Creole language

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A Creole language , or Creole for short , is a language that emerged from several languages in a situation of language contact , with a large part of the vocabulary of the new language often going back to one of the contact languages ​​involved. After the creolization process , the creole language differs significantly from the source languages ​​involved in terms of grammar , often also in terms of the phonetic system . In some cases, a Creole language evolves into a standard language through a process of language expansion. Many Creole languages ​​emerged in the context of European colonization in the 17th and 18th centuries and the ensuing slave trade .

The Creole language with the most speakers is Haitian Creole , it is spoken by more than ten million people.

etymology

The term Creole or Creole is derived from the Creoles : In the once colonial countries, the languages ​​and the population mixed. The Spanish word criollo actually means "native". The etymology goes from the Spanish criar “to raise” back to the Latin creare “to produce”.

Origin and characteristics

"Creole languages ​​based on Portuguese, English, French or Dutch are a product of European expansion in the 17th and 18th centuries." "

“All Creols have certain similarities that make them appear similar to one another and different from their superstrate languages . Not every feature occurs in exactly the same form in all Creoles, although there are a number of appearances that are very typical. ”They stand out in phonology , general morphosyntax , the verbal system and the lexicon. These are z. B. SVO word order , the preverbal marking of negation, tense and mode as well as serial verb constructions . Creole languages ​​"have [so] a regular and simple grammar and a fixed word order, avoid all somewhat difficult phonetic connections [and] favor the two-syllable". Jared Diamond writes: "Compared to pidgin languages , Creole languages ​​are characterized by their more extensive vocabulary, their much more complicated grammar and the uniformity of language use."

The American linguist Derek Bickerton , like Noam Chomsky, believes that we humans have an innate universal grammar. He suspects that our genetically “pre-programmed” grammar corresponds to the Creole language.

Differentiation from pidgins

Creole languages ​​are languages ​​that are not only used for communication purposes, but also do justice to the expressive and integrative functions of a speaking community.

For a better understanding, the pidgin languages are often compared to the creole languages. However, both are difficult to distinguish from one another. Both pidgin languages ​​and creole languages ​​can be mother tongues, according to Knörr. On the other hand, there are representatives of the opinion that this is precisely not the case. Annegret Bollée, for example, explains that only Creole languages ​​can be mother tongues. But she, too, points out that the definition should be sociolinguistic . "External language factors [...] are of particular importance in the Creole languages, since the otherness of these languages ​​can only be justified sociolinguistically." Creole languages ​​are nativized pidgins and every nativized pidgin is a creole.

Example: Spanish-based Creole languages

Spanish based creole languages
1 Palenquero
2 Papiamentu
3 Chabacano

The Spanish-based Creole languages ​​were created due to the interaction of certain socio-cultural factors in areas that are sometimes geographically far apart.

Bozal Spanish

In Chocó, Chota Valley, Veracruz, Peru and Venezuela. According to McWhorter, the origin of the Spanish-based Creols can be traced back to West Africa. As part of the colonization, slaves from West Africa were taken by the Spaniards to the new colonies in Cuba and Puerto Rico . The Spaniards let the blacks work for themselves as domestic helpers and as slaves. Bozal Spanish was mostly spoken in Cuba. The language of the negros bozales was called Habla Bozal and represented a Creole on Cuban territory based on Spanish. McWhorter: “This suggests that Bozal Spanish is mainly a variant of Spanish used by non-native speakers. Something that you would expect from language learners who originally come from Africa ”Nevertheless, the statement that Bozal Spanish is Creole Spanish cannot be maintained. Rather, this is a case of linguistic variety.

Colombia (Chocó)

In 1778 there were around 5,828 black slaves in the Chocó region, but only 175 white slaves. Their numbers increased steadily over the years until the ratio between Europeans and blacks was almost equal. The slaves who were forcibly settled in the colonies were in a strange situation. They were confronted with different, African individual cultures and with the culture of the colonial Europeans. According to McWhorter, the Spanish imported many West Africans with a wide range of languages ​​into the Pacific lowlands of north-west Colombia, who had to work in the mines there. According to the model of limited access, this was a typical breeding ground for a contact language with an extremely reduced structure.

The contact between the two population groups was relatively distant. Neither of the two groups was linguistically homogeneous; they were different because they came from different regions. The ethno-cultural alienation forced by spatial distance created a need for new roots, for a sense of belonging that corresponds to the new situation. Because of the contact between the two population groups, the slaves had good access to white settlers, at least initially. The socio-economic importance of this language motivated them to learn it quickly, because due to the diversity of languages ​​within the slave groups, language acquisition also served their internal communication.

