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85-674: Asan derives its name from the Chamorro word hassan meaning scarce or rare. One meaning of the word ma’ina refers to an infant who, between the time of birth and baptism , is taken by the mother to Mass before sunrise. This old ritual was considered analogous to and in imitation of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple . On July 21, 1944, the Americans landed in Asan to recapture

170-450: A pidgin , developed by adults for use as a second language, becomes the native and primary language of their children – a process known as nativization . The pidgin -creole life cycle was studied by American linguist Robert Hall in the 1960s. Some linguists, such as Derek Bickerton, posit that creoles share more grammatical similarities with each other than with the languages from which they are phylogenetically derived. However, there

255-758: A 17th-century koiné French extant in Paris , the French Atlantic harbors, and the nascent French colonies. Supporters of this hypothesis suggest that the non-Creole French dialects still spoken in many parts of the Americas share mutual descent from this single koiné. These dialects are found in Canada (mostly in Québec and in Acadian communities), Louisiana , Saint-Barthélemy and as isolates in other parts of

340-461: A European language, often indentured servants whose language would be far from the standard in the first place, interacted extensively with non-European slaves , absorbing certain words and features from the slaves' non-European native languages, resulting in a heavily basilectalized version of the original language. These servants and slaves would come to use the creole as an everyday vernacular, rather than merely in situations in which contact with

425-668: A Guamanian Chamorro might consider the form used by NMI Chamorros to be archaic. Representatives from Guam have unsuccessfully lobbied the United States to take action to promote and protect the language. In 2013, "Guam will be instituting Public Law 31–45 , which increases the teaching of the Chamorro language and culture in Guam schools", extending instruction to include grades 7–10. Other efforts have been made in recent times, most notably Chamorro immersion schools. One example

510-422: A beach head. During the following week, Americans pursued retreating Japanese forces northward and eventually won the battle. From April to November 1975 the former Camp Asan was used as a refugee camp for South Vietnamese refugees during Operation New Life . On August 6, 1997, Korean Air Flight 801 crashed east of Nimitz Hill Annex in Asan. A memorial was later constructed. The U.S. Census Bureau counts

595-550: A closed syllable ( *peResi → fokse "squeeze out", but afok "lime" → afuki "put lime on"). The phonemic split between / ɑ / and / æ / is still unexplained. Diphthongs *ay and *aw are still retained in Chamorro, while *uy has become i . If a word started with a vowel or *h (but not *q ), then prothesis with gw or g (before o or u ) occurred: *aku → gwahu "I (emphatic)", *enem → gunum "six". Additionally, *-iaC , *-ua(C) , and *-auC have become -iyaC , -ugwa(C) , and -agoC respectively. Chamorro

680-451: A creole language from a pidgin. Creolistics, or creology, is the study of creole languages and, as such, is a subfield of linguistics . Someone who engages in this study is called a creolist. The precise number of creole languages is not known, particularly as many are poorly attested or documented. About one hundred creole languages have arisen since 1500. These are predominantly based on European languages such as English and French due to

765-405: A creole language is largely supplied by the parent languages, particularly that of the most dominant group in the social context of the creole's construction. However, there are often clear phonetic and semantic shifts. On the other hand, the grammar that has evolved often has new or unique features that differ substantially from those of the parent languages. A creole is believed to arise when

850-545: A full-fledged language with native speakers , all within a fairly brief period. While the concept is similar to that of a mixed or hybrid language , creoles are often characterized by a tendency to systematize their inherited grammar (e.g., by eliminating irregularities or regularizing the conjugation of otherwise irregular verbs). Like any language, creoles are characterized by a consistent system of grammar , possess large stable vocabularies, and are acquired by children as their native language. These three features distinguish

935-447: A high level of mutual intelligibility with Spanish. It is reported that even in the early 1920s, Spanish was reported to be a living language in Guam for commercial transactions, but the use of Spanish and Chamorro was rapidly declining as a result of English pressure. Spanish influences in Chamorro exist due to three centuries of Spanish colonial rule. Many words in the Chamorro lexicon are of Latin etymological origin via Spanish, but

