If someone wants to know how languages arise,
he or she must study creolization.
Creole languages are the output of pidgins,
native languages with more complex structure
but they hide very important knowledge about
the birth of languages.
Robert Chaudenson, Director of the Institut
d’Etudes Créoles et Francophones, Aix-en-Provence,
and Professor of Linguistics at the Université
d’Aix-Marseille examines the phenomenon
of creolization mainly in case of French Creoles
of the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean.
However, he provides a general overview of
the field as well.
His analysis of the factors that play a significant
role in the process of creolization, gives
an important contribution to the study.
In the first parts of the book, he deals with
the current debates on the development of
creoles and theories of linguistic creolization.
This is the more technical part.
However, in the following chapters, he doesn’t
focus on the linguistic factors only.
He shows that in studying creolization one
must take sociohistorical factors into account.
He describes different aspects of the creole
cultures, like folklore, medicine and magic,
cuisine and music, but in his opinion, language
has to be the center of the study, ‘because
language plays a fundamental role both in
social evolution and in the development of
most other cultural systems’.
He overlooks other non-verbal communication
systems like gestures too.
He demonstrates that non-verbal communication
elements can be similar in some languages
which facts can be considered as an early
contribution to creole non-verbal language
in some cases.
He doesn’t agree with the mainstream theories
about creole genesis, but he proposes alternative
views.
‘The theory that views linguistic creolization
as simply a ‘mix’ of coexistent linguistic
systems is not consistent with the most common
linguistic reality.
The constant outcome of the contact of two
languages in the same community is much more
the domination of one by the other than a
harmonious mix.
This is even more so in the colonial societies
where creoles developed.’
He introduces new important terms for the
study.
‘Transcommunality is the ability of a system
to transcend ethnic or other social boundaries
and to be adopted by the society at large.
A communal system is thus the opposite: one
that tends to remain specific to a group in
which it was initiated.
Language is a highly transcommunal system.
The very genesis of creoles is characterized
by a generalization of usage of the dominant
language by multilingual groups of immigrants.’
The book is comprehensible thanks also to
its translations which are made by four scholars
from the fields discussed in the book.
Let me know what you think and leave me a
comment.
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