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85-546: The NURSE vowel varies in quality in Bay Islands English. Roatan speakers usually realize it as either [ï] or [ʌ], as do Utilian speakers (although among them, the balance favors [ï] over [ʌ]). The dialect largely features the fern-fir-fur split . The FUR vowel is predominantly realized as [ʌ] by Roatan speakers. About 3/4 of male Utila speakers also realize it in this way, but about 5/6 of female Utila speakers realize it as either [ɛ̱] or [ï]. (Among them, [ɛ̱]

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

425-451: 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

510-405: 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

595-486: 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

680-475: A low back vowel, while this is not the norm for Utilian speakers. Approximately 5/6 Utilian female speakers pronounce the FERN vowel as a front vowel, while only about 3/18 Roatan speakers pronounce it with a front vowel (in their case, it is never pronounced as [i]). Graham (1997) has noted that all speakers make a distinction between the vowel qualities in the words "learn" and "girl", while 26/28 speakers distinguish

765-751: 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

850-484: 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

935-453: 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

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1020-405: 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

1105-505: A separate lexical set: Wells's KIT set. Originally, Wells developed 24 such labels— keywords —for the vowel lexical sets of English, which have been sometimes modified and expanded by himself or other scholars for various reasons. Lexical sets have also been used to describe the vowels of other languages, such as French , Irish and Scots . There are several reasons why lexical sets are useful. Scholars of phonetics often use abstract symbols (most universally today, those of

1190-405: 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

1275-496: 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

1360-444: 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

1445-453: 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

1530-445: 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

1615-476: A vowel with a [ɞ]-like quality. This results in intervocal sequences such as [ɐw̥], [ɛw̥], and [ɵw̥]. [w] can occur before both front and non-front values, and it is only unlikely to occur before [i] and [e]. [ɥ] can only occur before [i] and [ɪ]. [β] occurs before [ɪ], [e], and [ɛ]. [v] occurs in the same positions as in Standard English, but never where SE has [w]. Whenever [v] occurs intervocally or as

1700-633: A work devoted to Irish English may split the Wells NURSE set into two subsets, a new, smaller NURSE set and a TERM set. Some writers on English accents have introduced a GOAL set to refer to a set of words that have the GOAT vowel in standard accents but may have a different vowel in Sheffield or in south-east London. Wells has stated that he didn't include a GOAL set because this should be interpreted as an allophone of GOAT that

1785-432: Is a group of words that share a particular phonological feature. A phoneme is a basic unit of sound in a language that can distinguish one word from another. Most commonly, following the work of phonetician John C. Wells , a lexical set is a class of words in a language that share a certain vowel phoneme . As Wells himself says, lexical sets "enable one to refer concisely to large groups of words which tend to share

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1870-552: 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

1955-401: Is also conservative in that it lacks the cot – caught ( LOT – THOUGHT ) and horse – hoarse ( NORTH – FORCE ) mergers. Wells explains his choice of keywords ("kit", "fleece", etc.) as follows: The keywords have been chosen in such a way that clarity is maximized: whatever accent of English they are spoken in, they can hardly be mistaken for other words. Although fleece is not

2040-560: Is also the most common pronunciation for the FERN vowel, while [ï] is also the most common pronunciation for the FIR vowel.) Some Utila speakers also realize the FUR vowel as [ ɔ ], although pronouncing "turtle" as [tɔɹtil] is also common for Roatan speakers. The FERN vowel is the most varied of the three, as it has possible realizations like [ɔ(:)], [ɒ(:)], [ ɑ (:)], [ʌ(:)], [ ɛ (:)], [ɛ̱(:)], and [i(:)]. Approximately 12/18 Roatan speakers pronounce it as

2125-632: 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

2210-616: 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

2295-517: Is often elided in post-vocalic, and especially in unstressed word-final position, among black speakers. Bay Islands English has poor distinction between the sounds [v] and [w]. The two sounds are often merged with each other (and sometimes, [b], resulting in a four-way whine-wine-vine-bine merger) or substituted in opposing positions. Graham cites the influence of the Twi language , which lacks /v/ in its phoneme inventory, and other West African languages with

