Cover not available
Article published In:
Language Ecology
Vol. 1:1 (2017) ► pp.44–74

Creoles are not typologically distinct from non-Creoles

| LLF, Université Paris-Diderot

Typological approaches involving the study of Creole languages have long triggered an unsettled dispute among creolists. Some claim that Creoles do not differ from non-Creole languages, and can only be defined socio-historically and not structurally, while others claim that Creoles are ʺdistinctʺ in many respects, and/or form a special class with specific typological properties. In an attempt to settle this dispute, Bakker et al. (2011) drew on a phylogenetic approach to provide evidence that Creoles form a structurally distinguishable subgroup within the world’s languages. However, their methods and conclusions appear to be questionable, as they are likely to be flawed. Standing as a challenge to the aforementioned article, this paper will reconsider their methodological and empirical approaches by re-evaluating the sets of Creoles and non-Creoles on the basis of identical or near-identical principles. It will ultimately appear that their conclusion could be an artefact of the selection as well.

Keywords: Creole typology, Creole exceptionalism, phylogenetic network, Comparative Creole Syntax features, complexity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Typology of Creoles
  • 3. Bakker et al.’s (2011) studies
    • 3.1 Bakker et al. (2011) – study 1
      • 3.1.1Methodology and results
      • 3.1.2Biases in Bakker et al.’s (2011) study 1?
    • 3.2 Bakker et al. (2011) – study 4
      • 3.2.1Methodology and results
        • 3.2.1.1CCS features
        • 3.2.1.2The selection of non-Creoles
        • 3.2.1.3Results of study 4
      • 3.2.2Biases in Bakker et al.’s (2011) study 4?
        • 3.2.2.1The CCS features
        • 3.2.2.2Creole features in a narrower sense
        • 3.2.2.3Empirical data
  • 4.Reworking the study
    • 4.1Empirical data
    • 4.2Phylogenetic representation
  • 5.Conclusion and future work
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 13 July 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/le.1.1.04fon
References
Aboh, Enoch O.
2016 Creole Distinctiveness: A dead end. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 31(2). 400–418. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aboh, Enoch and Michel DeGraff
To appear. A null theory of Creole formation, based on Universal Grammar. In Ian Roberts ed. The Oxford Handbook on Universal Grammar New York Oxford University Press
Ansaldo, Umberto
2004 Contact, typology and the speaker: The essentials of language. Language Sciences 261: 485–494. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ansaldo, Umberto and Stephen Matthews
2007 Deconstructing creole: The rationale. In Umberto Ansaldo, Stephen Matthews and Lisa Lim, eds. Deconstructing Creole. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 1–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bakker, Peter, Aymeric Daval-Markussen, Mikael Parkvall and Ingo Plag
2011 Creoles are typologically distinct from non-Creoles. In Parth Bhatt and Tonjes Veenstra, eds. Creoles and Typology, Special issue of Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 26(1): 5–42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bakker, Peter
2016 You’ve got Gungbe, but we’ve got the numbers: Feature pools show that Creoles are still typologically distinct. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 31(2): 419–434. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bandelt, H.-J. and A. Dress
1992 Split-decomposition: A new and useful approach to phylogenetic analysis of distance data. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 11 : 242–252. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benveniste, Emile
1993 [1966] Problèmes de linguistique générale, I1. Paris : Gallimard.Google Scholar
Bickerton, Derek
1975 Dynamics of a Creole System. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1981 Roots of Language. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers, Inc.Google Scholar
Bickerton, Derek and Talmy Givón
1976 Pidginization and language change: From SXV and VSX to SVX. In Sanford B. Steever, Carol A. Walker and Salikoko S. Mufwene, eds. Papers from the Parasession on Diachronic Syntax. Chicago Linguistic Society, Chicago. 9–39.Google Scholar
Binger, Louis-Gustave
1886 Essai sur la langue Bambara, parlée dans le Kaarta et dans le Bélédougou, suivi d'un vocabulaire. Paris: Maisonneuve Frères et Ch. Leclerc.Google Scholar
Bray, D. S.
1909 The Brahui Language. Vol. 1: Introduction and Grammar. ***Calcutta. Reprinted Delhi 1986: Gian.Google Scholar
Chaudenson, Robert
2003 La créolisation: théorie, applications, implications. Paris: L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Christaller, Johann Gottlieb
1875 A Grammar of the Asante and Fante Language called Tshi: Based on the Akuapem Dialect with Reference to the Other (Akan and Fante) Dialects. Basel: Basel Evangelical Missionary Society.Google Scholar
DeGraff, Michel
2001 Morphology in Creole genesis: Linguistics and ideology. In Michael Kenstowicz, ed. Ken Hale: A Life in Language. MIT Press.Google Scholar