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1020-751: A more recent view, Parkvall (2000) . Because of the sociohistoric similarities amongst many (but by no means all) of the creoles, the Atlantic slave trade and the plantation system of the European colonies have been emphasized as factors by linguists such as McWhorter (1999) . One class of creoles might start as pidgins , rudimentary second languages improvised for use between speakers of two or more non-intelligible native languages. Keith Whinnom (in Hymes (1971) ) suggests that pidgins need three languages to form, with one (the superstrate) being clearly dominant over

1105-484: A pidgin: McWhorter argues that the absence of these three features is predictable in languages that were born recently of a pidgin, since learning them would constitute a distinct challenge to the non-native speaker. Over the course of generations, however, such features would be expected to gradually (re-)appear, and therefore "many creoles would harbor departures from the Prototype identifiable as having happened after

1190-453: A rationale of lexical enrichment. Universalist models stress the intervention of specific general processes during the transmission of language from generation to generation and from speaker to speaker. The process invoked varies: a general tendency towards semantic transparency , first- language learning driven by universal process, or a general process of discourse organization . Bickerton's language bioprogram theory , proposed in

1275-405: A second language for informal conversation. As demonstrated by the fate of many replaced European languages (such as Etruscan , Breton , and Venetian ), the influence of the substrate on the official speech is often limited to pronunciation and a modest number of loanwords. The substrate might even disappear altogether without leaving any trace. However, there is dispute over the extent to which

1360-405: A simpler grammar than Saramaccan , the language McWhorter uses as a showcase for his theory. The same objections were raised by Wittmann in his 1999 debate with McWhorter. The lack of progress made in defining creoles in terms of their morphology and syntax has led scholars such as Robert Chaudenson , Salikoko Mufwene , Michel DeGraff , and Henri Wittmann to question the value of creole as

1445-496: A single Mediterranean Lingua Franca , via a West African Pidgin Portuguese of the seventeenth century, relexified in the so-called "slave factories " of Western Africa that were the source of the Atlantic slave trade . This theory was originally formulated by Hugo Schuchardt in the late nineteenth century and popularized in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Taylor, Whinnom, Thompson, and Stewart. However, this hypothesis

1530-444: A small child, it is also sometimes called baby talk . Arends, Muysken & Smith (1995) suggest that four different processes are involved in creating Foreigner Talk: This could explain why creole languages have much in common, while avoiding a monogenetic model. However, Hinnenkamp (1984) , in analyzing German Foreigner Talk, claims that it is too inconsistent and unpredictable to provide any model for language learning. While

1615-453: A speaker of the superstrate was necessary. The English term creole comes from French créole , which is cognate with the Spanish term criollo and Portuguese crioulo , all descending from the verb criar ('to breed' or 'to raise'), all coming from Latin creare ' to produce, create ' . The specific sense of the term was coined in the 16th and 17th century, during

1700-445: A typological class; they argue that creoles are structurally no different from any other language, and that creole is a sociohistoric concept – not a linguistic one – encompassing displaced populations and slavery. Thomason & Kaufman (1988) spell out the idea of creole exceptionalism, claiming that creole languages are an instance of nongenetic language change due to language shift with abnormal transmission. Gradualists question

1785-458: Is Huråo Guåhan Academy at Chamorro Village in downtown Hagåtña. This program is led by Ann Marie Arceo and her husband, Ray. According to the academy's official YouTube page, "Huråo Academy is one if not the first Chamoru Immersion Schools that focus on the teaching of Chamoru language and Self-identity on Guam. Huråo was founded as a non-profit in June 2005." The academy has been praised by many for

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1870-473: Is a VSO or verb–subject–object language. However, the word order can be very flexible and change to SVO ( subject-verb-object ), like English, if necessary to convey different types of relative clauses depending on context and to stress parts of what someone is trying to say or convey. Again, that is subject to debate as those on Guam believe the Chamorro word order is flexible, but those in the NMI do not. Chamorro