2380-482: Is sensitive to the morpheme boundary, which he illustrates by comparing the London pronunciations of goalie and slowly . Schneider et al. (2004) , which documents the phonologies of varieties of English around the world like Wells (1982) , employs Wells's standard lexical sets as well as the following supplementary lexical sets, as needed to illustrate finer details of the variety under discussion: In his work for

2465-498: Is that people with no background in phonetics can identify a phoneme not by learned symbols or technical jargon but by its simple keyword (like STRUT or KIT in the above examples). The standard lexical sets for English introduced by John C. Wells in his 1982 Accents of English are in wide usage. Wells defined each lexical set on the basis of the pronunciation of words in two reference accents, which he calls RP and GenAm. Wells classifies English words into 24 lexical sets on

2550-473: 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

2635-404: 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

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2720-568: Is very unusual and is not covered by any of the 27 lexical sets above. Some words pronounced with /ɒ/ before a velar consonant in RP, such as mock and fog , belong to no particular lexical set because the GenAm pronunciation varies between /ɔ/ and /ɑ/ . The GenAm FLEECE , FACE , GOOSE , and GOAT range between monophthongal [i, e, u, o] and diphthongal [ɪi, eɪ, ʊu, oʊ] , and Wells chose to phonemicize three of them as monophthongs for

2805-506: The FACE lexical set are pronounced similarly (in this case, Newfoundland English has not fully undergone the pane–pain merger ). /ɔ̈/ is a back vowel [ ɔ ] ; Wells uses the symbol ⟨ ɔ̈ ⟩ so that the reader does not confuse it with the THOUGHT vowel (which, in the case of many other accents, he writes with ⟨ ɔ ⟩ or ⟨ ɔː ⟩). Wells also uses

2890-461: The PALM and LOT lexical sets. In a 2010 blog post, Wells wrote: I sometimes think that a century from now my lexical sets will be the one thing I shall be remembered for. Yet I dreamt them up over a weekend, frustrated with the incoherent mess of symbols used in such contemporary publications as Weinreich 's "Is a structural dialectology possible?". He also wrote that he claimed no copyright in

2975-612: 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 ),

3060-686: The International Phonetic Alphabet ) to transcribe phonemes, but they may follow different transcribing conventions or rely on implicit assumptions in their exact choice of symbols. One convenience of lexical sets is their tendency to avoid these conventions or assumptions. Instead, Wells explains, they "make use of keywords intended to be unmistakable no matter what accent one says them in". That makes them useful for examining phonemes within an accent, comparing and contrasting different accents, and capturing how phonemes may be differently distributed based on accent. A further benefit

3145-551: 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

3230-482: The Survey of Anglo-Welsh Dialects , David Parry adapted Wells's lexical sets for Anglo-Welsh dialects. 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 a full-fledged language with native speakers , all within

3315-482: 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

3400-583: 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

3485-528: The phonological and phonetic systems of different accents of English in a clear and concise manner. Although based solely on RP and GenAm, the standard lexical sets have proven useful in describing many other accents of English. This is true because, in many dialects, the words in all or most of the sets are pronounced with similar or identical stressed vowels. Wells himself uses the Lexical Sets most prominently to give "tables of lexical incidence" for all

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3570-470: 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,

3655-515: 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

3740-445: 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

3825-553: 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

3910-402: 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

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

4080-451: The basis of the pronunciation of the vowel of their stressed syllable in the two reference accents. Typed in small caps , each lexical set is named after a representative keyword. Wells also describes three sets of words based on word-final unstressed vowels, which, though not included in the standard 24 lexical sets (the final three sets listed in the chart below) "have indexical and diagnostic value in distinguishing accents". For example,

4165-659: 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

4250-419: The commonest of words, it cannot be mistaken for a word with some other vowel; whereas beat , say, if we had chosen it instead, would have been subject to the drawback that one man's pronunciation of beat may sound like another's pronunciation of bait or bit . Wherever possible, the keywords end in a voiceless alveolar or dental consonant. The standard lexical sets of Wells are widely used to discuss

4335-433: 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

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4420-515: 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

4505-424: 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

4590-445: 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

4675-457: 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

4760-505: The first element of a consonant cluster, it may be dropped altogether. This results in pronunciations such as [nɒ:r] ( never ), [hʌn] ( having ) and [pe:d] ( paved ). [b] is found sporadically among creole-influenced speakers. This Honduras -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This pidgin and creole language -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Lexical set#Standard lexical sets for English A lexical set

