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A mixed language is formed through the systematic combination of subsystems from two source languages (Bakker 2017: 219). Defining features include the social history of a language and the ways in which the source language components are distributed in the mixed language, showing significant amounts of lexicon and/or grammar from each source. Yet it is possible for a language of this type to also have identifiable influence from a third language, still showing a dichotomy of source in that the three sources can be categorised into two groups. The Australian mixed language, Light Warlpiri, shows evidence of contributions from Warlpiri, on the one hand, and Kriol and English on the other. Interestingly, the reflexive-reciprocal subsystem of Light Warlpiri shows clear influence of English, in contrast to that of Kriol. Subsystems can each operate somewhat independently of other subsystems in terms of which sources they draw on and how they do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ei language (or Wu-se) is a mixed language derived from Chinese and the Kam-Tai languages. This paper focuses on the status of Ei and its formation process. The ancestors of the Ei people were soldiers and their families from different ethnic groups, who were sent to the Patrol Division of E'jing Town, Rong County, Guangxi Province in the Ming Dynasty, some 600 years ago. They are a multi-ethnic fusion of Chinese, Zhuang, Kam, and Sui peoples. The Ei language resulted from contact between Chinese and Kam-Tai languages. Its core words are mainly Kam-Tai, and the commonly-used words are mainly Chinese. The word order is basically the same as Chinese, and its voiceless sonorants are consistent with Kam-Sui phonology. The root causes of its formation are the Ei speakers' ethnic identity as well as their stable and relatively closed life circles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I discuss the various functions of nominalization in Wutun, a mixed Sinitic language spoken by ca. 4000 people in Qinghai Province, Northwest China. Nominalization in Wutun is expressed by the multi-purpose marker -de (cognate to Standard Mandarin de 的), which functions on both the lexical and clausal levels. Lexical nominalization takes the verb as its domain to derive nouns or adjectives, while clausal nominalization takes the entire clause as its domain and allows the clause to be treated as a noun phrase. Clausal nominalization in Wutun is used to form nominal complement clauses, relative clauses and adverbial subordinate clauses. In addition, the multi-purpose marker -de in Wutun has functions that go beyond nominalization, including pronominal function, pre-nominal modification and stand-alone usage, which is related to aspect and emphasis and plays an important role in stance-taking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is ethnically and linguistically diverse. There are 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in the country, including the majority Han, with a 1.2 billion-strong population and Tatar, the smallest minority group with only 3,556 people residing in Xinjiang, according to the 2010 Population Census of the People's Republic of China, the latest census data available on the government's website (www.stats.gov.cn). The Han accounts for 91.6% of the population, with the minorities taking up the balance of 8.4%. Most ethnic groups have their own languages, which fall into typologically distinct language families, the largest being Altaic and Sino-Tibetan. Ethnologue lists 299 languages in China and rates the country 0.521 in linguistic diversity, compared with 0.035 for Japan and 0.010 for South Korea (Simons & Fennig 2017). A few ethnic groups, such as the Hui (Chinese Muslims) and the Manchus, who founded the last imperial dynasty of Qing (1644–1912), have lost their indigenous languages over the centuries. They speak the language of the Han majority. Linguistic diversity in China is manifested in two ways: across the ethnic groups and within the Han majority. In what follows, we give a schematic description of the languages and briefly summarize the papers in this issue that offer a snapshot of language contact in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author talks about the language styles and style shifting in Creole communities. She discusses the linguistic anthropology-based approaches, the stylistic fabric of one Creole, the Eastern Maroon Creole or Nenge(e) and how and why it has been evolving over time, and stylistic changes and the factors that play a role in the stylistic changes.

