Creolistics
Encyclopedia
Creolistics, or Creology, is the scientific study of creole language
s and, as such, is a subfield of linguistics
. Someone who engages in this study is called a creolist.
of creoleness." No consensus exists among creolists as to whether the nature of creoleness is prototypical or merely evidence indicative of a set of recognizable phenomena seen in association with little inherent unity and no underlying single cause.
and Mikael Parkvall opposing Henri Wittmann
(1999) and Michel DeGraff. In McWhorter's definition, creoleness is a matter of degree, in that prototypical creoles exhibit all three of the traits he proposes to diagnose creoleness, whereas less prototypical ones depart somewhat from the prototype
. Along these lines, McWhorter defines Haitian Creole, exhibiting all three traits, as "the most creole of creoles." A creole like Palenquero
, on the other hand, would be less prototypical, given the presence of inflection to mark plural, past, gerund, and participle forms. Objections to the McWhorter-Parkvall hypotheses point out that the typological parameters of creoleness (little or no inflection
, little or no tone
, transparent
derivation
) can be found in languages such as Manding
, Sooninke
and Magoua
French
which are not considered creoles. Wittmann and DeGraff come to the conclusion that efforts to conceive a yardstick
for measuring creoleness in any scientifically meaningful way have failed so far. DeGraff & Walicek (2005) discuss creolistics in relation to colonialist
ideologies, rejecting the notion that Creoles can be responsibly defined in terms of specific grammatical characteristics. They discuss the history of linguistics and nineteenth-century work that argues for the consideration of the sociohistorical contexts in which Creole languages emerged.
To the defense of DeGraff and Wittmann it must be said that McWhorter's 2005 book is a collection of previously published papers and that it contains nothing on "defining creole", Manding, Sooninke or Magoua that wasn't already known when DeGraff and Wittmann published their critiques as can be seen from their published debate (see list at the end of http://homepage.mac.com/noula/ling/1999a-prototype.html). As it is, McWhorter's book does not offer anything new by the way of analysis of Manding, Soninke, or Magoua that wasn't already debated on in his exchange with Wittmann on Creolist.http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=CREOLIST&P=R6278&D=0&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=CREOLIST&P=R12834&D=0&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=CREOLIST&P=R14907&D=0&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=CREOLIST&P=R20843&D=0&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=CREOLIST&P=R21590&D=0&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9909&L=CREOLIST&P=R4629&D=0&I=-3 The issues in question are, at this point, unresolved as to sustaining McWhorter's hypotheses in any significant way though DeGraff's 2005 contribution addresses their weaknesses as far as Haitian Creole is concerned adding new evidence against. The only conclusion possibly so far as the typological differences between Manding, Soninke, Magoua and Haitian are concerned is that their comparative data do not confirm McWhorter's yardstick approach to defining creole.
language when warranted by a homogeneous substrate (John Singler 1988). In other cases, the modified source language clearly is what creolists identify as the superstrate language (Wittmann 2001); and in still other cases, no single source language might be identifiable (DeGraff 2001). The same approach must be applied to identifying indiviual features as inherited or non-inherited and to distilling the defining grounds which separate creole languages from mixed language
s such as Michif, especially when relexification
is somehow claimed to be a moving factor (Wittmann 1973, Singler 1996, Wittmann & Fournier 1996, DeGraff 2002).
The answer might also be, however, that creole languages (i.e. like Haitian Creole) are indeed a unique in terms of the perspective that they offer on the human language competence in terms of the nature of their grammars though there have been no new responses to the counter-claims of DeGraff and Wittmann that would warrant the reopening of the debate as for now. However, Ansaldo, Matthews, & Lim (2007) critically assesses the proposal that creole languages exist as a homogeneous structural type with shared and/ or peculiar origins.
Though the call for a sane approach to creolistics goes back to Givón (1979), the first unbiased overview of the scientifically meaningful characteristics of creole languages must go to the credit of Arends, Muysken & Smith (1995). In their account of approaches to creole genesis, they group theories into four categories:
and confine Pidgins and Mixed languages into separate chapters outside this scheme whether relexification come into the picture or not.
