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आभ्यंतर (Aabhyantar)
SCONLI-12
विशेषांक ISSN : 2348-7771
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10. A Lexical Typological study of 4
French-based Creole languages in the Indian Ocean
Dawoky Reema : Jadavpur
University, Kolkata
ABSTRACT:
While
there has been a great deal of work on grammatical features that creole
languages share, little of this has actually tried to place the creole
languages in a broader typological perspective. The main purpose of this paper
is to review a number of typological properties of creole languages basically
the relationship between the lexicon and its phonological structure through the
process of relexification. The languages chosen for the purpose of this study
are: (1) Mauritian Creole, (2) Rodriguan Creole, (3) Réunion Creole and (4)
Seychellois Creole. We show that the issue can be tackled with a comparative approach based on a
selection of phonological, lexical and structural features, resulting in suggestive patterns on the connections
between the various creoles and the superstrate language in the sample. An
advantage in using comparative methods is that it also allows us to assess the
relative degree of divergence in lexical items of a Creole from its lexifier.
This paper argues that although typological studies are related to historical
and contact linguistics as they look for similarities inherited or spread by
contact; this study rather attempts to show the differences in phonological
structures despite the fact that all these creoles share the same lexifier that
is French.
Keywords: Language Typology,
Lexical Typology, French Based Creoles, Indian Ocean Creole Languages
1.0 INTRODUCTION:
1.1 The historical development of Creole language
The history of a language is a function of the history
of its speakers, and not an independent phenomenon that can be thoroughly
studied without referring to the social context in which it evolved. Language
is a dynamic entity as it keeps changing and evolving both externally and
internally as it comes into contact with other languages, hence no language is
pure, they are rather mixed. Mufwene (1996) argues that all languages are
creoles as most probably all have undergone considerable foreign interference
in the course of their development. These changes are particularly due to the
disruptions caused by foreign invaders which may have led to population
movements that in turn resulted in mixing of speakers of different languages.
Thomason and Kaufman (1992: 148) state that “The situation is different when we
turn our attention to creoles, especially those creoles for which no fully
crystallized pidgin stage is attested- namely, primarily, creoles that arose in
the context of the European slave trade in Africa, the Caribbean area, and
several islands in the Indian Ocean”. During the slave trade, slaves were
deliberately and systematically split into linguistically diverse groupings so
that they would not plot rebellion.
1.2 Creole Origins:
Superstrate and Substrate
Since Creole languages reflect extreme cases of
language contact, the role of its different languages involved during this
contact might explain their structural properties. Hence one can argue when it
comes to creoles’ grammatical features or Creole language structures come from
their superstrates and/or substrates as well as various kinds of language
universals. Lefebvre (2011: 173) states that “the main inputs-namely, substrate
influence, superstrate influence and language internal change- to the formation
and development of Creole grammar…the substrate contributed the bulk of the
semantic and syntactic information while superstrate influence is primarily
responsible for the lexical shape and some word order phenomena”. It has often
been seen that the superstrate language is usually the most dominant (powerful)
or prestigious language available to the speech community while the substrate
has less prestige or lower power, however both are equally important as the
changes they make for the other language in general are called “contact-induced
changes”. In the case of Mauritian Creole, French is its superstrate language
while the substrate would be generally the East African languages (such as
Bantu languages) and Malagasy spoken by the African slaves at that time. Syea
(2013: 12) states that “superstratists like Chaudenson (1992) and Valdman
(1978) among others maintain that creoles (particularly French creoles) derive
directly from the superstrate language (in this case regional varieties of
French or popular French). A Creole language according to their view is no more
than another variety of the source language. In this approach, continuity is
assumed and strong similarities between a Creole and its source are expected at
different linguistic levels; grammar, lexicon and phonology”. On the other
hand, substratists, like Alleyne (1980), Boretsky (2003) and Lefebvre (1986)
claim that creoles derive directly from the native languages of the African
slaves except that they use the lexicon of a European language. The case or the
substratist position is often made by appealing to non-European elements in the
creoles (e.g. serial verb constructions (SVCs), predicate fronting, postnominal
determiners) as these exist in the African languages which the creators of creoles
spoke, not in the languages of their European masters.
1.3 Geographical,
Cultural and Linguistic landscape of the 4 Creole languages
The
creole-speaking archipelagos the Mascarenes (Reunion, Mauritius and Rodgrigues,
the last two islands form a single state) and of the Seychelles lie between the
Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn. These islands were colonized by France
between 1665 (occupation of Bourbon, later named Reunion) and the beginning of
the 19th century established settlement on Rodrigues. Colonization proceeded
from one island to the other: Reunion (1665), Mauritius [previously Ile de
France] (1721), Seychelles (1770) and Rodrigues (1804). These circumstances
explain some of the similarities obtained among the Creole languages of this
zone. It has been argued that the Creoles of the Indian Ocean result from the
untutored acquisition of earlier varieties of French introduced by the settlers
of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The
historical circumstances explain the closest relation between Mauritian and
Rodriguan Creoles; Seychellois, though quite close to Mauritian Creole,
nevertheless shares some features with Reunionnais. At the same time, there are
various original and specific innovations which distinguish the Creoles of this
zone from other French-based Creoles (e.g bane as a plural marker or zot as the
2nd or 3rd person plural personal/possessive form). Ammon (2006: 1989) states that “the
inhabitants of the two archipelagos are very largely native speakers of these
Creoles (Mauritius and Rodrigues, 1,200,000; Reunion, 780,000; Seychelles,
85,000). All of these territories conform to a fairly classical diglossic
model, the “high code” being either French, as in Reunion, or English as in
other island such as Mauritius which became colonies of the English crown in
1814. While the status of French is reduced in Seychelles, it remains important
in Mauritius”.