The Manila variety of Philippine Hybrid Hokkien (PHH-M) or Lánnang-uè is a contact language used by the metropolitan Manila Chinese Filipinos; it is primarily comprised of Hokkien, Tagalog/Filipino, and English elements. Approaching PHH-M as a mixed language, we investigate linguistically and socially conditioned variation in the monophthongs of PHH-M, focusing on the extent to which the vowel systems of the three source languages have converged. This analysis draws on data gathered from 34 native speakers; Pillai scores are calculated to assess the degree of merger. Contrary to certain predictions of prior work on mixed languages, PHH-M is found to have a unified, eight-vowel inventory distinct from any of its sources. Older women use more stable vowels across source languages, suggesting that they have led in the development of PHH-M as a mixed code; however, signs of change among younger women suggest either the endangerment of the code or its evolution in response to the community's shifting identity. We contextualize our conclusions in relation to the sociohistory and language ecology of metropolitan Manila's Chinese Filipino community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the origins of linguistic elements in three Northern Songhay languages of Niger and Mali: Tadaksahak, Tagdal and Tasawaq. Northern Songhay languages combine elements from Berber languages, principally Tuareg forms and from Songhay; the latter provides inflectional morphology and much of the basic vocabulary, while the former is the source of most of the rest of the vocabulary, especially less basic elements. Subsets of features of Northern Songhay languages are compared with those of several stable mixed languages and mixedlexicon creoles and in accounting for the origin of these languages the kind of language mixing found in Northern Songhay languages is compared with that found in the (Algonquian) Montagnais dialect of Betsiamites, Quebec. The study shows that Tagdal and the other Northern Songhay languages could be construed as mixed languages, although the proportion of Berber and Songhay elements varieties somewhat between these languages and also indicates that the definition of 'mixed language' is labile because different mixed languages combine their components in different ways, so that different kinds of mixed languages need to be recognized. NS languages seem to belong to the category of Core-Periphery languages with respect to the origins of more versus less basic morphemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the influence of Portuguese on Amazonian French Creole lexicon. Topics discussed include usage of French-lexified Creole language by three groups in the state of Amapá in Brazil, numbers of Amazonian French Creole (AFC) speakers, and the role played by adstrate language in the development of Creole lexicons. It also explores the origin of several Amazonian French Creole words.

Unserdeutsch, also known as Rabaul Creole German, is the only known German-lexifier creole. This critically endangered language has its origins in an orphanage in German New Guinea for mixed-race children, where Standard German was taught by mission personnel. Unserdeutsch was creolised in one generation and became the in-group language of a small mixed-race community. It is now spoken by around 100 elderly speakers, nearly all immigrants to Australia. The current project is only the second documentation based on actual fieldwork and has a specific focus on the use and vitality of the language as used by the last generation of speakers. It has the aim of producing an Unserdeutsch corpus that will facilitate both future linguistic research and contact with the language for the descendants of Unserdeutsch speakers. Preliminary findings show variation among speakers along a continuum from heavily creolised basilect to an almost European German acrolect. Most of the lexicon is derived from German, while a number of basilectal grammatical constructions are the result of the loss of marked features in German and possible imperfect second language learning as well as relexification of Tok Pisin, the presumed substrate language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine mass and count in Michif, a language often called a mixed language, which has elements from French (and English) and Cree (and Ojibwe). French has an obvious grammatical mass/count distinction (Doetjes 1997); Cree does not. Michif could therefore display a mass/count distinction, like French, or look like it lacks one, like Cree. In fact, the system is mixed (contra Croft 2003: 58): French-derived nominals display an obvious mass/ count distinction and the Cree-derived nominals do not. Number, numerals and quantifiers disambiguate within the French-derived part of the grammar but do not in the Cree-derived part. Michif has inherited both the French system and the Cree system, reflected in the behaviour of the nominals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Traces of Portuguese in Afro-Yungueño Spanish?" by Danae M. Perez that was published in the previous issue.

A response from the author of the article "Traces of Portuguese in Afro-Yungueño Spanish?" that was published in the previous issue, is presented.

The article discusses the relations between linguistic theory, creolization, language change and language acquisition. It examines the features of source and target languages to identify interferences from one language to the other. It notes that the causes of specific interference phenomena can be determined by linguistic methods.