2003 Against Creole Exceptionalism. Language 79(2): 391–410. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005 Linguists’ most dangerous myth: The fallacy of Creole Exceptionalism. Language in Society 34(4): 533–591. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Everett, Dan
1986 Pirahã. In Desmond C. Derbyshire and Geoffrey K. Pullum, eds. Handbook of Amazonian Languages, Vol. 11. Berlin: Moutin de Gruyter. 200–325. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fon Sing, Guillaume, Jean Leoue and Corinna Bartoletti
2011 Creoles are not typologically distinct from non-Creoles. Paper presented at the GRGC Workshop 2011, Creole Grammars – Linguistic Theories. Paris 23–24 June 2011.
Fon Sing, Guillaume and Jean Leoue
2012 Creoles are not typologically distinct from non-Creoles. Paper presented at the 9th Creolistics Workshop, Contact languages in a global context: Past and present. Aarhus University, Denmark 11–13 April 2012.
Frajzyngier, Zygmunt
and Adrian C. Edwards 2005 A Grammar of Mina. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givón, Talmy
1973 The time-axis phenomenon. Language 491: 890–925. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hancock, Ian
1987 A preliminary classification of the anglophone Atlantic creoles with syntactic data from thirty-three representative dialects. In Glenn Gilbert, ed. Pidgin and Creole Languages: Essays in Memory of John E. Reineck. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. 264–333.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin, Matthew Dryer, David Gil and Bernard Comrie
eds. 2005 The World Atlas of Linguistic Structures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Heath, Jeffrey
1998 A Grammar of Koyra Chiini: The Songhay of Timbuktu. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Holm, John and Peter L. Patrick
eds. 2007 Comparative Creole Syntax: Parallel Outlines of 18 Creole Grammars. London: Battlebridge.Google Scholar
Huson, Daniel H. and David Bryant
2006 Application of phylogenetic networks in evolutionary studies. Mol. Biol. Evol. 23(2): 254–267. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kay, Paul and Gillian Sankoff
1974 A language-universals approach to pidgins and creoles. In David DeCamp and Ian F. Hancock, eds. Pidgins and Creoles: Current Trends and Prospects. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 46–84.Google Scholar
Li, Charles
and Sandra A. Thompson 1981 Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Maia, António da Silva
1964 Lições de gramática de quimbundo: portugês e banto, dialecto omumbuim. Cucujães: Escola Tipográfica.Google Scholar
Maslova, Elena
2003 A Grammar of Kolyma Yukaghir. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Markey, T.L.
1982 Afrikaans: Creole or non-creole? Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik 491: 169–207.Google Scholar
Maurer, Philippe
1995 L’Angolar, un Créole Afro-Portugais parlé à São Tomé. Hamburg: Helmut Buske.Google Scholar
McWhorter, John H.
1998 Identifying the creole prototype: Vindicating a typological class. Language 74(4): 788–818. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 The world's simplest grammars are creole grammars. Linguistic Typology 5(2/3): 125–166. With peer commentaries: 167–387.Google Scholar
2005 Defining Creole. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McWhorter, John
2013 It's not over: Why it matters whether there is such thing as a creole. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 28(2): 409–423. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Michaelis, Susanne Maria, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath and Magnus Huber
eds. 2013 The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moussay, Gérard
2006 Grammaire de la langue Cam. Paris: Missions Étrangères de Paris, Les Indes Savantes.Google Scholar
Mufwene, Salikoko S.
2001 The Ecology of Language Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Les créoles: De nouvelles variétés indo-européennes désavouées? In Marie-Paul Ensie, ed. Actes du colloque ʺCréolisation linguistique et Sciences Humaines”. Paris: Presses Universitaires Haïtiano-Antillaises. 59–70.Google Scholar
Parkvall, Mikael
2008 The simplicity of creoles in a cross-linguistic perspective. In Matti Miestamo, Kaius Sinnemäki and Fred Karlsson, eds. Language Complexity: Typology, Contact, Change. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 265–285. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slobin, Dan I.
1977 Language change in childhood and in history. In John Macnamara, ed. Language Learning and Thought. Academic Press. 185–214.Google Scholar
Sneddon, James N.
1996 Indonesian: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Taylor, Douglas
1956 Language contact in the West Indies. Word 121: 391–414. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Traugott, E.C.
1977 Pidginization, creolization, and language change. In A. Valdman, ed. Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. 70–98.Google Scholar
Troubetzkoy N.S.
1939 Grundzüge der Phonologie. Prague. [Trad. Fr. 1947, Principes de phonologie. Paris: Klincksieck].Google Scholar
Véronique, Daniel
2009 Review of John Holm and Peter L. Patrick, eds. Comparative Creole Syntax: Parallel Outlines of 18 Creole Grammars. Journal of Language Contact – VARIA 21: 153–157.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 12 other publications