Example:

“Esa gente som muy amoroso. Dijen que… dijeron que volbían sí… cuando le de su gana a ello vobe. "

“That people COP very nice. They-say that they-say- PAST that they-return- IMP yes when to-them give their desire to them return. "

“Those people are really nice. They say that ... they said that they would come back ... when they felt like it. "

The abbreviations COP , PAST , and IMP are grammatical indicators. COP indicates that there must be a form of a copula verb like "sein". PAST stands for a past tense of a verb and IMP for the use of a verb in the past tense .

Ecuador (Chota Valley)

African blacks have been brought there since the 17th century to work as slaves for the Jesuits and Mercedarians on haciendas (especially sugar cane plantations) and in mines or salt pans . Sugar cane was soon grown on an ever larger scale and the profits made in the colony grew. More and more slaves were imported from Africa to operate the labor-intensive monoculture , so that the creolization process began and soon accelerated continuously. Since the Creole languages ​​emerged as a product of colonization and thus the domination of whites over blacks, they are still described by some as relics of slave society.

Mexico (Veracruz)

In the 15th century, Afro-Mexican communities could also be found in Veracruz . The slaves were also brought here mainly to work on sugar cane plantations.

Peru

The largest black settlements were in Peru . African language structures were largely retained, especially among the field slaves. So there was a continuum on the linguistic level, with a Creole language with pronounced African characteristics on one side and a Spanish dialect with less African characteristics on the other . “Spanish, probably. But black people in Peru spoke a local dialect of Spanish. "

Venezuela

The same applies to culture. Creole cultures emerged everywhere, in which the various individual cultural backgrounds of the colonial European cultural elements were integrated. In some areas, such as Venezuela , African elements were more likely to be preserved than in others. "Venezuela is home to a lively, consciously Afro-Venezuelan culture of folklore, music and dance - legacy of the massive deportation of Africans to mine and plantation work."

Papiamento and Palenquero

In fact, Papiamentu and Palenquero speak of Spanish-based Creole languages, although there is no uniform approval among experts. They are spoken on the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, Curação) and in Colombia. Both languages ​​are based on Negro-Portuguese mixed with Spanish. So one could speak of Iberoroman-based Creols. Dutch vocabulary is also part of the lexicon of both. It is not only a diachronic but also a synchronic term, i.e. it relates to socio-historical observations and structural-linguistic ones.

Theories of origin

Although there are different theories of origins for Creole languages, several Creoleists agree on the following consensus: "If a pidgin is accepted by a language community as the first language and thus the mother tongue of a growing generation, it is called [...] Creole."

Substrate theory

Typically, Creole languages ​​get their lexicon predominantly from the language whose speakers are dominant in a certain way (mostly the colonial powers ). This becomes a lexifier or superstrate and thus forms the basis of the Creole language. The opposite is the language, from which basic grammatical structures are adopted - the substrate . This theory often mixes with others because it is supported by a large number of scientists in this field. So it is possible that the terms substrate and superstrate are presupposed and do not apply as an independent theory, but are part of others.

simplification

In simple terms, this would mean that the immigrants tried to communicate with the locals. To do this, they reduced their own language in vocabulary and grammar so that the locals could understand them better. So the language from outside becomes the basic language. This form corresponds to the simplification theory. The core of communication between both parties consisted of orders. Orders which the immigrant colonial rulers tried to make the locals understandable. So there was no deeper interest in conveying their own language in all its complexity. Errors that crept in were not corrected, but retained in further usage. This method is similar to baby talk: the way people talk to each other is similar to how they communicate with small children. In addition to the lack of interest in language teaching on the one hand, "there is [on the other hand] the possible rejection of the correct learning of the new language out of the awareness of maintaining one's own identity or even of considering one's own language and culture as more valuable."

Bio program

Derek Bickerton has worked out pidgin and creole languages ​​along the natural line. Creole languages ​​are learned by children as their mother tongue, according to Bickerton. They use a kind of organic program . According to Bickerton, a person has an innate language program that independently develops the imperfect language. Children who learn a language can recognize regularities with the help of an internal universal grammar that is innate in everyone and can also form new words in the process. "All structure-changing interventions in the language system are placed in a [certain ...] phase of growth". The mother tongue was acquired in its natural structures and is then only reproduced in the same form. In adulthood one can simply no longer learn languages ​​as flawlessly as in childhood. The results are more or less "deficient, as can be seen from the limited grammar structures of the pidgin".

