PIDGINS AND CREOLS

PIDGINS AND CREOLES:

In some areas of the world, a standard language is chosen which is actually a variety or a version of language which is not a known language to the natives of the area. For example in Papua New Guinea, a lot of official business is conducted in Tok Pisin which is not a native language but it is used by a million of people.  

PIDGINS: 

A pidgin is a variety of a language that developed for some practical purpose, such as trading, among groups of people who had a lot of contact, but who did not know each other’s languages. Thus making it having no native speakers. The word ‘pidgin’ comes from the Chinese version of English word ‘business’.

If a pidgin has the lexifier language (main source of words in a pidgin) English than it is described as “English Pidgin”. But the words taken will not necessary have the same pronunciation or meaning of the lexifier language. Example: the word gras of Tok Pisin is taken from the English word grass, but the meaning is different and is connoted for hair. It has derivations like mousgras (moustache) and gras bilong fes (beard).

Many pidgins are used till today too. They are characterized by the limited vocabulary and absence of complex grammatical morphology. The inflectional suffixes like –s and –‘s on nouns in the Standard English are rare in pidgins. But structures like tu buk (two books) and di gyal place( the girl’s place) is present.

 Functional morphemes take place of the inflectional morpheme like you to your, but the form like bilong is used to change the word order and make a phrase like buk bilong yu.

The syntax of the pidgin language is not like the ones from which the pidgin has been modified from.  Bainbai hed bilongyu i-arrait gain it means your head will soon get well again.

CREOLE:

When a pidgin develops with time and it used for more than trade and contact purposes is called a Creole. The basic factor for a pidgin to transform into Creole is that the pidgin has to become the first language of the population or a social community using the Pidgin. Examples of pidgins evolving into creole is Tok Pisin itself, other is Hawai’i Creole English.

A pidgin evolves into creoles when the children or upcoming generation of the pidgin community take the pidgin language as their first language, forming more and complex forms of the language. There is a lot of coinage involved in creolization too. A plus point for Creole is that it cannot be only spoken by native speakers and it can be spread out to other communities too. A creole of English is spoken in Jamaica and Sierra Leone and French Creole in Haiti.

The vocabulary items which were used in pidgins are modified to grammatical elements. Example: Baimbai yu go in pidgin form was shortened to bai yu go and finally into yu bigo, which is an English equivalent to ‘you will go’. 

Post-Creole Continuum:

Where the use of creole is involved, there must be some development in its use constantly. It is explained like the development from pidgin to creole is called creolization. In counter to this development there is a retreat from the use of creole by those who have a greater contact with the standard variety of the lexifier language.  This is called decreolization.

The reason behind this process is the number of speakers having social prestige or reach to better education will tend to speak the standard form of the language from which the pidgin was at the first place taken. This process paves way for two extremes. One towards a variety closer to external standard model and the other towards a more localized variety of creole. But in between these two extremities, there lie a range of slightly different varieties of evolving after the creole has come into existence is called post-creole continuum. It is very common for the creole natives to use all the different varieties in different situations. Example:

Basic Creole: fi mi buk dat (basilect)

Continuum: iz mi buk (mesolect)

Standard: it’s my book (acrolect).

                    BASILECT-----⃗ MESOLECT----⃗ACROLECT

                   -----------------------------------------------------------

                                            ⃗ Decreolization.

It is quite evident that these differences and its use are completely social in nature where the person has to keep in place social values and social identity.