degenerate  languages, bastard languages, a hybrid language.  So they could not enjoy these languages, could  not enjoy the kind of prestige attached to   English or let us say French or let us say  Portuguese, German, or other languages.

[00:13:08]So, if you look at this  some historical factors like   more than 100 creole languages have developed  since 1500. These varieties are predominantly   based on European languages such  as English, Portugese, and French.   And they are the development of the  post-renaissance European age of discovery,   and the slave trade is primarily responsible which  allowed huge mobility of the population to unknown   territories and they were forced to settle there. Traders had to learn to communicate with   communities across the world which led to  the emergence of a Pidgin and later extended,   simplified, extended, enriched, and stabilized  an emergence of creole that suited their purpose.   Most of the known European creole languages  emerged in the coastal areas around the   world such as America, Africa, Goa  which is the western part of India,   along Southeast Asia up to Indonesia,  Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong, Philippines,   Malaysia, et cetera. So that is the  historical background of the creoles.

[00:14:39]But if you look at the process of  how a Pidgin develops into a creole,   the developmental stages of Pidgin and creole are  categorized into four, which usually appear in   two contexts, social situation and linguistic  correlation. So, if you look at the social   situation and their linguistic correlates. So, when you have a social contract that is   marginal in nature that means limited contact, so  two speech communities that have no language in   common and have a very limited marginal contact  then there develops a common restricted Pidgin,   and that Pidgin or that variety which is  developed out of a dire need to communicate   where no language is common this restricted  code has a very simplified grammatical system   and a very limited set of words. And  that is why we call it restricted Pidgin   which is the linguistic correlate. So social situation is   marginal contact and linguistic correlated  restricted Pidgin then when this contact sustains   for a longer period of time and the functions are  extended, communication functions are extended   then you have extended Pidgin, and this extended  Pidgin and naturalizes the grammatical system   complex sentences are added, a new set of  vocabulary are added, new sets, new words.  And enriched with it with this regularized  established grammatical form and a wide   range of vocabulary the restricted paging emerges  into an extended Pidgin. And this extended Pidgin   is established and nativized. So, when we say  nativize what does it mean? Nativization means   the next generations acquire this variety as  their mother tongue. So, from languages A and B,   a new language emerges C which is restricted in  its natural stage, the early stage is extended   and established, and then it is nativized. So, it is acquired by the next generations   and this nativization leads to it becoming  a creole. And then once it is established   as a creole over a period of time functions  are extended social functions are extended.   So, it is not merely a language to carry out  everyday business but we see extended use of   this creole in that speech community, the  emergence of a solid cohesive speech community,   which put across put intact by this language  newly emerged language called creole.  They are used in different  works of life so it is not only   limited to business trade and business and  restricted use but it expands into literature,   and experiences narratives and then we find  a well-developed speech community for that   and this is how this creole language becomes a  distinct unique variety like any natural language.  And then later on there started a movement  for making it standard. So when we say   the process of standardization that  means quantification, and elaboration, so   grammar rules are written, thesaurus are  created, dictionaries are created, texts   are created, printed, they adopt some writing  system and this is how this is standardized   and usually the parent language which is a  superstate dominant language emerges as lexifier.  So, what is that lexifier? Which supplies  lexicons that mean supplies words.   So standard words are drawn from that  language and this process is called   decreolization, and it becomes a distinct  separate new language. So, Pidgin has a life cycle   and generally, it is generally agreed that it  is characterized into restricted and extended   it is obvious that Pidgin starts as a restricted  variety of language which used which is used in   a contact situation for the purpose of trading  but later on when it extended established and   nativized it becomes a creole. And  this is how a new language is born.