Monogenic origin

The monogenetic theory is based on the origin of all pidgin and creole languages ​​from a common origin. The theory says that similarities between Spanish-based Creole languages ​​in the Philippines and Indo-Portuguese can be traced back to their origins in a Portuguese pidgin - a commercial language similar to "Sabir", the lingua franca in the Mediterranean region. As is well known, however, Creole languages ​​draw their vocabulary not only from Portuguese, but from various (mainly European) languages. This fact was explained that the Portuguese proto-pidgin over colonial history, in many colonies repeatedly changed their nationality, relexifiziert was. This can be seen well in the example of Papiamentu , which is often cited as evidence of the possibility of relexification. Papiamentu has a mixed, Spanish-Portuguese-based vocabulary, assuming that it was originally Portuguese and has been relexified to Spanish over time.

Polygenetic origin

She assumes that pidgin and creole languages ​​arose independently of one another. So there is no common origin. Schuchardt took the view that Creole languages ​​emerged out of necessity through the deliberate creation of the European colonial rulers. The defeated population has tried more badly than rightly to adopt the European language, be it on a voluntary or a forced basis. For Schuchardt, on the other hand, all the languages ​​spoken in the relevant area are involved in the development of Creole languages ​​in different ways. The term "independent parallel development" (Robert A. Hall) represents that the same processes produce the same results at different starting points.

Mixed languages

The language purists of the 17th century already regarded the Romance languages as mixed languages . Philipp von Zesen saw French in terms of vocabulary as a mixture of the "main languages" German and Latin. Johann Michael Moscherosch generally classified: "Wälsche [Romance] languages ​​are bastart languages." Later linguistics stuck to this conception into the 19th century. "It was only the gradual implementation of the historical-comparative method that led to the process of language change being understood as a systematic, internal process of language." But the theory of language mixing remained. One of the representatives was Hugo Schuchardt . According to his thesis, there is no dominant language from which a subordinate language (Creole) mainly emerged. Creole languages ​​are not essentially based on Indo-European languages , but their grammar is determined by the different indigenous languages. "For Schuchardt, the effect of the language mixture [...] is not that grammatical elements of form are transferred one to one into the other language, but that when there are major differences [...] new formation [s]".

The acceptance of Creole as a language

With all the difficulties of demarcation and definition, one important aspect should not be lost sight of. The fact that Creole languages ​​can actually be called languages ​​does not find absolute agreement among philologists either . In an interview with Annegret Bollée conducted by Ursula Reutner , she deals with the controversial issue. She postulates her opinion based on her work in the Seychelles as an example .

“In the Seychelles there was a constant discussion, which is also known from other areas: Creole is not a language […] because it has no grammar. [...] The main argument was that Creole has no grammar. Well, then I wrote one and also published it, that was […] 1977, and that made quite an impression. I was interviewed on the radio and could now say: 'Le créole est une langue, parce que voilà la grammaire'. [Creole is a language, because here is the grammar for it.] The moment it appeared in print in front of everyone, you could accept it. And I think that if I have personally achieved anything at all, it is actually that, i.e. to create awareness for it, this is a language, it has a grammar and you can study it, you can describe it, you can also write a dictionary - that came in 1982. That was - I think - quite important for language policy, because in 1982 Creole was indeed introduced in schools as a medium of literacy. "

Decreolization and hypercreolization

If Creole languages, through constant contact or expansion of schooling, come closer to the language from which they have drawn their vocabulary, a closer language relationship can arise. This is e.g. B. the case when the use of the Creole language promises little social prestige and at the same time the language of origin is learned by more and more people as a prestigious educational language. This process is called decreolization . Examples are Krio in Sierra Leone and English or Louisian Creole and French. As a consequence of decreolization, there are often aggressive and nationalistic reactions against the standard or educational language, as the Creole speakers insist on the recognition of the ethnic identity of their community and view the standard language as a symbol of colonialism. Such reactions can lead to a significantly changed language behavior in the form of recreolization or hypercreolization . The African American English in the United States went through all phases of the creolization during slavery on adapting Dekreolisierung after the American Civil War to the confident Hyperkreolisierung in recent decades.

