Defining Creole
Defining Creole

Author: John H. McWhorter

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2005-02-03

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 0195347234

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A conventional wisdom among creolists is that creole is a sociohistorical term only: that creole languages share a particular history entailing adults rapidly acquiring a language usually under conditions of subordination, but that structurally they are indistinguishable from other languages. The articles by John H. McWhorter collected in this volume demonstrate that this is in fact untrue. Creole languages, while complex and nuanced as all human languages are, are delineable from older languages as the result of their having come into existence only a few centuries ago. Then adults learn a language under untutored conditions, they abbreviate its structure, focusing upon features vital to communication and shaving away most of the features useless to communication that bedevil those acquiring the language non-natively. When they utilize their rendition of the language consistently enough to create a brand-new one, this new creation naturally evinces evidence of its youth: specifically, a much lower degree of the random accretions typical in older languages, which only develop over vast periods of time. The articles constitute a case for this thesis based on both broad, cross-creole ranges of data and focused expositions referring to single creole languages. The book presents a general case for a theory of language contact and creolization in which not only transfer from source languages but also structural reduction plays a central role, based on facts whose marginality of address in creole studies has arisen from issues sociopolitical as well as scientific. For several decades the very definition of the term creole has been elusive even among creole specialists. This book attempts to forge a path beyond the inter- and intra-disciplinary misunderstandings and stalemates that have resulted from this, and to demonstrate the place that creoles might occupy in other linguistic subfields, including typology, language contact, and syntactic theory.

Defining Creole
Defining Creole

Author: John H. McWhorter

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 9780195166699

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This volume gathers the last ten years worth of published articles on creole languages and their origins by John H. McWhorter, a unique and often controversial scholar in the field.

Degrees of Restructuring in Creole Languages
Degrees of Restructuring in Creole Languages

Author: Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 499

ISBN-13: 9027252440

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Basic notions in the field of creole studies, including the category of “creole languages” itself, have been questioned in recent years: Can creoles be defined on structural or on purely sociohistorical grounds? Can creolization be understood as a graded process, possibly resulting in different degrees of “radicalness” and intermediate language types (“semi-creoles”)? If so, by which linguistic structures are these characterized, and by which extralinguistic conditions have they been brought about? Which are the linguistic mechanisms underlying processes of restructuring, and how did grammaticalization and reanalysis shape the reorganization of linguistic, specifically morphosyntactic structures commonly called “creolization”? What is the role of language contact, language mixing, substrates and superstrates, or demographic factors in these processes? This volume provides select and revised papers from a 1998 colloquium at the University of Regensburg in which these questions were addressed. 19 contributions by renowned scholars discuss structural, sociohistorical and theoretical aspects, building upon case studies of both Romance-based and English-oriented creoles. This book marks a major step forward in our understanding of the nature of creolization.

Defining Creole
Defining Creole

Author: John H. McWhorter

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2005-02-03

Total Pages: 444

ISBN-13: 0190290404

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A conventional wisdom among creolists is that creole is a sociohistorical term only: that creole languages share a particular history entailing adults rapidly acquiring a language usually under conditions of subordination, but that structurally they are indistinguishable from other languages. The articles by John H. McWhorter collected in this volume demonstrate that this is in fact untrue. Creole languages, while complex and nuanced as all human languages are, are delineable from older languages as the result of their having come into existence only a few centuries ago. Then adults learn a language under untutored conditions, they abbreviate its structure, focusing upon features vital to communication and shaving away most of the features useless to communication that bedevil those acquiring the language non-natively. When they utilize their rendition of the language consistently enough to create a brand-new one, this new creation naturally evinces evidence of its youth: specifically, a much lower degree of the random accretions typical in older languages, which only develop over vast periods of time. The articles constitute a case for this thesis based on both broad, cross-creole ranges of data and focused expositions referring to single creole languages. The book presents a general case for a theory of language contact and creolization in which not only transfer from source languages but also structural reduction plays a central role, based on facts whose marginality of address in creole studies has arisen from issues sociopolitical as well as scientific. For several decades the very definition of the term creole has been elusive even among creole specialists. This book attempts to forge a path beyond the inter- and intra-disciplinary misunderstandings and stalemates that have resulted from this, and to demonstrate the place that creoles might occupy in other linguistic subfields, including typology, language contact, and syntactic theory.

