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Author: John McWhorter
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2000-07-03
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13: 0520219996
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA controversial new analysis of the development of New World creole languages among slaves. Mc Whorter makes a vast amount of new data available in his book, and posits that New World creole languages developed in West Africa, not on the plantations in the New World.
Author: John H. McWhorter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2005-02-03
Total Pages: 444
ISBN-13: 0195347234
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA 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.
Author: Luis A. Ortiz López
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Published: 2020-02-14
Total Pages: 346
ISBN-13: 9027261717
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume comprises cutting edge research on language contact and change. The chapters present a wide scope of settings in which Spanish is in contact with other languages, such as Catalan, English, and Quechua; a large breadth of geographical areas (e.g., United States, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina); and varied participant groups, ranging from dialect contacts, second-language learners and heritage speakers to balanced bilinguals and code-switchers. Taken together, the chapters provide rich empirical descriptions of data pertaining to different levels of language, diverse – naturalistic and experimental – methodological approaches to data collection, as well as theoretical implications of the findings. The interdisciplinary perspective adopted by the authors contributes to the linguistic analysis and offers important insights into theoretical linguistics in general, and into theories of sociolinguistics, language variation, bilingualism, and second language acquisition.
Author: Umberto Ansaldo
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-11-29
Total Pages: 538
ISBN-13: 1000221482
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Routledge Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Languages offers a state-of-the-art collection of original contributions in the area of Pidgin and Creole studies. Providing unique and equal coverage of nearly all parts of the world where such languages are found, as well as situating each area within a rich socio-historical context, this book presents fresh and diverse interdisciplinary perspectives from leading voices in the field. Divided into three sections, its analysis covers: Space and place – areal perspective on pidgin and creole languages Usage, function and power – sociolinguistic and artistic perspectives on pidgins and creoles, creoles as sociocultural phenomena Framing of the study of pidgin and creole languages – history of the field, interdisciplinary connections Demonstrating how fundamentally human and natural these communication systems are, how rich in expressive power and sophisticated in their complexity, The Routledge Handbook of Pidgin and Creole Languages is an essential reference for anyone with an interest in this area.
Author: John H. McWhorter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2005-02-03
Total Pages: 444
ISBN-13: 0190290404
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA 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.
Author: Nicholas Faraclas
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Published: 2012-06-12
Total Pages: 262
ISBN-13: 9027273790
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book is a ‘must read’ for those who are looking for fresh perspectives on the process of creolization of language. Focusing on peoples whose agency has too often been rendered invisible in colonial and neo-colonial history and on voices which have too often been silenced in linguistic accounts of creole genesis, this volume considers socio-historical and linguistic evidence that attests to the important roles played in the emergence of the Atlantic and Pacific Creoles by marginalized populations, such as women and people of non-European descent. In this work, the authors amass and critically analyze a wealth of compelling data not only from phonology, morpho-syntax, pragmatics, and descriptive, theoretical, and applied linguistics, but also from history, economics, political science, sociology, anthropology, and critical theory to demonstrate how enterprising women, rebellious slaves, insubordinate sailors, and a host of other renegades and maroons had a major impact on the creolized societies, cultures, and languages of the colonial era Atlantic and Pacific.
Author: Viveka Velupillai
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Published: 2015-04-15
Total Pages: 629
ISBN-13: 9027268843
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis lucid and theory-neutral introduction to the study of pidgins, creoles and mixed languages covers both theoretical and empirical issues pertinent to the field of contact linguistics. Part I presents the theoretical background, with chapters devoted to the definition of terms, the sociohistorical settings, theories on the genesis of pidgins and creoles, as well as discussions on language variation and the sociology of language. Part II empirically tests assumptions made about the linguistic characteristics of pidgins and creoles by systematically comparing them with other natural languages in all linguistic domains. This is the first introduction that consistently applies the findings of the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures and systematically includes extended pidgins and mixed languages in the discussion of each linguistic feature. The book is designed for students of courses with a focus on pidgins, creoles and mixed languages, as well as typologically oriented courses on contact linguistics.
Author: John H. McWhorter
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2018-05-17
Total Pages: 182
ISBN-13: 1108601936
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCreoles have long been the subject of debate in linguistics, with many conflicting views, both on how they are formed, and what their political and linguistic status should be. Indeed, over the past twenty years, some creole specialists have argued that it has been wrong to think of creoles as anything but language blends in the same way that Yiddish is a blend of German and Hebrew and Slavic. Here, John H. McWhorter debunks the most widely accepted idea that creoles are created in the same way as 'children', taking characteristics from both 'parent' languages, and its underlying assumption that all historical and biological processes are the same. Instead, the facts support the original, and more interesting, argument that creoles are their own unique entity and are among the world's only genuinely new languages.
Author: Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Published: 2001-02-12
Total Pages: 500
ISBN-13: 9027275459
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBasic 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.
Author: John McWhorter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2007-06-18
Total Pages: 304
ISBN-13: 0190294930
DOWNLOAD EBOOKForeigners often say that English language is "easy." A language like Spanish is challenging in its variety of verb endings (the verb speak is conjugated hablo, hablas, hablamos), and gender for nouns, whereas English is more straight forward (I speak, you speak, we speak). But linguists generally swat down claims that certain languages are "easier" than others, since it is assumed all languages are complex to the same degree. For example, they will point to English's use of the word "do" -- Do you know French? This usage is counter-intuitive and difficult for non-native speakers. Linguist John McWhorter agrees that all languages are complex, but questions whether or not they are all equally complex. The topic of complexity has become a hot issue in recent years, particularly in creole studies, historical linguistics, and language contact. As McWhorter describes, when languages came into contact over the years (when French speakers ruled the English for a few centuries, or the vikings invaded England), a large number of speakers are forced to learn a new language quickly, and this came up with a simplified version, a pidgin. When this ultimately turns into a "real" language, a creole, the result is still simpler and less complex than a "non-interrupted" language that has been around for a long time. McWhorter makes the case that this kind of simplification happens in degrees, and criticizes linguists who are reluctant to say that, for example, English is simply simpler than Spanish for socio-historical reasons. He analyzes how various languages that seem simple but are not creoles, actually are simpler than they would be if they had not been broken down by large numbers of adult learners. In addition to English, he looks at Mandarin Chinese, Persian, Malay, and some Arabic varieties. His work will interest not just experts in creole studies and historical linguistics, but the wider community interested in language complexity.