The colonial history of Australia necessitated contact between nineteenth and twentieth century dialects of English and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island languages. This has resulted in the emergence of contact languages, some of which have been identified as creoles (e.g. Sandefur 1979, Shnukal 1983) while others have been hidden under the label of 'Aboriginal English', exacerbated by what Young (1997) described as a gap in our knowledge of historical analyses of individual speech varieties. In this paper we provide detailed sociohistorical data on the emergence of a contact language in Woorabinda, an ex-Government Reserve in Queensland. We propose that the data shows that the label 'Aboriginal English' previously applied (Alexander 1968) does not accurately identify the language. Here we compare the sociohistorical data for Woorabinda to similar data for both Kriol, a creole spoken in the Northern Territory of Australia and to Bajan, an 'intermediate creole' of Barbados, to argue that the language spoken in Woorabinda is most likely also an intermediate creole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Linguists who have studied the Afro-Colombian creole language Palenquero -- which shares a lexicon highly cognate with Spanish -- have noted the introduction of Spanish elements, ranging from conjugated verbs and preverbal clitics to more complex morphosyntactic constructions. The apparent mixing has variously been attributed to decreolization, language attrition, code-switching, interference from Spanish, performance errors, and the possibility that such configurations have been an integral part of Palenquero since its origins. The present study reports the results of experiments conducted in San Basilio de Palenque, to probe Palenqueros' implicit partitioning of Spanish and Palenquero. The results suggest that the Spanish incursions are not all feasibly characterized as code-switching, and do not meet the criteria for decreolization. The introduction of Spanish elements may be the residual effect of a return to the active use of a language that had lain effectively dormant for many years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the properties of the Present Perfect in Barranquenho/ Barranqueño, a contact variety spoken in the southern border of Portugal and Spain. In this variety, the Present Perfect displays a mixed structure: while the forms of auxiliary and participle are from Portuguese, its range of interpretations is not attested in Portuguese but rather in Spanish. As in other domains of the grammar of Barranquenho that have been studied, the Present Perfect displays features attributable to Portuguese and to Spanish. These findings are discussed against hypotheses regarding the emergence of this contact variety as well as the theoretical debate concerning the relation between language contact and second language acquisition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our study shows that the extended projection of nominals in Jamaican Creole (JC) is composed of a rich array of hierarchically organized functional projections, in line with cartographic research (Cinque 2002, Rizzi 2004, Belletti 2004). The functional material identified strikes parallelisms with that previously reported for the clausal domain of JC, both in their distributive and interpretative properties and their tendency to overtly realize either their specifier or their head (Durrleman 2001, 2005, 2015). We argue that the identified nominal architecture, coupled with the last resort phenomenon of doubly filling both head and specifier positions (Chomsky & Lasnik 1977, Koopman 1993, Dimitrova-Vulchanova & Giusti 1998, Starke 2004), has implications for another construction in Creole, namely 'bare sentences' (Dechaine 1991). These sentences give rise to telicity effects depending on, amongst other things, properties of the internal argument, whose high functional structure must be made visible by respecting the doubly filled XP filter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intense Berber-Songhay language contact that produced Northern Songhay cannot be understood adequately without taking into account the existence of a Northern Songhay language outside the Azawagh valley — Korandje, in Algeria — showing few, if any, signs of Tuareg contact. This article proposes a new explanation based on linguistic, epigraphic, and historical data: Western Berber-speaking Masūfa, present throughout northern Mali around 1200, founded Tabelbala to facilitate a new trade route; they chose Northern Songhay speakers, already a distinct group, for their experience in oasis farming and possibly copper mining. As Masūfa influence waned, the language was reoriented towards North Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Surinamese creole language Sranan, verbs in finite clauses that lack overt TMA-marking are often considered to be ambiguous between past and present interpretations (depending on the lexical aspect of the verb involved) or analyzed as having a perfective value. We claim that these verbs are in fact zero-marked, and we investigate the various uses of this zero expression in relation to context and lexical aspect on the basis of corpus data and native speaker elicitations. It is shown that existing analyses do not cover and unify all the various uses of the construction. We propose, as an alternative, to regard the zero form as present perfective marker, whereby tense and aspect are conceived of as fundamentally epistemic categories, in line with Langacker (1991). This combination of present tense and perfective aspect, which is regarded as infelicitous in typological studies of tense and aspect (cf. the 'present perfective paradox', Malchukov 2009), gives rise to the various interpretations associated with zero. However, in all of its uses, zero still indicates that, at the most basic level, a situation belongs to the speaker's conception of 'immediate reality' (her domain of 'inclusion'). This basic 'presentness' distinguishes zero from the past-tense marker ben, which implies dissociation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Creoles (here including expanded pidgins) are commonly viewed as being more analytic than their lexifiers and other languages in terms of grammatical marking. The purpose of the study reported in this article was to examine the validity of this view by measuring the frequency of analytic (and synthetic) markers in corpora of two different English-lexified creoles - Tok Pisin and Hawai'i Creole - and comparing the quantitative results with those for other language varieties. To measure token frequency, 1,000 randomly selected words in each creole corpus were tagged with regard to word class, and categorized as being analytic, synthetic, both analytic and synthetic, or purely lexical. On this basis, an Analyticity Index and a Syntheticity Index were calculated. These were first compared to indices for other languages and then to L1 varieties of English (e.g. standard British and American English and British dialects) and L2 varieties (e.g. Singapore English and Hong Kong English). Type frequency was determined by the size of the inventories of analytic and synthetic markers used in the corpora, and similar comparisons were made. The results show that in terms of both token and type frequency of grammatical markers, the creoles are not more analytic than the other varieties. However, they are significantly less synthetic, resulting in much higher ratios of analytic to synthetic marking. An explanation for this finding relates to the particular strategy for grammatical expansion used by individuals when the creoles were developing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author claims that John McWhorter misinterprets the ecological approach to the emergence of creole languages in his article published in an issue of the "Journal of Pidgin & Creole Languages." He notes on the allegation of McWhorter that the feature pool hypothesis is counterintuitive and intriguing. He criticizes the way McWhorter elevates his contributions to creolistics.