The
only case of a significant evolution in the status of a Creole is represented
by Seychelles where in 1979, Creole was declared the national language and
first official language (above English and French). In Reunion, French is the
official language even though Creole is the everyday mode of communication for
a large portion of the population. In Mauritius the official texts do not
explicitly confer this status to English but it enjoys this status in practice.
Except in the case of Mauritius and Rodrigues which form a single state, the
different situations must be examined separately.
2.0 Literature
Review:
2.1 Language
Typology and Language Universals
Typology as a field is seen as being intertwined with
three other fields of studies namely: historical linguistics, contact
linguistics and linguistics typology as all three of them do comparison.
However historical and contact linguistics focus on similarities motivated by
common origins or geographical proximity, linguistic typology looks for
similarities by reflecting on the general properties of human cognition (UG) or
the common communicative purpose all languages serve. Hence descriptive linguistics
attempts to compare languages which cannot be shown to be related genetically
while genetic comparison creates classes of languages based on language
families; typological classifications does the same but as compared to genetic
classification, Greenberg (1990: 179) argues that “it has no specific historic
implications and is arbitrary, i.e., will lead to different results depending
on the criterion or combination of criteria selected”. In the study of descriptive linguistics, it
is important to distinguish between language universals and language typology;
language universals attempt to find properties that are common to all human
languages, while to assign languages to different types or classes, it is
necessary to focus on their differences as well. Comrie (1981: 2) states that
“Language universals in terms of abstract structures, have tended to favour
innateness as an explanation for language universals”; hence establishing a
relationship between language universals and innate ideas: language universals
therefore look at those innate linguistic principles that facilitate language
acquisition. In addition to these, generative grammarians argue that there is
also a common set of parameters; all languages have common features such as
nouns, verbs, adjectives and word order for instance. A linguistic typology
attempts to categorise the various parts of a language into various types.
Haspelmath (2001) states that “J. H. Greenberg (1957) study enumerated six
classes of linguistic typologies: 1. Phonologic, 2. Morphologic, 3. Syntactic,
4. those pertaining to canonic form [i.e. word classes, phonemic morpheme
structures etc], 5. Semantic (lexical), and 6. Symbolic including
onomatopoeia”. By semantic, Greenberg seems to mean lexical-semantic typology however,
the lexicon seems to be too full of interlingual diversity and of
idiosyncrasies to lend itself to systematic typological studies.
2.2 Creole Typology
As compared to other languages such as Latin or Greek,
Creole languages as comparatively young languages have the advantage that their
origins can be traced and reconstructed atleast to some extent. However the
situation is much more complex, as after a period of affirmative use of the
term Creole for both Pidgins and Creoles; it has been criticized for lack of
precision as to whether the criteria should be typological, genetic or
sociolinguistics. Decamp summarizes:
“Some definitions are based on function, the role
these languages play in the community, example: a pidgin is an auxiliary trade
language. Some are based on historical origins and development: e.g., a pidgin
may be spontaneously generated; a creole is a language that has evolved from a
pidgin. Some definitions include formal characteristics: restricted vocabulary:
absence of gender, true tenses, inflectional morphology, or relative clauses,
etc. Some linguists combine these different kinds of criteria and include
additional restrictions in their definitions.
For typologists, creoles along with pidgins and mixed
languages present a particularly interesting set of issues as such languages
involve some disruption in the natural transmission of language from parent to
child, they promise to open up new possibilities that are not found in
languages that are the product of normal intergenerational transmission.
The Language Bioprogram Hypothesis (LBH) and the common features of
Creoles
Bickerton’s concept of Language Bioprogram has been
alternatively interpreted as a “genetic” or “biological program”, “language
faculty” and “biological endowment” as it stipulates the idea that there is an
innate bioprogram that determines the form of human language.
The theory predicts that instead of merely processing
linguistic input, the child will seek to actualize the blueprint for language
with which the bioprogram provides him/her. The bioprogram language would
unfold, just as a physical bioprogram unfolds; the language would grow just as
the body grows, presenting the appropriate structures at the appropriate times
and in the appropriate, preprogrammed sequences (a ready-made language which
their elders will be determined that they should learn. Thus, almost (but not
quite) from the earliest stages, the evolving bioprogram will interact with the
target language. Sometimes features in the bioprogram will be very similar to
features in the target language, in which case we will find extremely rapid,
early, and apparently effortless learning. Sometimes the target language will
have evolved away from the bioprogram, to a greater or lesser extent, and in
these cases we will expect to find common or even systematic “errors” which, in
orthodox learning theory, will be attributed to “incorrect hypotheses” formed
by the child, but which are simply the result of the child’s ignoring (because
he is not ready for it) the data presented by speakers of the target language
and following out instead the instructions of his bioprogram.
