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Creolization (was Zhyler & Kele Babel Texts)

From:Stone Gordonssen <stonegordonssen@...>
Date:Tuesday, June 17, 2003, 15:33
>How do you make a creole or a pidgin. Do you apply sound changes and >'corrupt' the words or do you use some other method.
It is my understanding that pidgins become creoles when they move from being only an auxiliary language to being a 1st language for some body of speakers. Pidgins arise from languages becuase of a need for trade/communication between speakers of two or more dissimilar languages, one of which takes something of a role of dominance. Intial vocabulraies are "basic", as David stated, and the pronunciation of words becomes contorted to fit what is considered normal by the primary speaking group. Verb forms, tenses and aspects are minimized. E.g. in New Guinea Tok Pisin (and I'm pullig this from memory, so pardon mistakes) - Baimbai mi go haus bilong pren. - I will go to my friend's house. - Dispela haus im long bikpela taun. - This house (is) in a big city. - Mi laikim tok long dispela pren tumas. - I very much like takling to this friend. It is also my understand that, amongst changes which tend to happen as a a pidgin becomes a creole: 1. aspects and tense reappear in new forms. 2. lexical gaps (esp. with regards to prepositions) are filled 3. further changes in pronunciation occur. E.g. "Baimbai mi go haus bilong pren" was* becoming "Bai mi go haus blong pren". There are a number of natlang creoles. Another creole is Haitian Kriol, based in part on French. And there was one on the Sino-Russian border, of which I've found little data other than reference) which adopted an SOV syntax despite Chinese and Russian both being SVO. *Though Tok Pisin bilong Niu Gini seemed head towards a creole, there is serious question now whether it will die. Tok bilong Niu Gini im dai pinis o nogat? _________________________________________________________________ Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

Replies

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...>