The author comments on the claims of linguist Salikoko S. Mufwene about the creole language. He notes on the work of Mufwene which investigated why Kituba, which came from Kikongo dialects, is isolating. He analyzes the stipulation of Mufwene that languages relying on bound morphology that come in contact with each other should not be taken for granted.

The article discusses why it matters whether there is such a thing as a creole language. The author explains his belief that the paradigm he favors is Creole Exceptionalism which is more useful and constructive. The general agreement was that creole grammars were too abundant with transfer from substrate languages for the bioprogram idea to stick when linguist Derek Bickerton proposed that creoles are unique in representing Universal Grammar in a more clear fashion than older languages.

Gurindji Kriol is a contact variety spoken in northern Australia which has been identified as a mixed language. Yet its status as an autonomous language system must be questioned for three reasons — (i) it continues to be spoken alongside its source languages, Gurindji and Kriol, (ii) it has a close diachronic and synchronic relationship to code-switching between Gurindji and Kriol, and (iii) its structure bears a strong resemblance to patterns found in this code-switching. Nonetheless in this paper I present criteria which support the claim of ‘language-hood’ for Gurindji Kriol. I demonstrate that Gurindji Kriol (i) is a stable language variety (it has child language learners and a high degree of inter-speaker consistency), (ii) has developed independent forms and structural subsystems which have not been adopted back into the source languages, and (iii) contains structural features from both languages which is rare in other language contact varieties including Kriol/Gurindji code-switching. I also present a number of structural indicators which can be used to distinguish Gurindji Kriol mixed language clauses from code-switched clauses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the Jamaican creole which is known as Patwa or Patois. It states that since Jamaica is English-speaking only, it means that Patwa does not have an official status and no legitimacy in public institutions. It mentions that inspite of being unofficial, it is presented in these institutions through people for whom it is a dominant language.