Bickerton (1981) was among the first to make a
particular theoretical point of that Creole languages share some particular
common structures. He enumerated a list of proto-typical creole features
consisting of the following twelve features:
1.
Word Order (and movement rules)
2.
The determiner system
3.
TMA system
4.
Sentential Complementation
5.
Relativization strategies (plus subject-copying)
6.
Negation
7.
The use of the same form for possessive and
existential
8.
Copula constructions
9.
Adjectives as a subclass of verbs
10. Yes/no questions
11. Question words
12. Passives as lexical diathesis
However it has been argued that although creoles are
remarkably similar with respect to word order, preverbal particle order, it is
not so much in respect to the semantic content of TMA elements and the paucity
of inflectional morphology. Hence there seems to be a tension between unity and
diversity of linguistic structures in Creole languages. Some major
characteristics of creoles being the lack of inflectional morphology, the lack
of derivational transparency, the lack of lexical tone, the presence of
reduplicative structures, the presence of serial verb constructions… and so on
question why certain linguistic features or properties are retained while
others appear to be lost during the development of Creole languages.
2.3
Creolisation/Creole Genesis theory
The monogenesis theory was originally proposed to
explain the striking similarities noted among creole languages found in distant
corners of the world and having different lexical bases. It further states that
the variety (jargon or pidgin) was then exported to many different locations
throughout the colonial world, where most of its original lexicon was replaced
with lexical items from whatever European language was dominant in a given
setting. Its grammar, however, remained intact, resulting in numerous creoles
having different lexical bases but similar grammatical structures.
The delimitation issue is a vexed one as we cannot
know which features of the creoles are due to universal processes of
creolization and which to specific properties of all languages involved and
hence resulting in creole genesis theories. A multidimensional model for creole
genesis is required so as to deal with specific processes that interact with
general properties of the human language faculty, and different linguistic
traditions, African and European.
The first process is the simplification of the
European target language input, due to accommodation by native speakers of
these languages by native speakers of these languages in contact settings, but
most of all to second language learning strategies on part of the slaves. This
simplification results in selective adoption of target language material:
content words and phonetically strong forms are taken over, most morphological
endings and (unstressed) preverbal clitics disappear. Syntactically,
simplication is manifested in the loss of ordering possibilities. Creoles generally
have much less variable word order than their European lexifier languages.
A second process concerns relexification of the
structural patterns of the first language with words from the European colonial
languages. This process is also referred to as intertwining and is similar to
what is termed as native language transfer, conservation of L1 patterns and
insertion or embedding of new vocabulary in a native matrix language structure
(Myers-Scotton: 1993).
The third major process involved in some cases of
creole genesis is convergence between the patterns of the languages in contact.
This process was assumed to be based on compromises between the categories of
the different languages as well as between their word order patterns.
A final issue to be discussed is the nature of
pidgins, contact languages without native speakers. Often pidgins are taken to
be unstructured and more simplified precursors of creoles, following the idea
that pidgins and creoles are stages of the same cycle of language genesis. In
fact only a few of pidgins do not resemble prototypical creoles at all, but rather
form a category of their own, with vocabulary and structural features taken
from various languages involved in contact. Prototypical creoles generally have
most vocabulary items from one single source.
2.4 Lexical typology
and sound system of Creole Languages
Phonological typology is concerned with the study of
the distribution and behaviour of sounds found in human languages of the world.
One thread of typological research in phonology involves defining the range of
cross linguistic variation and the relative frequency of phonological patterns.
Another line of investigation attempts to couch these typological observations
within theories designed to model and explain the human knowledge of and
capacity to acquire phonological systems, both require a cross linguistic
database from which to draw generalizations.
Creole languages tend to follow the universal tendency
towards the cross linguistically most frequent syllable structure CV. French
lexifier creoles feature the (partial) agglutination of the definite and
partitive articles e.g: Haitian ‘lekol’
(School) < French l’ecole, ‘diri’ (Rice) < French du riz (some rice),
‘zorey’ (ear) <French les Oreilles (the ears). The same phenomenon is spread
in the French lexifier creoles of the Indian Ocean. For instance, considering
only count nouns featuring an initial syllable entirely derived from French
article, Baker (1984) identified 112 cases in Haitian, 471 in Mauritian, 337 in
Rodrigues and 444 in Seychelles. The latter three, have undergone influence from
Bantu languages which is why the Bantu class prefixes might have played a role
in the recruitment of the forms. A very important motive for these cases of
morpheme boundary shift is nevertheless also constituted by the facts that in
spoken French, these specific items almost canonically occur with articles, and
that the resulting forms begin with CV-syllable.
Although a number of African and Indian languages
etyma seem to have survived in the Indian Ocean creole languages, the majority
of the vocabulary items in the Indian Ocean creoles have a European source.
There must have been rapid lexical expansion in the early creoles to serve the
needs of a full-fledged community language. Several word formation processes
such as borrowing, reduplication, and limited derivational affixation, and
multifunctional use of roots play particularly important role in lexical
expansion.