1955-590: Is a chart of Chamorro consonants; all are unaspirated. Words containing *-VC_CV- in Proto-Malayo-Polynesian were often syncopated to *-VCCV- . This is most regular for words containing middle *ə ( schwa ), e.g. *qaləjaw → atdaw "sun", but sometimes also with other vowels, e.g. * qanitu → anti "soul, spirit, ghost". Then after this syncope, older *ə merged with u . Later, *i and *u were lowered to e and o in closed syllables ( *demdem → homhom "dark"), or finally but preceded by

2040-552: Is a universal phenomenon, not limited to the European colonial period, and an important aspect of language evolution. Other scholars, such as Salikoko Mufwene , argue that pidgins and creoles arise independently under different circumstances, and that a pidgin need not always precede a creole nor a creole evolve from a pidgin. Pidgins, according to Mufwene, emerged in trade colonies among "users who preserved their native vernaculars for their day-to-day interactions". Creoles, meanwhile, developed in settlement colonies in which speakers of

2125-430: Is also an agglutinative language , whose grammar allows root words to be modified by a number of affixes . For example, masanganenñaihon 'talked a while (with/to)', passive marking prefix ma- , root verb sangan , referential suffix i 'to' (forced morphophonemically to change to e ) with excrescent consonant n , and suffix ñaihon 'a short amount of time'. Thus Masanganenñaihon guiʼ 'He/she

2210-544: Is an Austronesian language spoken by about 58,000 people, numbering about 25,800 on Guam and about 32,200 in the Northern Mariana Islands and elsewhere. It is the historic native language of the Chamorro people , who are indigenous to the Mariana Islands , although it is less commonly spoken today than in the past. Chamorro has three distinct dialects : Guamanian, Rotanese, and that in

2295-632: Is no widely accepted theory that would account for those perceived similarities. Moreover, no grammatical feature has been shown to be specific to creoles. Many of the creoles known today arose in the last 500 years, as a result of the worldwide expansion of European maritime power and trade in the Age of Discovery , which led to extensive European colonial empires . Like most non-official and minority languages, creoles have generally been regarded in popular opinion as degenerate variants or dialects of their parent languages. Because of that prejudice, many of

2380-616: Is now not widely accepted, since it relies on all creole-speaking slave populations being based on the same Portuguese-based creole, despite no to very little historical exposure to Portuguese for many of these populations, no strong direct evidence for this claim, and with Portuguese leaving almost no trace on the lexicon of most of them, with the similarities in grammar explainable by analogous processes of loss of inflection and grammatical forms not common to European and West African languages. For example, Bickerton (1977) points out that relexification postulates too many improbabilities and that it

2465-473: Is typologically closer to French than to other Germanic languages. Thus the claimed similarities between creoles may be mere consequences of similar parentage, rather than characteristic features of all creoles. There are a variety of theories on the origin of creole languages, all of which attempt to explain the similarities among them. Arends, Muysken & Smith (1995) outline a fourfold classification of explanations regarding creole genesis: In addition to

2550-404: Is unlikely that a language "could be disseminated round the entire tropical zone, to peoples of widely differing language background, and still preserve a virtually complete identity in its grammatical structure wherever it took root, despite considerable changes in its phonology and virtually complete changes in its lexicon". Proposed by Hancock (1985) for the origin of English-based creoles of

2635-409: The kareta. car Ha faʼgåsi si Juan i kareta. 3sSA wash PND Juan the car 'Juan washed the car.' Håyi who? fumaʼgåsi Creole language A creole language , or simply creole , is a stable natural language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form (often a pidgin ), and then that form expanding and elaborating into

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2720-612: The Americas , western Africa , Goa along the west of India , and along Southeast Asia up to Indonesia , Singapore , Macau , Hong Kong , the Philippines , Malaysia , Mauritius , Réunion, Seychelles and Oceania . Many of those creoles are now extinct, but others still survive in the Caribbean , the north and east coasts of South America ( The Guyanas ), western Africa , Australia (see Australian Kriol language ),

