Pidgin and creole languages: characteristics and development

¶ … English as Creole: "Still trying not to refer to you lot as 'bloody colonials'" Brandy Ryan evaluates the claim that Middle English is a creole. Ryan presents arguments that Middle English is a creole with Old French, Latin or Scandinavian, and that Middle English is representative of language death. Finally, Ryan argues that Middle English can be seen as a trilingual, which is drawn from Anglo-French, Latin, and Middle English.

Ryan presents the argument that Middle English can be considered a French Creole. Ryan outlines the argument of Bailey and Maroldt (1977). Bailey and Maroldt start with the assumption that Middle English is a creole, and go on to present an argument that Middle English became a creole through mixing with Old French before 1200 and Central French during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Middle English can also be considered a Latin or Scandinavian creole, Ryan notes. Warner argues that the Wyclifite sermons prove that Latin and English were familiar to both audience and authors. Poussa, however, argues that creolization between Old English and Scandinavian took place based on "loss of grammatical gender, extreme simplification of direct contact, and borrowing of common lexical words and form words."

Interestingly, Ryan also notes that Middle English is representative of language death. Dalton-Puffer notes that Middle English is the "last vestige of old English" (Ryan, 2005). Dalton puffer argues that language happened when an unstable bilingual of Normal French and Old English shifted from Old English, a regressive minority language to Norman French a dominant minority language.

A solid understanding of the Ryan's definition of creole is key to dissecting the claim that Middle English is a creole. Understanding how a pidgin differs from creole is also important in determining if Middle English is a creole. A pidgin, notes Ryan, is a "makeshift form of communication between speakers of two distinct languages," but neither language is the mother tongue of the community. Linguistic elements in a pidgin language are limited, and tend to be used for limited and practical functions, e.g., for the purpose of trade. "Over time, argues Ryan, pidgins can gradually evolve into a more sophisticated language, called a creole. Creoles, "reveal a more complicated structure: morphology and syntax become more elaborate, pronunciation stabilizes, and there is a marked increase in vocabulary" (Ryan). Ryan notes "Creole tends to be something of a 'ghetto' language, co-existing simultaneously with the dominant (usually colonial) language." In addition, notes Ryan, creole languages acquire native speakers, while pidgins do not acquire native speakers. A creole further differs from a pidgin in that a creole is stable enough to be passed to the next generation, while a pidgin cannot be passed to the next generation.

Authors arguing about the method of the creolization of Middle English, or even if Middle English is truly a creole, all rely on a definition of creole to prop up their arguments. Ryan notes that Manfred Gorlatch argues that the term creole is used vaguely by many scholars, and that the very definition of creole is often manipulated to suit the arguments of specific scholars. Gorlatch argues that Bailey and Mardolt's definition of a creole is too encompassing, and further suggests that most languages could be considered creoles under Bailey and Mardolt's definition.

Ryan also presents counter arguments that argue Middle English is not a creole, but that it can be considered a trilingual. This argument is based on a less restrictive definition of creole, where a creole does not need to have a primitive language, or a pidgin. Specifically, citing Rothwell (1998), Ryan notes that Middle English can be viewed as trilingual; specifically a combination of Old English, Central French, and Anglo-French. W. Rothwell argues that proponents of Middle English as a creole argue that one of the combination languages is dominant and the other more primitive. However, he argues that none of the following languages can be considered primitive: Old English, Central French, Middle English, or Anglo-French.

Interestingly, the initial definitions of creole that are given by Ryan indicate that a pidgin must first exist for there to be a creole. In A History of the English language, Elly van Gelderen argues "the rapid changes in Middle English are due to the many contacts with other languages but that a pidgin never arose." Certainly, the hypothesis that Middle English is a trilingual, as argued by W. Rothwell, does not necessarily depend on the existence of a pidgin of any combination of Old English, Central French, and Anglo-French.