Horvath and Wexler (1997) argue that pidgins and
creoles differ from mixed languages in that all types of lexical entries (minor
as well as major category lexical entries) are hypothesized to have undergone
relexification. It has been hypothesized that in pidgin and creole languages
lexical entries copied from minor category lexical entries are relabeled on the
basis of major category lexical entries in the superstratum language or through
reanalysis.
The nature of the process of relexification is related
to the development of the lexicon of creole languages, due the fact that it is
available to human cognition and it is also effectively used in the rapid
creation of new languages have consequences for the theory of the transmission
and acquisition of lexicons in situations where new languages are formed by
this process. Hence it is the nature of this process that lexical entries have
phonological representations derived from phonetic strings in the lexifier
language but syntactic and semantic properties derived from the substratum
language(s). On the surface, it looks as if a totally new language has been
created, however in reality; the semantic and syntactic properties of the new
lexicon are those of the substratum language lexicon(s). The properties of the
original lexicon(s) are being transmitted by adults and acquired by children.
2.5 Linguistic
Universals
During the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a view
which dominated the field of pidgin and creole studies stating that “the
sources of morphological expansion in creoles are formal universals of
language- more specifically, the biologically determined set of principles for
the organization of language that Bickerton calls the ‘language bioprogram’.
These principles are said to emerge when there is highly variable or
insufficient input for children acquiring their first language” (Siegel: 2008:
66).
According to Bickerton, each creole language was
rapidly created in just one generation by the children of the imported
plantation labourers from many different language backgrounds; who were exposed
to a highly variable and undeveloped pre-pidgin or incipient pidgin. In this lingual community, the children
acquired this non fully developed language and therefore they had to fall back
on their innate linguistic capacity to turn this into a full fledge language
hence a creole. Hence Bickerton’s Language Bioprogram Hypothesis (1981)
supports the theory that humans have an innate faculty for language as creoles
display the universal characteristics of human linguistic endowment.
Bickerton’s LBH theory focuses on twelve linguistic
features of creoles, as listed below and the first eight are concerned with
morphological expansion:
It is also claimed that these features did not come
from the lexifier language or the ancestral languages of the creole speakers
(the substrate languages), or from any other languages in the contact
environment. Therefore, they must have been ‘created’ by children according to
their inborn linguistic knowledge. However, this view does not account for the
sources of expansion in the cases of features not purported to be part of the
bioprogram and it does not also account for the features that have clearly
developed gradually in creoles, some with properties similar to putative
bioprogram features.
Universality of
Creole Features
Another important premise for the LBH is that widely
distributed creole languages (in Hawai’I, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic and
Indian Ocean regions) are also said to be virtually identical with regard to
the twelve features listed above. Bickerton (1981: 42) states that ‘if all
creoles could be shown to exhibit an identity far beyond the scope of chance,
this would constitute strong evidence that some genetic program common to all
members of the species was decisively shaping the result. For example, Hawai’I
Creole is critical in this argument because its substrate languages (Hawaiian,
Cantonese, Portuguese, Japanese, etc…) were so different from the mainly West
African Substrate languages of the Caribbean and Atlantic creoles, yet it
supposedly shares these same diagnostic creole features.
According to Bickerton (1981: 72), Hawai’I Creole is
“identical with all or with a large percentage of creoles’ in terms of eight of
the twelve features. It also shows a fair degree of similarity in two’ (copula
constructions and relativization strategies) and ‘diverges sharply in two’
(multiple marking of negation and bimorphemic question words). As per the
research of Bickerton considering the features of Creole verb phrase that he
says are identical with those of other creoles: the TMA system, adjectives as a
subclass of verbs, the copula, and sentential complementation.
3.0 Methodology:
For the purpose of this study, the Comparative
technique was employed, while other authors’ ideas and examples are selective
and representative rather than exhaustive. The comparative method attempts to
compare languages to establish their historical relatedness, and genetic
relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language and comparative
linguistics aims to construct language families, to reconstruct proto-languages
and specify the changes that have resulted in the documented languages. It is
convenient for this study as it allows us to understand and analyse the human
linguistic potential, methods, descriptions and analyses. It enables us not
only to portray the common properties among languages but it is flexible enough
to depict the various degrees of variation found among the languages under
observation.
Languages should be compared primarily on the data
presented to us, as relying on an overly abstract approach to linguistic
description maximizes the possibilities that comparison is not being based on
languages but it is rather the linguist’s conceptions or misconceptions about
languages. A few structural or typological features such as lexical source will
be compared and contrasted by taking comparative data from the 4 French based
creole languages. Hence one cannot generalize the arguments and data put
forward in this study as they range from a small number of selected creole
languages. The study cannot be generalized for the whole of the Creole language
as languages change not only gradually but consistently as they tend to
converge to similar forms.
Typological research in general is dependent on
comparable data coming from many different languages. Cross linguistic
identification of studied phenomena presupposes a procedure which ensures we
compare like for like. For data collection and cross linguistic identification
of phenomena, grammatical typology has historically been largely dependent on
secondary data sources (such as reference grammars), with first hand data
sources. However, for lexical typology first hand sources of data are crucial,
since the lexicon for most languages is relatively poorly described. Hence for
the purpose of this study, a list of 35 words were devised which contained
phonemes from the creoles’ differing vowel and consonant system.