2805-551: The Philippines (see Chavacano ), Island Countries such as Mauritius and Seychelles and in the Indian Ocean . Atlantic Creole languages are based on European languages with elements from African and possibly Amerindian languages . Indian Ocean Creole languages are based on European languages with elements from Malagasy and possibly other Asian languages. There are, however, creoles like Nubi and Sango that are derived solely from non-European languages. Because of

2890-482: The comparative method in historical linguistics and in creolistics . Because of social, political, and academic changes brought on by decolonization in the second half of the 20th century, creole languages have experienced revivals in the past few decades. They are increasingly being used in print and film, and in many cases, their community prestige has improved dramatically. In fact, some have been standardized, and are used in local schools and universities around

2975-583: The languages of Europe , than among broader groups that include also creoles based on non- Indo-European languages (like Nubi or Sango). French-based creole languages in turn are more similar to each other (and to varieties of French) than to other European-based creoles. It was observed, in particular, that definite articles are mostly prenominal in English-based creole languages and English whereas they are generally postnominal in French creoles and in

3060-470: The variety of French that was exported to what is now Quebec in the 17th and 18th century . Moreover, the European languages which gave rise to the creole languages of European colonies all belong to the same subgroup of Western Indo-European and have highly convergent grammars; to the point that Whorf joined them into a single Standard Average European language group. French and English are particularly close, since English, through extensive borrowing,

3145-402: The 17th century and ended in the early 20th century, meant a profound change from the old Chamorro (paleo-Chamorro) to modern Chamorro (neo-Chamorro) in its grammar , phonology , and vocabulary . The Chamorro language is threatened, with a precipitous drop in language fluency over the past century. It is estimated that 75% of the population of Guam was literate in the Chamorro language around

3230-515: The 1980s, remains the main universalist theory. Bickerton claims that creoles are inventions of the children growing up on newly founded plantations . Around them, they only heard pidgins spoken, without enough structure to function as natural languages ; and the children used their own innate linguistic capacities to transform the pidgin input into a full-fledged language. The alleged common features of all creoles would then stem from those innate abilities being universal. The last decades have seen

3315-445: The Americas. Approaches under this hypothesis are compatible with gradualism in change and models of imperfect language transmission in koiné genesis. The Foreigner Talk (FT) hypothesis argues that a pidgin or creole language forms when native speakers attempt to simplify their language in order to address speakers who do not know their language at all. Because of the similarities found in this type of speech and speech directed to

3400-600: The Chamorro language even during the Spanish colonial era, but this was all to change with the advent of American imperialism and enforcement of the English language. In Guam, the language suffered additional suppression when the U.S. government banned the Chamorro language in schools and workplaces in 1922, destroying all Chamorro dictionaries. Similar policies were undertaken by the Japanese government when they controlled

3485-583: The Chamorro language, and island culture into an entertaining program. On TV, Nihi! Kids is a first-of-its-kind show, because it is targeted "for Guam's nenis that aims to perpetuate Chamoru language and culture while encouraging environmental stewardship, healthy choices and character development." In 2019, local news station KUAM News began a series of videos on their YouTube channel, featuring University of Guam's Dr. Michael Bevacqua . Chamorro has 24 phonemes : 18 are consonants and six are vowels . Chamorro has at least 6 vowels, which include: Below

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3570-520: The Chamorro lexicon comes from Spanish, whose contribution goes far beyond loanwords. Rodríguez-Ponga (1995) considers Chamorro to be either Spanish-Austronesian or a Spanish-Austronesian mixed language, or at least a language that has emerged from a process of contact and creolization on the island of Guam since modern Chamorro is influenced in vocabulary and has in its grammar many elements of Spanish origin: verbs , articles, prepositions , numerals , conjunctions , etc. The process, which began in