[00:20:26]But like most non-official and minority languages,  creoles have generally been regarded as degenerate   variants or dialects of their parent language. So  we have a social linguistic attitude attached to   these creoles, a social attitude attached  to these creoles did not enjoy prestige.   And why, because the colonial powers looked at  these creoles as degenerate bastard languages,   and the prejudice associated with this  variety made it stigmatized and distinct.  Many of the creoles are no more spoken. There  is no speaker that they have become extinct   some of them survive. However, in  the last 50, 60 years, or 70 years,   changes in political and academic interests,  have improved the status of creoles,   both as living languages and  as objects of linguistic study.  And you see that in the last after the 1960s you  see suddenly a lot of these studies emerging,   and lots of theories, lots of explanations, lots  of historical accounts of the emergence of these   creoles emerged post 1960s. And that attitude  towards these languages also changed. So today in   Africa in other parts also there are some creoles  that have been announced as official languages,   and they have got extended political and social  functions but most of them have become extinct.  So, there is a process called derealization so  since creole languages rarely attain official   status the speakers of a fully formed  creole may eventually feel compelled   to confirm their speech into one of the parent  languages. That is the pressure of identity   linguistic identity that the speakers need to  conform to a well-established prestige variety   of these parent languages from  where these creoles have emerged.  There is a deliberate attempt to lexify   and heavily borrow rules linguistic items  from the parent language to make this creole   look like a very close dialect of the parent  language and this is a social pressure,   identity pressure that compels the speaker to draw  heavily from the parent language, and it becomes   like a dialect of the lexifier parent language. This process is called decreolization,   and decreolization is a movement or a tendency or  a process of bringing this newly emerged creole   close to super straight parent  language, and this is how it is.

[00:23:59]So let us summarize the whole idea. So, we  say that creoles are the extended version of   Pidgin and they are established naturalized  and they have extended social function.   The developments of creoles have taken  place in the last 500 years, because of   the extended navigation by European powers  and undertaking a lot of other world   territories as their colonies. So, they established colonies there,   and the urgent need to communicate with the local  community where there was no language common   the situation forced them to develop a restricted  code this restricted code is called Pidgin over   a period of time gets extended and elaborated  in terms of both linguistically and socially,   they are elaborated, their functions are liberated  and then they become established, regularized   and naturalized and finally nativized. When we say nativized. Nativized means,   this variety is acquired by the coming generations  as a mother tongue and it becomes a creole.   And when it becomes creole social functions are  extended, so it is no more merely a limited code   for a limited social function but it becomes an  extended social function with extended linguistic   roles and then the whole speech community emerges. And this language becomes the language of that   speech community. But when you look at  the social aspect of the sociology of this   newly emerged variety because it developed out of  compulsion and a compulsive need to communicate   this is considered or this was considered  by the colonial powers as a degenerate,   bastard language so because low prestige  value was attached to it it did not emerge as   official or prestigious language. But in the last 50, or 60 years the   situation had changed. The stigma attached  to creoles led to the extinction of creoles,   and very few creoles are survived  today…they survived today. Interestingly,   they all have developed along the coastal areas  of the world America, Africa, Southeast Asia,   Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Philippines,  and Macau, so all these areas, Africa,   Americ, or that matter so because of this stigma  they could not acquire prestige but the situation   has changed and what we see after the 1960s in the  late 20th century we see a new interest emerging   and political support and a political movement as  well academic interest that made this new variety,   a very important object of study and we see  a lot of studies emerging during this period.  And in some parts, some of the creoles have  attained the status of official language,   but again the process of decreolization  made them become almost close to   the parent language and one of the varieties  of it because the identity pressure on the   speakers of creoles compel them to draw heavily  from the superstate parent language and parent   language becomes lexifier for this variety and  ultimately it emerges as one of the dialects   in the demoralized version it images as  one of the dialects of the parent language.  In India, you have Nagamese and Assamese-based  creole on the border areas of Nagaland and   Assam. Some creoles now have become  extinct in Goa, west part of India   and you find a sort of Hindi-based creole in  Andaman apart from other creoles like English,   Spanish-based creoles, French-based creoles,  Portuguese-based creoles, Arabic-based creoles   in other parts of the world. So, this is how   the process of creolization has led to the  emergence of over 100 varieties in the last   500 years and the process of decreolization  has changed the form they were earlier   and it is continuing. Some of the creoles have  become extinct and some of them still survive. So,   this is the story of the birth of a new language  through the process of creolization. Thank you.