The sample consisted of 8 informants, 4 boys and 4
girls (refer to the table below), aged between 20 and 25, who were from rural
and urban areas from their respective countries. They were chosen because they
were native speakers of the creole languages under study.
Table 1: Background Information of the Respondents
|
Name
|
Age
|
Gender
|
Nationality
|
Mothertongue
|
|
Nirma
|
20
|
Female
|
Mauritian
|
Mauritian
Creole
|
|
Jennifer
|
25
|
Female
|
Rodriguan
|
Rodriguan
Creole
|
|
Priyanka
|
23
|
Female
|
Reunionese
|
Reunionese
Creole
|
|
Monica
|
25
|
Female
|
Seychellois
|
Seychellois
Creole
|
|
Koolvesh
|
21
|
Male
|
Mauritian
|
Mauritian
Creole
|
|
Jean
Louis
|
24
|
Male
|
Rodriguan
|
Rodriguan
Creole
|
|
Mourougen
|
25
|
Male
|
Reunionese
|
Reunionese
Creole
|
|
Thomas
|
21
|
Male
|
Seychellois
|
Seychellois
Creole
|
The process of data collection was carried out via
social media Whatsapp and Facebook, all participants were asked to send the way
they would write these words as well as record how they pronounce these words
then the recordings were sent via Whatsapp messenger.
The data collected was then phonologically
transcribed. Speech samples were analyzed based on
auditory-perceptive parameters so as to be able to know the differences among these creole
languages. The auditory analysis is the process by which the
human auditory system organizes sound into perceptually meaningful elements. Particular attention was
paid to features specific features which have been associated with creole
languages (such as rhotic sounds; production of R’s and Fricatives along with
some vowels).
4.0 Findings and Results
The table below summarises the data collected along as
with their phonetically
transcribed counterpart.
|
|
English
|
French
|
Mauritian Creole
|
Rodriguan Creole
|
Reunion Creole
|
Seychellois Creole
|
|
1.
|
Beautifull
|
Joli /ʒɔli/
|
Zoli /zɔli/
|
Zoli /zɔli/
|
Zoli /zɔli/
|
Zoli /zɔli/
|
|
2.
|
Road
|
Chemin /ʃəmɛ̃/
|
Simé /səmə/
|
Semin /sɘmɛ̃/
|
Somin /somɛ̃/
|
Semen /sɘmɛ̃/
|
|
3.
|
Jalouse
|
Jalou /ʃəmɛ̃/
|
Zalou /zalu/
|
Zalou /zalu/
|
Zalouz /zaluz/
|
Zalou /zalu/
|
|
4.
|
Number
|
Numéro /nymeʁo/
|
Nimero /nimʁo/
|
Limero /limʁo/
|
Niméro /nimeʁo/
|
Limero /limʁo/
|
|
5.
|
Half
|
Moitié /mwatje/
|
Lamoitié /lamwatje/
|
lamuakie
|
LÂ Moitié /lamwatje/
|
Lanmwatye /lɑ̃mwatj/
|
|
6.
|
suppository
|
Supositoire /sypozitwaʁ/
|
Sipozitoire /sipozitwaʁ/
|
sipozision
|
Bonbon la fesse (bum
toffee)/ bɔ̃bɔ̃ la fɛs/
|
Sipozeman /sipozmɑ̃/
|
|
7.
|
Sunglasses
|
Lunettes solaire /lynɛt sɔlɛʁ/
|
Rébann / ʁeban/
|
Riban / ʁiban/
|
conserves (preserves)
/kɔ̃sɛʁvə/
, /pʁəzɛʁv/
Linet soleil
|
linet pu soley /linɛ py sɔlɛ/
|
|
8.
|
Market
|
Marché
/maʁʃe/
|
Bazaar / bazaʁ/
|
Bazar / bazaʁ/
|
LÂ boutique /la butik/
|
Bazar /bazaʁ/
|
|
9.
|
cardamom
|
Cardamom /kaʁdamom/
|
Laiti / leti/
|
Cardamone /kaʁdamon/
|
Coeur d’amant (lover’s
heart)
/kɔœʁ damɑ̃/
|
Kadamon /kadamɔ̃/
|
|
10.
|
To eat
|
Manger /mɑ̃ʒe/
|
Manzé / mɑ̃ze/
|
p manzer / mɑ̃ze/
|
Manzay /mɑ̃zɛ/
|
Pu manze /py mɑ̃z/
|
|
11.
|
Never
|
Jamais /ʒamɛ/
|
Zamé / zame/
|
Zamé / zame/
|
Zamais /zamɛ/
|
Zanmen /zɑ̃mɛn/
|
|
12.
|
To sing
|
Chanter /ʃɑ̃te/
|
Santé / sɑ̃te/
|
Santé / sɑ̃te/
|
Sonter /sɔ̃te/
|
Pu santé /py sɑ̃te/
|
|
13.
|
Octopus
|
Pieuvre /pjœvʁ/
|
Orite / ɔʁit/
|
Orite / ɔʁit/
|
Zourite /zuʁit/
|
Zourit /zuʁi/
|
|
14.
|
Peanuts
|
Pistache /pistaʃ/
|
Pistas / pista
|
Pistas / pista
|
Pistash /pistaʃ/
|
Pistas /pistas/
|
|
15.