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,

5185-468: 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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5270-457: 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

5355-429: 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

5440-437: 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

5525-505: The phonemic contrast in Bay Island English is generally neutralized in all environments, with possible realizations including [w], [v], [β], [ ɥ ], [ ʋ ], [b], and [ ɞ ]. Graham has judged [w̥] as the most common realization, and the usual realization of /v/ post-vocally. A word-final /v/ (as in have , live or love ) is often raised through the influence of the following element, thus causing it to be realized as either [w̥] or

5610-431: 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

5695-443: 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

5780-536: The sake of simplicity and FACE as /eɪ/ to avoid confusion with RP DRESS , /e/ . The happ Y set was identified phonemically as the same as KIT for both RP and GenAm, reflecting the then-traditional analysis, although realizations similar to FLEECE ( happy tensing ) were already taking hold in both varieties. The notation ⟨ i ⟩ for happ Y has since emerged and been taken up by major pronouncing dictionaries, including Wells's, to take note of this shift. Wells's model of General American

5865-457: The same feature as a likely cause for this. A similar process also occurs in Bermudian , Bahamian , Saban , Vincentian , and other Caribbean Englishes . However, it is also possible for these sounds ([w] and [ β ]) to be realized as variants of a single phoneme. Warantz also claims that [w] occurs categorically before /a/, /ʌ/, and /ə/ and variably with [β] in all other environments. However,

5950-449: The same vowel, and to the vowel which they share". For instance, the pronunciation of the vowel in cup , luck , sun , blood , glove , and tough may vary in different English dialects but is usually consistent within each dialect and so the category of words forms a lexical set, which Wells, for ease, calls the STRUT set. Meanwhile, words like bid , cliff , limb , miss , etc. form

6035-453: 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

6120-491: 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

6205-698: 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

6290-589: The standard lexical sets to refer to "the vowel sound used for the standard lexical set in question in the accent under discussion": Thus, for example, in describing the Newfoundland accent, Wells writes that " KIT and DRESS are reportedly often merged as [ɪ] ", meaning that the stressed syllables of words in the KIT lexical set and words in the DRESS lexical set are reportedly often pronounced identically with

6375-486: The standard lexical sets, and that everyone was "free to make whatever use of them they wish". Some varieties of English make distinctions in stressed vowels that are not captured by the 24 lexical sets. For example, some Irish and Scottish accents that have not undergone the fern–fir–fur merger split the NURSE lexical set into multiple subsets. For such accents, the 24 Wells lexical sets may be inadequate. Because of this,

6460-512: 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,

6545-517: 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

6630-536: The various accents he discusses in his work. For example, here is the table of lexical incidence he gives for Newfoundland English : The table indicates that, for example, Newfoundland English uses the /ɪ/ phoneme for words in the KIT lexical set, and that the NORTH , FORCE and CURE sets are all pronounced with the same vowel /ɔ̈r/ . Note that some lexical sets, such as FACE , are given with more than one pronunciation, which indicates that not all words in

6715-400: 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

6800-406: The vowel [ɪ] . Lexical sets may also be used to describe splits and mergers . For example, RP, along with most other non-rhotic accents, pronounces words such as "father" and "farther" identically . This can be described more economically as the merger of the PALM and START lexical sets. Most North American accents make "father" rhyme with "bother" . This can be described as the merger of

6885-429: The vowel in "learn" from those in "third" and "bird". He has also theorized that the fern-fir-fur split in Bay Islands English is likely a result of influence from Scottish English , which also has this phenomenon, and neither RP nor GA having a strong dominant influence on the dialect's historical phonological development. Bay Islands English is generally rhotic . Most white speakers always pronounce it as /r/ . It

6970-498: The word rod is pronounced /ˈrɒd/ in RP and /ˈrɑd/ in GenAm. It therefore belongs in the LOT lexical set. Weary is pronounced /ˈwɪərɪ/ in RP and /ˈwɪrɪ/ in GenAm and thus belongs in the NEAR lexical set. Some English words do not belong to any lexical set. For example, the a in the stressed syllable of tomato is pronounced /ɑː/ in RP, and /eɪ/ in GenAm, a combination that

7055-401: 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

7140-484: 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

7225-459: 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

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