Mixed languages are said to be the result of a process of intertwining (e.g. Bakker & Muysken 1995, Bakker 1997), a regular process in which the grammar of one language is combined with the lexicon of another. However, the outcome of this process differs from language pair to language pair. As far as morphosyntax is concerned, people have discussed these different outcomes and the reasons for them extensively, e.g. Bakker 1997 for Michif, Mous 2003 for Ma’a, Muysken 1997a for Media Lengua and 1997b for Callahuaya. The issue of phonology, however, has not generated a large debate. This paper compares the phonological systems of the mixed languages Media Lengua, Callahuaya, Mednyj Aleut, and Michif. It will be argued that the outcome of the process of intertwining, as far as phonology is concerned, is at least partly determined by the extent to which unmixed phonological domains exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A contact language called Broken Slavey or Slavey Jargon flourished among the Gwich’in in the nineteenth century. Slavey Jargon absorbed elements of at least five source languages: French, Gwich’in, South Slavey (Dene-Tha’), Chipewyan, and English. Analyzing historical sources and recorded ethnographic texts from fluent speakers of Gwich’in, I offer an explanation of how the lexicon and grammar of this kaleidoscopic language converged regionally in the small subarctic communities of Fort McPherson, La Pierre’s House, and Fort Yukon. I also conclude that there is no internal textual evidence that Slavey Jargon was used as a trading pidgin. The polyglot form of most Slavey Jargon texts represents a curious inseam of linguistic democracy, suggesting that a measure of social equality was negotiated between the speakers of its diverse component tongues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on a discussion of creole morphology in the light of the interlanguage hypothesis which will then shed light on the question of universals, proximity to the superstrate, grammatical complexity and the role of superstrate. The author notes that it has often been implicitly assumed that believing in second language acquisition (SLA) processes in creolization amounts to more or less the same as believing in substrate transfer. The article sees that creoles can be meaningfully analyzed as conventionalized interlanguages of an early stage. More advanced stages can be explained in terms of language-external factors such as the availability of the superstrate.

The article focuses on the issue over the nature of the complexity in pidgin and creole languages. Arguments concerning the issue have largely been conducted on structural-functional grounds and have not been informed by developments in quantitative corpus analysis. Even those who endorse measures of complexity usually discuss them in the abstract without applying them systematically to corpora. The author notes that this trend is not entirely surprising, given the paucity of available materials for many pidgin and creole languages. Also mentioned in this article are quotes from literature indicating that pidgin and creole languages are associated with a relatively small vocabulary.