|
Indian spices (Masala)
|
Épices /epis/ Indienne
/ɛ̃djɛn/
|
Masala / masala/
|
Masala / masala/
|
Massalé /masale/
|
Zepis lenn /zəpi lɛn/
|
|
16.
|
Children
|
Enfants /ɑ̃fɑ̃/
|
Zenfan / zɑ̃fɑ̃/
|
Zenfan / zɑ̃fɑ̃/
|
Marmaillem/marmay [maʁmaj/maʁmɛ]
|
Zanfan /zɑ̃fan/
Or Manrmay /mɑ̃ʁmɛ/
|
|
17.
|
Old person
|
Vieux /vjø/
|
Vié / vje/
|
Vié / vje/
|
Granmoun [ɡʁamun]
|
Vye /vj/ Dimoun /dimun/
|
|
18.
|
Friend
|
Ami(e) /ami/
|
Kamarad / kamaʁa/
|
Kamarad / kamaʁa/
|
Dalon /dalɔ̃/
|
Zanmi /zɑ̃mi/ or Dalon /dalɔ̃/
|
|
19.
|
House
|
Maison /mɛzɔ̃/
|
Lakaz / lakaz/
|
Lakaz / lakaz/
|
case/kaz /kaz/ka/
|
Lakaz /lakaz/
|
|
20.
|
Humans
|
Humain /ymɛ̃/
|
Dimune / dimyn/
|
Dimune / dimyn/
|
Zumin /zymɛ̃/
|
Imen /imɛn/
|
|
21
|
One/a
|
Un /ɛ̃/
|
Enn /ɑ̃n/
|
Enn /ɑ̃n/
|
Zin /zɛ̃/
|
Enn /ɑ̃n/
|
|
22.
|
There was
|
Il y avait /il j avɛ/
|
Ti éna /ti ɛ̃nɑ̃/
|
Ti éna /ti ɛ̃nɑ̃/
|
Navé /nave/
Néna /nena/
|
Ti annan /ti anɑ̃/
|
|
23.
|
Many people
|
Beaucoup de monde /boku də mɔ̃d/
|
Buku /byky/ dimune / dimyn/
|
Buku /byky/ dimune / dimyn/
|
Di Moune /dimun/
Un paké domoune / ɛ̃ pake dɔmun/
|
En ta Dimoun /ɑ̃ ta dimun/
|
|
24.
|
I love you
|
Je t’aime /ʒə tɛm/
|
Mo conten / kɔ̃tɑ̃ / twa
|
Mo conten / kɔ̃tɑ̃ / twa
|
Mi aime a ou /mi ɛm a ou/
|
Mon kontan ou /mɔ̃ kɔ̃tɑ̃ ou/
|
|
25.
|
Now
|
Maintenant /mɛ̃tnɑ̃/
|
Asterla / astɛʁla/
|
Asterla / astɛʁla/
|
Koméla / kɔmela/
|
La /la/ or "an se
monman" /ɑ̃ sə mɔ̃mɑ̃/
|
|
26.
|
Shirt
|
Chemise /ʃəmiz/
|
Semiz /səmi/
|
Semiz /səmi/
|
Chemise /ʃəmiz/
|
Semiz /səmi/
|
|
27.
|
Table
|
la table /la tabl/
|
Latab /latab/
|
Latab /latab/
|
LÂ tab /latab/
|
Latab /latab/
|
|
28.
|
Heart
|
le Coeur /lə kɔœʁ/
|
Leker /ləke/
|
Leker /ləke/
|
Lo ker /loke/
|
Leker /ləke/
|
|
29.
|
Wings
|
les ailes /lez ɛl/
|
Lézel /ləzɛl/
|
Lézel /ləzɛl/
|
LÂ zel /le zɛl/
|
Lezel /ləzɛl/
|
|
30.
|
Sand
|
du sable /dy sabl/
|
Disab /disab/
|
Disab /disab/
|
Lo sab /lo sab/
|
Disab /disab/
|
|
31.
|
Water
|
de l'eau /də lo/
|
Délo /dəlo/
|
Délo /dəlo/
|
Do lo /do lo/
|
Delo /dəlo/ or dilo
|
|
32.
|
Sun
|
le soleil /lə sɔlɛj/
|
Soley /sɔlɛ/
|
Soley /sɔlɛ/
|
Soleil /sɔlɛj/
|
Soley /sɔlɛ/
|
|
33.
|
The moon
|
la lune /la lyn/
|
Laline /lalin/
|
Laline /lalin/
|
LÂ line /lalin/
|
Lalinn /lalin/
|
|
34.
|
The chair
|
la chaise / la ʃɛz/
|
Sez /səz/
|
Sez /səz/
|
LÂ seiz
/la sɛz/
|
Sez /səz/
|
|
35.
|
Juice
|
Jus / ʒy/
|
Zi / zi/
|
Zi / zi/
|
Jus /ʒy/
|
Zi / zi/
|
5.0 Analysis and Discussion
1.RELEXIFICATION
In many speech communities in which languages are in
contact a number of different types of contact phenomena may be observed such
as lexical borrowing, codeswitching, first language interference on second
language learning, calquing, semantic borrowing, relexification, and possibly
convergence. Speakers of a relexified language are usually unaware of the role
of relexification in the genesis of their language, unless they have
participated in the act themselves. The typical contrast between borrowing
lexical items and borrowing grammatical “structure” (cf. Thomason &
Kaufman, 1988); the latter may involve phonological, morphological and
syntactic borrowing.