Imagining the Creole City
Imagining the Creole City

Author: Rien Fertel

Publisher: LSU Press

Published: 2014-11-17

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0807158259

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In the early years of the nineteenth century, the burgeoning cultural pride of white Creoles in New Orleans intersected with America's golden age of print, to explosive effect. Imagining the Creole City reveals the profusion of literary output -- histories and novels, poetry and plays -- that white Creoles used to imagine themselves as a unified community of writers and readers. Rien Fertel argues that Charles Gayarré's English-language histories of Louisiana, which emphasized the state's dual connection to America and to France, provided the foundation of a white Creole print culture predicated on Louisiana's exceptionalism. The writings of authors like Grace King, Adrien Rouquette, and Alfred Mercier consciously fostered an image of Louisiana as a particular social space, and of themselves as the true inheritors of its history and culture. In turn, the forging of this white Creole identity created a close-knit community of cosmopolitan Creole elites, who reviewed each other's books, attended the same salons, crusaded against the popular fiction of George Washington Cable, and worked together to preserve the French language in local and state governmental institutions. Together they reimagined the definition of "Creole" and used it as a marker of status and power. By the end of this group's era of cultural prominence, Creole exceptionalism had become a cornerstone in the myth of Louisiana in general and of New Orleans in particular. In defining themselves, the authors in the white Creole print community also fashioned a literary identity that resonates even today.

Dictionary of Louisiana Creole
Dictionary of Louisiana Creole

Author: Albert Valdman

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 668

ISBN-13: 9780253334510

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This important reference work has been compiled from existing written sources dating back to 1850 and from material collected in Bayou Teche, the German Coast, Pointe Coupee, and St. Tammany Parish. The Dictionary Features: an informative User's Guide, including details on orthography and the design of the dictionary articles; a grammatical sketch of the language; a guide to variant pronunciations; English and French meaning equivalents; creole contextual examples; identification of where examples were collected, with special notation for historical items (i.e., pre-1960); two indexes: a French-Creole index and an English-Creole index; and rich cultural information, with many examples of folklore, traditional medicine, religious beliefs, and agricultural practices.

White by Definition
White by Definition

Author: Virginia R. Domínguez

Publisher:

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13:

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"An unusual and powerful study."--Eric R. Wolf, Herbert H. Lehman College, CUNY "A profound study of the nebulous Creoles. . . . Domínguez's use of original sources . . . is scholarship at its best. . . . Her study is fascinating, thought-provoking, controversial, and without a doubt, one of the most objective analyses of Creole Louisiana. Her emphasis on social stratification and her excellent integration of ethnic and racial classification of Creoles with legal and social dynamics and individual choice of ethnic identity elucidates strikingly the continuing controversy of who and what is a Louisiana Creole."--Journal of American Ethnic History "Domínguez's most important contribution lies in her conceptualization of the problem of identity. She treats ethnic identity as something that can change over time, warning us against imposing current meanings on the past and requiring us to consider evidence of how terms were actually used in the past. . . . It is hard to imagine a frame of reference more ideally suited to historical analysis."--Louisiana History "A valuable interdisciplinary examination of the processes of racial definition in Louisiana's history. Her study combines the anthropologist's sensitivity to language and self definition within a community with a skillful exploitation of historical sources."--Law and Society "I highly recommend this book to all persons interested in social stratification."--Alvin L. Bertrand, Contemporary Sociology "A vivid and insightful reading of the historical circumstances that have shaped definitions of Creoles within Louisiana law and society."--Journal of Southern History "A provocative, often brilliant book. It offers fresh perspectives on fundamental questions and deserves a wide readership among American social historians."--Journal of American History

The Creole Debate
The Creole Debate

Author: John H. McWhorter

Publisher:

Published: 2018-05-17

Total Pages: 181

ISBN-13: 1108428649

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A compelling argument for why creoles are their own unique entity, which have developed independently of other processes of language development and change.

Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago
Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago

Author: Lise Winer

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2009-01-16

Total Pages: 1072

ISBN-13: 077357607X

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Using the historical principles of the Oxford English Dictionary, Lise Winer presents the first scholarly dictionary of this unique language. The dictionary comprises over 12,200 entries, including over 4500 for flora and fauna alone, with numerous cross-references. Entries include definitions, alternative spellings, pronunciations, etymologies, grammatical information, and illustrative citations of usage. Winer draws from a wide range of sources - newspapers, literature, scientific reports, sound recordings of songs and interviews, spoken language - to provide a wealth and depth of language, clearly situated within a historical, cultural, and social context.