See also

literature

  • Iris Bachmann : The development of the Creole language. A discourse analytical study using the example of Papiamentu. Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-8233-6146-5 .
  • Angela Bartens: The Ibero-Romance-Based Creole Languages: Approaches to Linguistic Description. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 1995, ISBN 3-631-48682-0 .
  • Annegret Bollée : Contributions to Creole Studies. Annegret Bollée. Edited and provided with a preface, interview, list of publications and complete bibliography by Ursula Reutner as a celebratory gift for Annegret Bollée on her 70th birthday. Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-87548-478-6 .
  • Norbert Boretzky : Creole languages, substrates and language change. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1983.
  • Adrienne Bruyn: Grammaticalization in Creoles: the Developement of Determiners and Relative Clauses in Sranan. IFOTT, Amsterdam 1995, ISBN 90-74698-21-2 .
  • Louis Jean Calvet: Linguistique et Colonialisme. Petit Traité de Glottophagie. Payot, Paris 1974.
  • John A. Holm: Pidgins and Creoles. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge u. a. 1988.
  • Jacqueline Knörr: Creolization versus Pidginization as Categories of Cultural Differentiation: Variants of Neo-African Identity and Interetethics in Freetown / Sierra Leone. LIT publishing house, Münster u. a. 1995, ISBN 3-8258-2318-0 .
  • Véronique Lacoste, Christian Mair (eds.): Authenticity in creole-speaking contexts (= special issue of the magazine for English and American studies , vol. 60, no. 3). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8260-5094-7 .
  • Jürgen Lang: Les langues des autres dans la créolisation. Théorie et exemplification par le créole d'empreinte wolof à l'île Santiago du Cap Vert. Narr, Tübingen 2009.
  • Claire Lefebvre: Creoles, their Substrates, and Language Typology. John Benjamin Publishing Company, Amsterdam et al. a. 2011, ISBN 978-90-272-0676-3 .
  • John H. McWhorter: The Missing Spanish Creoles. Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. University of California Press, Berkley et al. a. 2000. ISBN 0-520-21999-6 .
  • Steve Pagel: Spanish in Asia and Oceania. Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-60830-2 .
  • Matthias Perl, Armin Schwegler: América negra: panorámica actual de los estudios lingüísticos sobre variedades hispanas, portuguesas y criollas. Vervuert Verlag, Frankfurt a. M., Iberoamericana, Madrid 1998, ISBN 3-89354-371-6 (Vervuert), ISBN 84-88906-57-9 (Iberoamericana).
  • Suzanne Romaine: Germanic Creoles. In: The Germanic Languages. Edited by Ekkehard König and Johan van der Auwera. Routledge, London / New York 1994, ISBN 0-415-05768-X , pp. 566-603.
  • Leslie B. Rout: The African Experience of Spanish America: 1502 to the present Day. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1976.
  • Mark Sebba: Contact Languages. Pidgins and Creoles. Macmillan Press, Basingstoke 1997, ISBN 0-333-63023-8 .
  • Sarah G. Thomason : A Typology of Contact Languages. In: Holm, John, Susanne Michaelis (Ed.): Contact Languages. Critical Concepts in Language Studies Vol. II. Routledge, London a. a. 2009, p. 45, ISBN 978-0-415-45607-4 .
  • Robert C. West : The Pacific Lowlands of Colombia. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge 1957.
  • Jürgen Lang: Les langues des autres dans la créolisation: théorie et exemplification par le créole d'empreinte wolof à l'île Santiago du Cap Vert . Tübingen: Narr, 2009.