Creole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
s and, as such, is a subfield of linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
. Someone who engages in this study is called a creolist.
Controversy
Creolistics investigates the relative creoleness of languages suspected to be creoles, what calls "the clineCline
Cline, as spelled, is an Irish surname with historical roots in County Roscommon.People bearing the name include:* Catherine Ann Cline , American historian and author* Edward Cline , American screenwriter and director...
of creoleness." No consensus exists among creolists as to whether the nature of creoleness is prototypical or merely evidence indicative of a set of recognizable phenomena seen in association with little inherent unity and no underlying single cause.
"Creole", a sociohistoric concept
Creoleness is at the heart of the controversy with John McWhorterJohn McWhorter
John Hamilton McWhorter V is an American linguist and political commentator. He is the author of a number of books on language and on race relations. His linguistic specialty is creole and the process through which it forms.-Early life:...
and Mikael Parkvall opposing Henri Wittmann
Henri Wittmann
Henri Wittmann is a Canadian linguist from Quebec. He is best known for his work on Quebec French.-Biography:Henri Wittmann was born in Alsace in 1937...
(1999) and Michel DeGraff. In McWhorter's definition, creoleness is a matter of degree, in that prototypical creoles exhibit all three of the traits he proposes to diagnose creoleness, whereas less prototypical ones depart somewhat from the prototype
Prototype
A prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
. Along these lines, McWhorter defines Haitian Creole, exhibiting all three traits, as "the most creole of creoles." A creole like Palenquero
Palenquero
Palenquero is a Spanish-based creole language spoken in Colombia. Palenquero is the only Spanish-based creole in Latin America. The ethnic group which speaks this Creole consists only of 3,000 people,...
, on the other hand, would be less prototypical, given the presence of inflection to mark plural, past, gerund, and participle forms. Objections to the McWhorter-Parkvall hypotheses point out that the typological parameters of creoleness (little or no inflection
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
, little or no tone
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...
, transparent
Transparency (linguistic)
Linguistic transparency is a phrase which is used in multiple, overlapping subjects in the fields of linguistics and the philosophy of language...
derivation
Derivation
Derivation may refer to:* Derivation , a function on an algebra which generalizes certain features of the derivative operator* Derivation * Derivation in differential algebra, a unary function satisfying the Leibniz product law...
) can be found in languages such as Manding
Manding languages
The Manding languages are a fairly mutually intelligible group of dialects or languages in West Africa, belonging to the Mande languages. Their best-known members are Bambara, the most widely spoken language in Mali; Mandinka, the main language of Gambia; Maninka or Malinké, a major language of...
, Sooninke
Soninke language
The Soninke language is a Mande language spoken by the Soninke people of West Africa. The language has an estimated 1,096,795 speakers, primarily located in Mali, and also in Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea and Ghana...
and Magoua
Magoua
Magoua , which may derive from a word in an Algonquian language which means loon, is a particular dialect of basilectal Quebec French spoken in the Trois-Rivières area, between Trois-Rivières and Maskinongé. Long before a military fort was constructed there, Trois-Rivières became in 1615 the...
French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
which are not considered creoles. Wittmann and DeGraff come to the conclusion that efforts to conceive a yardstick
Yardstick
A yardstick is a straightedge used to physically measure lengths of up to a yard high. Yardsticks are flat wooden boards with markings at regular intervals.-Construction:...
for measuring creoleness in any scientifically meaningful way have failed so far. DeGraff & Walicek (2005) discuss creolistics in relation to colonialist
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
ideologies, rejecting the notion that Creoles can be responsibly defined in terms of specific grammatical characteristics. They discuss the history of linguistics and nineteenth-century work that argues for the consideration of the sociohistorical contexts in which Creole languages emerged.