3655-553: The European Age of Discovery and the Atlantic slave trade that arose at that time. With the improvements in ship-building and navigation , traders had to learn to communicate with people around the world, and the quickest way to do this was to develop a pidgin; in turn, full creole languages developed from these pidgins. In addition to creoles that have European languages as their base, there are, for example, creoles based on Arabic , Chinese , and Malay . The lexicon of

3740-402: The European dialect origin hypothesis and the universalist models of language transmission. Theories focusing on the substrate, or non-European, languages attribute similarities amongst creoles to the similarities of African substrate languages. These features are often assumed to be transferred from the substrate language to the creole or to be preserved invariant from the substrate language in

3825-832: The Northern Mariana Islands (NMI), younger Chamorros speak the language fluently but prefer English when speaking to their children. Chamorro is common in Chamorro households in the Northern Marianas, but fluency has greatly decreased among Guamanian Chamorros during the years of American rule in favor of the American English commonplace throughout the Marianas. Today, NMI Chamorros and Guamanian Chamorros disagree strongly on each other's linguistic fluency. An NMI Chamorro would say Guamanian Chamorros speak "broken" Chamorro (i.e., incorrect), whereas

3910-579: The Spanish.... There was wholesale borrowing of Spanish words and phrases into Chamorro, and there was even some borrowing from the Spanish sound system. But this borrowing was linguistically superficial. The bones of the Chamorro language remained intact.... In virtually all cases of borrowing, Spanish words were forced to conform to the Chamorro sound system.... While Spanish may have left a lasting mark on Chamorro vocabulary, as it did on many Philippine and South American languages, it had virtually no effect on Chamorro grammar.... The Japanese influence on Chamorro

3995-582: The West Indies, the domestic origin hypothesis argues that, towards the end of the 16th century, English-speaking traders began to settle in the Gambia and Sierra Leone rivers as well as in neighboring areas such as the Bullom and Sherbro coasts. These settlers intermarried with the local population leading to mixed populations, and, as a result of this intermarriage, an English pidgin was created. This pidgin

4080-659: The colonial power, e.g. to distinguish españoles criollos (people born in the colonies from Spanish ancestors) from españoles peninsulares (those born in the Iberian Peninsula, i.e. Spain). However, in Brazil the term was also used to distinguish between negros crioulos (blacks born in Brazil from African slave ancestors) and negros africanos (born in Africa). Over time, the term and its derivatives (Creole, Kréol, Kreyol, Kreyòl , Kriol, Krio , etc.) lost

4165-585: The continuity of the Chamoru language. Other creative ways to incorporate and promote the Chamorro language have been found in the use of applications for smartphones, internet videos and television. From Chamorro dictionaries, to the most recent "Speak Chamorro" app, efforts are growing and expanding in ways to preserve and protect the Chamorro language and identity. On YouTube, a popular Chamorro soap opera Siha has received mostly positive feedback from native Chamorro speakers on its ability to weave dramatics,

4250-433: The creole through a process of relexification : the substrate language replaces the native lexical items with lexical material from the superstrate language while retaining the native grammatical categories. The problem with this explanation is that the postulated substrate languages differ amongst themselves and with creoles in meaningful ways. Bickerton (1981) argues that the number and diversity of African languages and

4335-515: The creole was born" (McWhorter 2018). As one example, McWhorter (2013) notes that the creole Sranan , which has existed for centuries in a diglossic relationship with Dutch, has borrowed some Dutch verbs containing the ver- prefix ( fer- in Sranan) and whose meaning is not analyzable; for instance the pair morsu ' to soil ' , fermorsu ' to squander ' . McWhorter claims that these three properties characterize any language that

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4420-424: The creoles that arose in the European colonies, having been stigmatized, have become extinct . However, political and academic changes in recent decades have improved the status of creoles, both as living languages and as object of linguistic study. Some creoles have even been granted the status of official or semi-official languages of particular political territories. Linguists now recognize that creole formation

