Language contact: pidgins & Creoles

Easy

100

What are pidgins?

It is the product of a multilingual situation

200

Situations of Pidgins

To improvise a simple language system that will

enable them to do so.

300

How are they formed?

Neither of the speakers know the other’s language.

400

What is a creole?

 A pidgin that has become the first language of a new generation of speakers

500

Languages that are Pidgins and Creoles

Hawaiian creole, jamaican creole, cameroon pidgin english

More or Less

100

What does the superstratum?

supplies most of vocabulary 

200

Pidgins is the link among...

non-European speakers

300

When can a pidgin die?

When the interactions that they serve end.

400

Characteristics of Pidgins & Creoles

• Lexis (vocabulary)
• Pronunciation
• Grammar
• Social Functions

500

Mention one characteristic of grammar 

• Five vowel sounds: / i e a o u /
• Simplification of consonant clusters
• Conflation of consonant sounds
• Larger number of homophones

Expert

100

SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF PIDGINS

As contact languages, used for minimal communication purposes

200

SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF CREOLES

• Oral and written literature
• Education
• Mass media
• Advertising
• Religion

300

Creole Developments in the UK

London Jamaican

• Patois of British blacks
• Origins in the Caribbean
• Spoken by London-born youth
• Reflects process of re-creolization (shift back to
• earlier forms of the creole)
• Also spoken by young whites, Asians
• “Language crossing” – use of minority varieties by ethnic outgroups

400

Jamaican creole Grammatical Features

Interchangeable pronouns - /em/ = “he, she, it, him, her,” etc.

500

What is AAE?

african american english