In the above study, some words from Reunion Creole
have been reappropriated, and similarly to any of the Creole languages, words
having the same meaning are often pronounced differently. For instance,
1. Conserves in French means to preserve, however we
see that in Creole languages they refer to sunglasses
a. In most of the creole languages ‘bazaar’ is the
market, while in French ‘bazar’ would mean a mess. However there can be two
interpretation of this as:
b. This word could have been reappropriated from
French. It might have been borrowed but the semantic content of the word was
changed in the process of borrowing.
2. Secondly, after slavery was abolished, a number of
Asians were brought to these islands to work in the fields. In the case of
immigration, the most dominant ethnic group was those who were brought from
India; hence this might be also a case of borrowing. As in Hindi or Bhojpuri,
‘bazar’ means market.
In Creole pronunciation there are two basic rules: ‘r’
is generally not pronounced (when it is, it is pronounced lightly) that is as
the fricative and uvular /ʁ/ and the soft ‘j’ and ‘ch’ /ʃ/ sounds of French are pronounced as ‘z’ and‘s’
respectively. For example, “manger/mɑ̃ʒe/” (to eat) in French becomes ‘mɑ̃ze/ mɑ̃zɛ’,
‘zamais’ /zamɛ/ for ‘jamais’ /ʒamɛ/ (never), the consonant change is consonant though there might be some
differences at the level of the vowels as some creoles tend to be more
nasalized and Creole languages are full of semi vowels. Chaudenson (1981)‘s study revealed that there
were some differences in phonology, intonation, syntax and lexicon. From the
data collected, this is manifested through the alternation of the /n/ in numéro /nymeʁo/ which changes to /l/ as in limero (number) and palatised /t/ and /k/ as
in lamuakie (half). Although limero is a common Mauritian pronunciation,
Baissac (1880) attests lamwakye in
Mauritius; he finds the principal difference between the two varieties to be
due to the lack of Indian derived lexicon in Rodrigues.
It has commonly been argued that the similarities
among creole languages is because they share the same lexifier and also due to
same socio-political conditions, however linguists studying Creoles in the
Atlantic and Pacific regions stated that ‘parent languages’ alone cannot
account for parallel structures and argue that universal languages structures
could be accountable. Influenced by Chomsky’s idea of a human mental language
program for language acquisition, Derek Bickerton formulated the Bioprogram
Hypothesis. This theory claims that children of Pidgin and multiple language
speakers are exposed to such chaotic language input that, in the process of
acquiring language these children revert to the fundamental universal
structures to create a full-fledge language namely a creole.
Most of the nouns in the French creoles inevitably
come from French, although many of these are now pronounced differently when
compared with corresponding nouns in French. Different phonological processes
are responsible for these changes. For instance Syea (2017) states that “in the
Indian Ocean Creoles, the consonant /ʃ/ has changed to /s/ and the vowel /ɘ/ has changed to /i/ as in / ʃɘmiz/ > /simiz/ ‘shirt’.”
However, the most commented on change in the French creoles is not a
phonological change but a morphological change. This change involves a process
of agglutination which, when it applies, results in the French articles,
particularly the definite le, la, le, and
partitive du, de la, de l’, becomingan
integral part of the root nouns which they precede. This is illustrated by the
following creoles from the data collected, although comparable examples exist
in all other French creoles: latab (<Fr la table) ‘table’, disab (<Fr du
sable) ‘sand’, dilo (<Fr de l’eau) ‘water’, and so on. However not all nouns
display such agglutination: soleil (<Fr le soleil) the sun (cf. lalin <Fr
la lune, the moon), sez (<Fr la chaise) chair (cf. latab < Fr la table)
‘table’. Thus, once agglutinated, the root noun corresponding to the English
lexeme table or French lexeme table in the French creoles as in the Indian
Ocean Creoles is no longer ‘tab’ but ‘latab’. Agglutination effectively results
in re-drawing the word boundary which exists between articles and nouns in
French so that these are no longer two independent words in the French creoles
but a single word. Accordingly, an adjective can precede it gran latab la ‘the
big table’ (cf. French la grande table), and a determiner (indefinite,
possessive, or demonstrative) can occur with it: enn latab ‘a table’, mo latab
‘my table’, sa latab la ‘this/that table’, which suggests that, once
agglutinated and integrated into the noun stem, it no longer has any
independent semantic or grammatical existence. That is why it can occur with
the indefinite article without causing any semantic anomaly and with the
possessive and demonstrative without causing any grammaticality (cf. French
‘une la table’, ‘ma la table’, or ‘cette la table’). The Indian Ocean Creoles according to Baker
(1984) and Grant (1995) have the largest number of agglutinated nouns (646 in
Seychelles Creole and 637 in Mauritian Creole), as compared to that of Reunion
Creole which has the least number of agglutinated articles of all the creoles
investigated. These differences between the creoles are significant because
they suggest that exposure to French in both amount and duration, is known to
have been the greatest and longest on Reunion Island; which explains why the
creole spoken there is often seen as a semi creole. A conclusion which can be
drawn is that the longer the exposure and the greater the amount of exposure to
French, the smaller the number of agglutinated nouns in the French creoles. The
small numbers of agglutinated nouns in some of the Creoles investigated may be
a consequence of smaller and shorter exposure to the language and the rate at
which contact with French was gradually being lost or withdrawn.