Web links

Wiktionary: Creole language  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tore Janson: A Brief History of Languages . Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, 2003, ISBN 978-3-8274-1469-4 , pp. 189-199 .
  2. ↑ Creole. In: Duden online
  3. ^ Bollée: Contributions to Creole Studies. 2007, p. 164
  4. ^ A b c d Bollée: Contributions to Creole Studies. 2007, p. 151.
  5. ↑ Bartens: The Ibero-Romance-Based Creole Languages: Approaches to Linguistic Description. 1995, p. 8.
  6. ↑ Bruyn: Grammaticalization in creoles: the developement of determiners and relative clauses in Sranan. 1995, p. 1.
  7. ↑ Schuchardt (1903) 1922, p. 318.
  8. ↑ Jared Diamond: The Third Chimpanzee . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 978-3-10-013912-2 , Chapter 8: “Bridges to human language”, p. 183 ff., Quotation p. 209
  9. ↑ Source: Jared Diamond: The Third Chimpanzee . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 978-3-10-013912-2 , p. 208
  10. ↑ Knörr: Creolization versus Pidginization as Categories of Cultural Differentiation: Variants of Neo-African Identity and Interetethics in Freetown / Sierra Leone. 1995, p. 16.
  11. ↑ Bartens: The Ibero-Romance-Based Creole Languages: Approaches to Linguistic Description. 1995, p. 3.
  12. ^ Pagel: Spanish in Asia and Oceania. 2009.
  13. ^ Bollée: Contributions to Creole Studies. 1977a, p. 133
  14. ^ McWhorter: The Missing Spanish Creoles. Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. 2000, p. 7
  15. ↑ "The term Bozal describes a person born in Africa who spoke little or no Spanish and essentially tried to preserve his cultural roots." Michael Zeuske: Cuba 1492–1902 . Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, Leipzig 1998, ISBN 3-931922-83-9 , p. 298 .
  16. ^ McWhorter: The Missing Spanish Creoles. Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. 2000, p. 21
  17. ^ McWhorter: The Missing Spanish Creoles. Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. 2000, p. 39
  18. ↑ West: The Pacific lowlands of Colombia. 1957 p. 100, 108
  19. ^ McWhorter: The Missing Spanish Creoles. Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. 2000, p. 7: “the Spanish began importing massive numbers of West Africans who spoke a wide variety of languages ​​into the Pacific lowlands of northwestern Colombia to work their mines. This context shortly became one which, according to the limited access model, was a canonical breeding ground for a contact language of extreme structural reduction. "
  20. ^ Rout: The African experience of Spanish America: 1502 to the present day. 1976, pp. 243-249
  21. ↑ Steiger: 1989, p. 222
  22. ^ McWhorter: The Missing Spanish Creoles. Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. 2000, p. 8
  23. ↑ Quoted from Schwegler: In: McWhorter: The Missing Spanish Creoles. Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. 2000, p. 9
  24. ^ McWhorter: The Missing Spanish Creoles. Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. 2000, p. 10
  25. ↑ Calvet: Linguistique et colonialisme. Petit traité de glottophagie. 2002, p. 155ff
  26. ^ McWhorter: The Missing Spanish Creoles. Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. 2000, p. 11
  27. ^ A b McWhorter: The Missing Spanish Creoles. Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Languages. 2000, p. 12
  28. ^ Pagel: Spanish in Asia and Oceania. 2009, p. 384
  29. ^ Thomason: A Typology of Contact Languages. In: Holm: Contact Languages. Critical Concepts in Language Studies Volume II, 2009, p. 45
  30. ↑ Seidel, Christian: Genesis theories in Creole languages. Status: 2004, p. 5 PDF ( Memento from December 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on September 20, 2012)
  31. ↑ Bachmann: The use of language in Creole. A discourse analytical study using the example of Papiamentu. 2005, p. 179
  32. ↑ Holm: Pidgins and Creoles. Vol1, 1988, p. 61
  33. ↑ a b Bachmann: The use of language in Creole. A discourse analytical study using the example of Papiamentu. 2005, p. 180
  34. ↑ Holm: Pidgins and Creoles. 1988, p. 46
  35. ^ Boretzky: Creole languages, substrates and language change. 1983, p. 28
  36. ^ Sebba: Contact Languages. Pidgins and Creoles. 1997
  37. ↑ Herbert Blume : The morphology of Zesen's new word formations. Diss. 1967.
  38. ↑ Another part of the visions of Philander von Sittewalt. [= Moscherosch, Johann Michael: Les Visiones de Don Francesco Villegas. Vol. 2.] Mülbe, Straßburg 1644, p. 126, marginal glosses printed on. https://books.google.de/books?id=055QAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA126&dq=bastart+ Sprachen+intitle:les+intitle:visiones&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjvhfPI2ufdAhVBiywKHWtHDLMQ6AEIL20it20languages%bepage%AEILLMQ6AEIL20it%Again 3Avisiones & f = false
  39. ↑ Bachmann: The use of language in Creole. A discourse analytical study using the example of Papiamentu. 2005, p. 50
  40. ↑ Bachmann: The use of language in Creole. A discourse analytical study using the example of Papiamentu. 2005, p. 53
  41. ↑ Bachmann: The use of language in Creole. A discourse analytical study using the example of Papiamentu. 2005, p. 54
  42. ^ Bollée: Contributions to Creole Studies. 2007, p. 206
  43. ^ Sina Friedreich: Krio: history and analysis based on texts. Diplomica Verlag 2003, ISBN 978-3832471477 .
  44. ^ Keyword English based Creole languages , in: Helmut Glück (Ed.): Metzler Lexikon Sprache. Springer Verlag 2016, p. 165.
  45. ↑ Karl-Heinz Stoll: The interculturality of African literature: Chinua Achebe, Cyprian Ekwensi, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Wole Soyinka. Münster 2003, p. 14.