This paper compares “cut” and “break” verbs in four variants of Gbe, namely Anfoe, Anlo, Fon and Ayizo, with those of Sranan. “Cut” verbs are change-of-state verbs that co-lexicalize the type of action that brings about a change, the type of instrument or instrument part, and the manner in which a change occurs. By contrast, break verbs co-lexicalize either the type of object or the type of change. It has been hypothesized that “cut”-verbs are unergative while breaks verbs are unaccusatives. For example “break” verbs participate in the causative alternation constructions but “cut” verbs don’t. We show that although there are some differences in the meanings of “cut” and break verbs across the Gbe languages, significant generalizations can be made with regard to their lexicalization patterns. By contrast, the meanings of “cut” and break verbs in Sranan are closer to those of their etymons in English and Dutch. However, despite the differences in the meanings of “cut” and “break” verbs between the Gbe languages and Sranan, the syntax of the verbs in Sranan is similar to that of the Eastern Gbe variants, namely Fon and Ayizo. We look at the implications of our findings for the relexification hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on ongoing research on the role of various kinds of potential substrate languages in the development of the semantic structures of Ndyuka (Eastern Suriname Creole). A set of 100 senses of noun, verb, and other lexemes in Ndyuka were compared with senses of corresponding lexemes in three kinds of languages of the former Slave Coast and Gold Coast areas, and immediately adjoining hinterland: (a) Gbe languages; (b) other Kwa languages, specifically Akan and Ga; (c) non-Kwa Niger-Congo languages. The results of this process provide some evidence for the importance of the Gbe languages in the formation of the Suriname creoles, but also for the importance of other languages, and for the areal nature of some of the collocations studied, rendering specific identification of a single substrate source impossible and inappropriate. These results not only provide information about the role of Gbe and other languages in the formation of Ndyuka, but also give evidence for effects of substrate languages spoken by late arrivals some time after the “founders” of a given creole-speaking society. The conclusions are extrapolated beyond Suriname to creole genesis generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the Surinamese Creoles have figured prominently in discussions about Creole genesis, little is still known about the origin of their TMA system, a central area of grammar that has received much attention in this debate. In this paper we assess the relative contribution of the primary substrate input, varieties of Gbe, to the TMA system. Drawing on both contemporary data from several Surinamese Creoles and varieties of Gbe, and historical data from Sranan Tongo, we show that the substrate was clearly responsible for the emergence of some aspect and tense categories. However, in itself, substrate influence cannot explain the emergence of the entire Creole tense and aspect system. Other processes such as internal change, superstrate influence etc. also played an important role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author argues about the influences of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) may have had on the Creole language development. He maintains that the nineteenth century settlements of expatriated American slaves in Liberia, especially the Samaná settlers, shows evidence of a Creole influence upon the AAVE. He argues against the thesis of Shana Poplack and others who studied the linguistic qualities of unique populations in the Dominican Republic, as well as Guysborough and North Preston in Nova Scotia, Canada. Poplack feels that the unique aspects of AAVE could have evolved from English sources and did not rely on Creole influences.

The author conjectures that the pervasive nature of multilingual talents in modern West Africa makes the search for a historic "genesis" of the creole language difficult. The very nature of multilingual individuals offers them a chance to borrow words from other languages spoken and introduce them into another language. This quality of adaptation of language, if it carries back to the era of the slave trade, would add confusion to the linguistic study of Creole. The author feels this idea offers new areas of linguistic studies.

This papers investigates the representation of the variability characteristics of the post-creole continuum of Jamaica in literature, and it discusses theoretical ramifications concerning the nature of an author's 'pan-lectal' competence. Based upon Thelwell's novel The Harder They Come and set against the background of theoretical statements on literary dialect, the origin of the novel, and the Jamaican culture which it represents, the variability of literary dialect is investigated by two complementary types of approaches: a quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of three phonological and 13 morphological variables of Jamaican Creole as represented in the speech of 14 fictive characters, and a qualitative documentation of the style-shifting employed by some of these characters. The results show that Thelwell's literary representation of the Jamaican speech continuum is remarkably accurate and in line with the findings of fieldwork-based sociolinguistic studies. A wide range of variation between basilect and acrolect is convincingly represented in the novel, with the characters' idiolects correlating with their socioeconomic status and with situational parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the processes involved in the genesis of three pidgins of New Guinea. I will argue that the main principle at work in the formation of the morphosyntax of pidgins is a general human capacity for language simplification, but that these processes of simplification are subject both to the effects of specific linguistic features in the local multilingual contact situation that gives rise to the pidgin and to constraints resulting from a universal linguistic endowment. By a comparative look across a range of morphosyntactic features at the processes of simplification that produced three unrelated pidgins of New Guinea, Yimas Pidgin, Hiri Motu and Tok Pisin, the article exemplifies some of the types of structures that can result in pidgins from this general human capacity for language simplification, sifted through both local conditions and universal constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's views on the role of children in creole genesis. It also focuses on the learning strategies of children and adults. According to the author, children play a unique and important role in creole formation by regularizing grammatical patterns. The author states that one need to know more of the structure of the societies in which genesis took place to understand the role of children in creole genesis.

In this article, the authro discusses about the use of World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) in Creole languages.