Different individuals may produce different linguistic
forms even if they share the same mothertongue, depending on 1)
sociogeographical factors (exposure to, respectively the local variety and the
outside norm), 2) educational factors (the higher the education level reached,
the more the likelihood that the standard model is know), and 3) psychological
factors (language attitudes determine choices among the varieties available) as
no creole speaking community is completely homogeneous.
The continuous habitation of Seychelles dates from
1770s with a population drawn initially
from both Mauritius and Reunion. Most of the immigration thereafter appears to
have come from East Africa. This continued after the abolition of the slave
trade and even following emancipation as Africans rescued from ships
transporting slaves were frequently put ashore in Seychelles rather than being
returned to Africa and this might explain why Seychelles is said to have more
of African languages features. The continuous habitation of Rodrigues dates
from 1792 and everyone who settled there permanently appears to have come from
Mauritius, at no time were slaves directly taken to Rodrigues from Africa or
Madagascar. Hence neither Seychelles nor Rodrigues received Indian indentured
labourers although both attracted some Indian traders. All the Indian Ocean
islands received Chinese immigrants in the latter part of the 19th
Century.
The below diagram taken from “Substrata
versus Universals in Creole Genesis: Papers from Amsterdam” by Pieter Muysken
and Norval Smith (1985) summarises the
events
Prior
to event 1, children born of slaves and exposed to a large extent to pidginized
varieties of the language of the ruling class began to implement the
bioprogram. Although slave parents were
not competent to ‘correct’ their children’s speech, the latter became
increasingly aware as they grew up that the ruling class which would determine
their future spoke an adequate language which included most of the vocabulary
they had acquired from the varieties of pidginized speech to which they had
been exposed. Thus, so long as slaves remained a minority, locally born slaves
had both the motivation to acquire the language of the ruling class and
sufficient degree of access to the latter to enable them to succeed in large
measure. Hence exposure and social mobility accounts for the need to converge
to the language of the masters.
Between
Events 1 and 2, there was a steady reduction in the degree of access to the
language of the ruling class available to locally born slaves. In consequence,
a growing proportion of the latter reached adulthood with an increasing
proportion of bioprogram derived features, where the emerging creole looked up
to the ruling class non creole language. However as the number of locally-born
slaves tended to increase, the emerging creole would shift more to the Creole
end of the continuum rather than to the ruling class language. Once the number
of locally-born slaves exceeded that of all the ruling class, that is from event
2 onwards; “then the tendency for those controlling the creole end of the
continuum to become increasingly numerically dominant and for their form of
speech to jell as a language distinct from that of the ruling class was very
strong-provided slave immigrants continued to arrive in large numbers” (Muysken
and Smith: 1986:168). A striking difference between Reunion and Mauritius is in
terms of the ratio of Europeans to slaves and also the speed of settlement.
Reunion was inhabited since 1663 but by 1713, its population had grown only to
1171 (50 years later) of whom 46% were slaves. Settlements in Mauritius began
only in 1721 however by 1730 the number of non Europeans outnumbered Europeans
and the range of non European languages consisted of Bambara, Indian languages,
Malagasy, and Bantu languages.
An
unusual feature of the settlement of Reunion is that the majority of first
French male settlers had Malagasy or Indian spouses. It is therefore assumed
that the emergent language of the new community would have been a dialectally
leveled variety of French with some influence from Malagasy and other languages
represented during this period. In sharp
contrast, the rapid rate of settlement and the diversity of the linguistic
groups represented in Mauritius would have meant that there was need for a
Creole language right from the start. Opportunities for locally born slaves to
acquire French in addition to Creole and perhaps an ancestral language
declined. Although of diverse ancestry, locally born slaves would have far more
in common with each other, due to their upbringing in the same territory, than
with slaves born abroad. One particular thing shared by them all would be the
more elaborated form of the local language which then acts as a medium for
community solidarity as well as a badge of identity. As the number of foreign
born slaves increased and they sought to acquire the local language of these
slaves, this provided opportunities for features of their ancestral languages
to get transferred to the Creole vernacular.
6.0 Conclusion
At the beginning of this study, it was assumed that
the similarities among the creole languages were firstly because they share the
same lexifier (superstratum language) French and secondly due to the Universal
properties of the UG in this case the monogenesis theory and Bioprogram
hypothesis. However, the study revealed that these similarities are due to the
fact that the emerging languages might have been in contact with each other or
rather the speakers (slaves might have been in contact with each other) as they
were made to travel from one island to another during colonization. As far as
the differences are concerned these can be related to demographic factors such
as the ratio of European to non European settlers as well as the size of the
non European speakers and the number of languages spoken by these non European
settlers. One of the major flaws in this study would be that indeed a number of
similarities exist among Creole languages, however it is not clear how
superficial or fundamental such similarities are and whether they are so
general that they can be taken to be a typologically defining characteristic of
the Creole languages.
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