4505-445: The emergence of some new questions about the nature of creoles: in particular, the question of how complex creoles are and the question of whether creoles are indeed "exceptional" languages. Some features that distinguish creole languages from noncreoles have been proposed (by Bickerton, for example). John McWhorter has proposed the following list of features as defining the creole prototype , that is, any language born recently of

4590-457: The evolution of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). In the American education system, as well as in the past, the use of the word ebonics to refer to AAVE mirrors the historical negative connotation of the word creole . According to their external history, four types of creoles have been distinguished: plantation creoles, fort creoles, maroon creoles, and creolized pidgins. By

4675-483: The first syllable of root). Chamorro is a predicate -initial head-marking language. It has a rich agreement system in the nominal and in the verbal domains. Chamorro is also known for its wh-agreement in the verb. The agreement morphemes agree with features (roughly the grammatical case feature) of the question phrase and replace the regular subject–verb agreement in transitive realis clauses: Ha 3sSA faʼgåsi wash si PND Juan Juan i

4760-628: The following census-designated places in Asan-Maina: Asan , Maina , and Nimitz Hill Annex . Guam Public School System serves the island. Southern High School in Santa Rita serves the village. In regards to the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), Asan is in the school transportation zone for McCool Elementary and McCool Middle School, while Guam High School is the island's sole DoDEA high school. Every year

4845-428: The former gave rise to the latter. The imperfect L2 ( second language ) learning hypothesis claims that pidgins are primarily the result of the imperfect L2 learning of the dominant lexifier language by the slaves. Research on naturalistic L2 processes has revealed a number of features of "interlanguage systems" that are also seen in pidgins and creoles: Imperfect L2 learning is compatible with other approaches, notably

4930-482: The generally low status of the Creole peoples in the eyes of prior European colonial powers, creole languages have generally been regarded as "degenerate" languages, or at best as rudimentary "dialects" of the politically dominant parent languages. Because of this, the word "creole" was generally used by linguists in opposition to "language", rather than as a qualifier for it. Another factor that may have contributed to

5015-409: The generic meaning and became the proper name of many distinct ethnic groups that developed locally from immigrant communities. Originally, therefore, the term "creole language" meant the speech of any of those creole peoples . As a consequence of colonial European trade patterns, most of the known European-based creole languages arose in coastal areas in the equatorial belt around the world, including

5100-598: The grammar structure. However, in creoles, the core lexicon often has mixed origin, and the grammar is largely original. For these reasons, the issue of which language is the parent of a creole – that is, whether a language should be classified as a "French creole", "Portuguese creole" or "English creole", etc. – often has no definitive answer, and can become the topic of long-lasting controversies, where social prejudices and political considerations may interfere with scientific discussion. The terms substrate and superstrate are often used when two languages interact. However,

5185-413: The great expansion in European maritime power and trade that led to the establishment of European colonies in other continents. The terms criollo and crioulo were originally qualifiers used throughout the Spanish and Portuguese colonies to distinguish the members of an ethnic group who were born and raised locally from those who immigrated as adults. They were most commonly applied to nationals of

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5270-455: The island from occupying Japanese forces during the Battle of Guam . The 3rd Marine Division landed in Asan at 08:28, and the 1st Provisional Marine Brigade landed near Agat to the south. Japanese artillery sank 20 Landing Vehicle Trackeds , but by 09:00 tanks were ashore at both beaches. United States Marines fought Japanese forces fortified in the hills above the shore after establishing

5355-740: The island's largest Easter egg hunt is at the War in the Pacific National Park with over 10,000 eggs. The village also hosts the yearly International Kite Flying Competitions with people from South Korea, Japan, China, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands competing for the championship. 13°28′17″N 144°42′50″E  /  13.47139°N 144.71389°E  / 13.47139; 144.71389 Chamorro language Chamorro ( English: / tʃ ə ˈ m ɔːr oʊ / chə- MOR -oh ; endonym : Finuʼ Chamorro [Northern Mariana Islands] or Finoʼ CHamoru [Guam] /t​͡saˈmoɾu/ )

