The Formation and Characteristics of Creole Languages

What Is a Creole Language?

A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language that has developed from a pidgin, i.e., a simplified version of a language. Creoles differ from pidgins because creoles have been nativized by children as their primary language. As a result, they have features of natural languages that are normally missing from pidgins, which are not anyone's first language.

The Etymology of the Word 'Creole'

The English term creole comes from French créole, which is cognate with the Spanish term criollo and Portuguese crioulo. All descend from the verb criar ('to breed' or 'to raise'), which comes from the Latin creare ('to produce, create').^[15] The specific sense of the term was coined in the 16th and 17th centuries during the great expansion in European maritime power and trade that led to the establishment of European colonies on other continents.

Global Distribution and Notable Examples

The precise number of creole languages is not known, particularly as many are poorly attested. However, about one hundred have arisen since 1500. They are predominantly based on European languages due to the Age of Discovery and the Atlantic slave trade, though creoles based on other languages, including Arabic, Chinese, and Malay, also exist. The creole with the largest number of speakers is Haitian Creole, with about ten million native speakers.

Linguistic Characteristics of Creoles

Vocabulary and Grammar

The vocabulary of a creole language is largely supplied by its parent languages, particularly that of the most dominant group in the social context of the creole's construction, though there are often clear phonetic and semantic shifts. On the other hand, the grammar often has original features that may differ substantially from those of the parent languages.

Shared Grammatical Features

Creoles share more grammatical similarities with each other than with the languages from which they are phylogenetically derived. However, there is no widely accepted theory that would account for these perceived similarities. Moreover, no grammatical feature has been shown to be specific to creoles, although it is generally acknowledged that they have a simpler grammar than longer-established languages.