"Creole", a genuine linguistic concept
On the other hand, McWhorter points out that in languages such as Bambara, essentially a dialect of Manding, there is ample non-transparent derivation, and that there is no reason to suppose that this would be absent in close relatives such as Mandinka itself. Moreover, he also observes that Soninke has what all linguists would analyze as inflections, and that current lexicography of Soninke is too elementary for it to be stated with authority that it does not have non-transparent derivation. Meanwhile, Magoua French, as described by Henri Wittmann, retains some indication of grammatical gender, which qualifies as inflection, and it also retains non-transparent derivation. Michel DeGraff's argument has been that Haitian Creole retains non-transparent derivation from French.To the defense of DeGraff and Wittmann it must be said that McWhorter's 2005 book is a collection of previously published papers and that it contains nothing on "defining creole", Manding, Sooninke or Magoua that wasn't already known when DeGraff and Wittmann published their critiques as can be seen from their published debate (see list at the end of http://homepage.mac.com/noula/ling/1999a-prototype.html). As it is, McWhorter's book does not offer anything new by the way of analysis of Manding, Soninke, or Magoua that wasn't already debated on in his exchange with Wittmann on Creolist.http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=CREOLIST&P=R6278&D=0&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=CREOLIST&P=R12834&D=0&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=CREOLIST&P=R14907&D=0&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=CREOLIST&P=R20843&D=0&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9908&L=CREOLIST&P=R21590&D=0&I=-3 http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9909&L=CREOLIST&P=R4629&D=0&I=-3 The issues in question are, at this point, unresolved as to sustaining McWhorter's hypotheses in any significant way though DeGraff's 2005 contribution addresses their weaknesses as far as Haitian Creole is concerned adding new evidence against. The only conclusion possibly so far as the typological differences between Manding, Soninke, Magoua and Haitian are concerned is that their comparative data do not confirm McWhorter's yardstick approach to defining creole.
Proposed synthesis
The answer might be that creoleness is better described and referred to as a syndrome. In some cases, the modified source language might be the substrateSubstratum
In linguistics, a stratum or strate is a language that influences, or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum is a language which has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum is the language that has higher power or prestige. Both substratum and superstratum...
language when warranted by a homogeneous substrate (John Singler 1988). In other cases, the modified source language clearly is what creolists identify as the superstrate language (Wittmann 2001); and in still other cases, no single source language might be identifiable (DeGraff 2001). The same approach must be applied to identifying indiviual features as inherited or non-inherited and to distilling the defining grounds which separate creole languages from mixed language
Mixed language
A mixed language is a language that arises through the fusion of two source languages, normally in situations of thorough bilingualism, so that it is not possible to classify the resulting language as belonging to either of the language families that were its source...
s such as Michif, especially when relexification
Relexification
Relexification is a term in linguistics used to describe the mechanism of language change by which one language replaces much or all of its lexicon, including basic vocabulary, with that of another language, without drastic change to its grammar. It is principally used to describe pidgins, creoles,...
is somehow claimed to be a moving factor (Wittmann 1973, Singler 1996, Wittmann & Fournier 1996, DeGraff 2002).
The answer might also be, however, that creole languages (i.e. like Haitian Creole) are indeed a unique in terms of the perspective that they offer on the human language competence in terms of the nature of their grammars though there have been no new responses to the counter-claims of DeGraff and Wittmann that would warrant the reopening of the debate as for now. However, Ansaldo, Matthews, & Lim (2007) critically assesses the proposal that creole languages exist as a homogeneous structural type with shared and/ or peculiar origins.
Though the call for a sane approach to creolistics goes back to Givón (1979), the first unbiased overview of the scientifically meaningful characteristics of creole languages must go to the credit of Arends, Muysken & Smith (1995). In their account of approaches to creole genesis, they group theories into four categories:
- Theories focusing on the EuropeEuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an input - Theories focusing on the non-European input
- Gradualist and developmentalDevelopmental linguisticsDevelopmental linguistics is the study of the development of linguistic ability in an individual, particularly the acquisition of language in childhood...
hyptheses - Universalist approaches
and confine Pidgins and Mixed languages into separate chapters outside this scheme whether relexification come into the picture or not.