5440-457: The meaning of these terms is reasonably well-defined only in second language acquisition or language replacement events, when the native speakers of a certain source language (the substrate) are somehow compelled to abandon it for another target language (the superstrate). The outcome of such an event is that erstwhile speakers of the substrate will use some version of the superstrate, at least in more formal contexts. The substrate may survive as

5525-404: The oldest family members were fluent. Lack of exposure made it increasingly difficult to pick up Chamorro as a second language. Within a few generations, English replaced Chamorro as the language of daily life. There is a difference in the rate of Chamorro language fluency between Guam and the rest of the Marianas. On Guam the number of native Chamorro speakers has dwindled since the mid-1990s. In

5610-519: The other Northern Mariana Islands (NMI). Unlike most of its neighbors, Chamorro is not classified as a Micronesian or Polynesian language. Rather, like Palauan , it possibly constitutes an independent branch of the Malayo-Polynesian language family . At the time the Spanish rule over Guam ended, it was thought that Chamorro was a semi- creole language , with a substantial amount of the vocabulary of Spanish origin and beginning to have

5695-429: The others. The lexicon of a pidgin is usually small and drawn from the vocabularies of its speakers, in varying proportions. Morphological details like word inflections , which usually take years to learn, are omitted; the syntax is kept very simple, usually based on strict word order. In this initial stage, all aspects of the speech – syntax, lexicon, and pronunciation – tend to be quite variable, especially with regard to

5780-437: The paucity of a historical record on creole genesis makes determining lexical correspondences a matter of chance. Dillard (1970) coined the term "cafeteria principle" to refer to the practice of arbitrarily attributing features of creoles to the influence of substrate African languages or assorted substandard dialects of European languages. For a representative debate on this issue, see the contributions to Mufwene (1993) ; for

5865-431: The precise mechanism of creole genesis, a more general debate has developed whether creole languages are characterized by different mechanisms than traditional languages (which is McWhorter's 2018 main point) or whether in that regard creole languages develop by the same mechanisms as any other languages (e.g. DeGraff 2001). The monogenetic theory of pidgins and creoles hypothesizes that all Atlantic creoles derived from

5950-420: The pronunciation of these loanwords has been nativized to the phonology of Chamorro, and their use conforms to indigenous grammatical structures. Some authors consider Chamorro a mixed language under a historical point of view, even though it remains independent and unique. In his Chamorro Reference Grammar , Donald M. Topping states: "The most notable influence on Chamorro language and culture came from

6035-465: The region during World War II. After the war, when Guam was recaptured by the United States, American administrators of the island continued to impose "no Chamorro" restrictions in local schools, teaching only English and disciplining students for speaking their indigenous tongue. While these oppressive language policies were progressively lifted, Chamorro usage had substantially decreased. Subsequent generations were often raised in households where only

6120-443: The relative neglect of creole languages in linguistics is that they do not fit the 19th-century neogrammarian "tree model" for the evolution of languages, and its postulated regularity of sound changes (these critics including the earliest advocates of the wave model , Johannes Schmidt and Hugo Schuchardt , the forerunners of modern sociolinguistics ). This controversy of the late 19th century profoundly shaped modern approaches to

6205-453: The simplification of input was supposed to account for creoles' simple grammar, commentators have raised a number of criticisms of this explanation: Another problem with the FT explanation is its potential circularity. Bloomfield (1933) points out that FT is often based on the imitation of the incorrect speech of the non-natives, that is the pidgin. Therefore, one may be mistaken in assuming that

6290-491: The speaker's background. If a pidgin manages to be learned by the children of a community as a native language, it may become fixed and acquire a more complex grammar, with fixed phonology, syntax, morphology, and syntactic embedding. Pidgins can become full languages in only a single generation . "Creolization" is this second stage where the pidgin language develops into a fully developed native language. The vocabulary, too, will develop to contain more and more items according to