Aboh, Enoch O.
2017. The emergence of hybrid grammars: A rejoinder to Peter Bakker. <i>WORD</i> 63:3 ► pp. 207 ff. DOI logo
Aboh, Enoch O. & Michel DeGraff
2022. Perspectives on Creole Formation. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact, ► pp. 257 ff. DOI logo
Ansaldo, Umberto
2018. Complexity reboot: A rejoinder to Parkvall, Bakker and McWhorter. Language Sciences 66 ► pp. 234 ff. DOI logo
Barrière, Isabelle, Blandine Joseph, Katsiaryna Aharodnik, Sarah Kresh, Guetjens Prince Fleurio, Géraldine Legendre & Thierry Nazzi
2023. A multidimensional perspective on the acquisition of subject-verb dependencies by Haitian-Creole speaking children. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages DOI logo
Daleszynska-Slater, Agata, Miriam Meyerhoff & James A. Walker
2019. Order in the creole speech community. Language Ecology 3:1 ► pp. 58 ff. DOI logo
Kouwenberg, Silvia & John Victor Singler
2020. Are creoles a special type of language?. In Advances in Contact Linguistics [Contact Language Library, 57], ► pp. 108 ff. DOI logo
Lindenfelser, Siegwalt
2020. Asymmetrical Complexity in Languages Due to L2 Effects: Unserdeutsch and Beyond. Languages 5:4 ► pp. 57 ff. DOI logo
Meakins, Felicity
2022. Empiricism or imperialism. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 37:1 ► pp. 189 ff. DOI logo
Szeto, Pui Yiu, Umberto Ansaldo & Stephen Matthews
2018. Typological variation across Mandarin dialects: An areal perspective with a quantitative approach. Linguistic Typology 22:2 ► pp. 233 ff. DOI logo
Szeto, Pui Yiu, Jackie Yan-ki Lai & Umberto Ansaldo
2021. Creole typology is analytic typology. Language Ecology ► pp. 89 ff. DOI logo
Yakpo, Kofi
2019. Inheritance, contact, convergence. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 40:2 ► pp. 202 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2022. Contact, Emergence, and Language Classification. In The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact, ► pp. 255 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 3 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.