6375-698: The speakers of a fully formed creole may eventually feel compelled to conform their speech to one of the parent languages. This decreolization process typically brings about a post-creole speech continuum characterized by large-scale variation and hypercorrection in the language. It is generally acknowledged that creoles have a simpler grammar and more internal variability than older, more established languages. However, these notions are occasionally challenged. (See also language complexity .) Phylogenetic or typological comparisons of creole languages have led to divergent conclusions. Similarities are usually higher among creoles derived from related languages, such as

6460-448: The steep, post-World War II decline of Chamorro language fluency. There is a long history of colonization of the Marianas, beginning with the Spanish colonization in 1668 and, eventually, the American acquisition of Guam in 1898 (whose hegemony continues to this day). This imposed power structures privileging the language of the region's colonizers. According to estimates, a large majority, as stated above (75%), maintained active knowledge of

6545-512: The substratum cannot be identified, or when the presence or the survival of substratal evidence is inferred from mere typological analogies. On the other hand, the distinction may be meaningful when the contributions of each parent language to the resulting creole can be shown to be very unequal, in a scientifically meaningful way. In the literature on Atlantic Creoles , "superstrate" usually means European and "substrate" non-European or African. Since creole languages rarely attain official status,

6630-517: The terms "substrate" and "superstrate" are applicable to the genesis or the description of creole languages. The language replacement model may not be appropriate in creole formation contexts, where the emerging language is derived from multiple languages without any one of them being imposed as a replacement for any other. The substratum–superstratum distinction becomes awkward when multiple superstrata must be assumed (such as in Papiamento ), when

6715-482: The time the United States captured the island during the Spanish–American War (there are no similar language fluency estimates for other areas of the Mariana Islands during this time). A century later, the 2000 U.S. Census showed that fewer than 20% of Chamorros living in Guam speak their heritage language fluently, and the vast majority of those were over the age of 55. A number of forces have contributed to

6800-400: The very nature of a creole language, the phylogenetic classification of a particular creole usually is a matter of dispute; especially when the pidgin precursor and its parent tongues (which may have been other creoles or pidgins) have disappeared before they could be documented. Phylogenetic classification traditionally relies on inheritance of the lexicon, especially of "core" terms, and of

6885-401: The world. At the same time, linguists have begun to come to the realization that creole languages are in no way inferior to other languages. They now use the term "creole" or "creole language" for any language suspected to have undergone creolization , terms that now imply no geographic restrictions nor ethnic prejudices. There is controversy about the extent to which creolization influenced

6970-484: Was born recently as a pidgin, and states "At this writing, in twenty years I have encountered not a single counterexample" (McWhorter 2018). Nevertheless, the existence of a creole prototype has been disputed by others: Building up on this discussion, McWhorter proposed that "the world's simplest grammars are Creole grammars", claiming that every noncreole language's grammar is at least as complex as any creole language's grammar. Gil has replied that Riau Indonesian has

7055-459: Was learned by slaves in slave depots, who later on took it to the West Indies and formed one component of the emerging English creoles. The French creoles are the foremost candidates to being the outcome of "normal" linguistic change and their creoleness to be sociohistoric in nature and relative to their colonial origin. Within this theoretical framework, a French creole is a language phylogenetically based on French , more specifically on

7140-503: Was much greater than that of German but much less than Spanish. Once again, the linguistic influence was restricted exclusively to vocabulary items, many of which refer to manufactured objects...." In contrast, in the essays found in Del español al chamorro. Lenguas en contacto en el Pacífico (2009), Rafael Rodríguez-Ponga refers to modern Chamorro as a "mixed language" of "Hispanic-Austronesian" origins and estimates that approximately 50% of

7225-454: Was told (something) for a while'. Chamorro has many Spanish loanwords and other words have Spanish etymological roots (such as tenda 'shop/store' from Spanish tienda ), which may lead some to mistakenly conclude that the language is a Spanish creole , but Chamorro very much uses its loanwords in an Austronesian way ( bumobola 'playing ball ' from bola 'ball, play ball' with verbalizing infix -um- and reduplication of

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