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This paper presents new Skepi Creole Dutch data from the late-18th century, found in the work of the German scholar Ernst Karl Rodschied. The creole data include pronominal and verbal paradigms, a short 60-word excerpt from a private letter, and around two dozen names for local flora. After briefly introducing Rodschied, we present the data and compare them to the existing Skepi corpus.

Berbice Dutch was a creole language spoken in the Republic of Guyana in South America, a country first under Dutch, and later under British colonial rule. Owing mainly to Silvia Kouwenberg (A grammar of Berbice Dutch Creole, De Gruyter Mouton, 1994), we were blessed with a detailed synchronic documentation of Berbice Dutch before its demise. However, the formation of the language remains clouded in mystery: its grammar and (basic) lexicon display a seemingly unique mixture of Dutch (Creole) and Eastern Ijo, as a result of which the language is often portrayed as a challenge to existing contact-linguistic theory. In this paper, a scenario is proposed that, rather than challenging the said theory, is fully grounded in it: it will be argued that the language was a case of serial glottogenesis: a first stage of creolisation was later followed by language mixing. The paper furthermore presents hitherto unknown historical data pertaining to the arrival of Ijo speakers in Berbice.

This paper investigates the origins of Guianese French Creole. Whereas the existing literature assumes Guianese was formed in situ, we argue the creole is in fact genetically related to Lesser Antillean French Creole. We support our hypothesis by means of a range of comparative linguistic data. Furthermore, a historical framework is provided that accounts for linguistic transfer from the Lesser Antilles to French Guiana in the second half of the 17th century.

A long-lasting debate within creole studies concerns the scarcity of Spanish-based creoles and the theoretical implications this may have. However, there is no agreement as to how many genuinely Spanish-based creoles there are in the world, and identifying the size of that group can generate controversies. Papiamentu, for instance, is canonically classified as a Spanish-based creole, even though most scholars at present seem to agree its origins are Creole Portuguese. A Portuguese lineage has on various occasions and by various authors also been claimed for Chabacano (Philippine Creole Spanish) and Palenquero (spoken in Colombia). These creoles, too, were supposedly once Portuguese-based, only to subsequently be ‘relexified’ towards Spanish. This paper argues that there is little linguistic basis for that claim. Although both creoles do indeed seem to have received some Portuguese (Creole) input, we maintain that this input was limited and substratal in nature, and thus has no bearing on the classification (whether diachronic or synchronic) of the two creoles as truly Spanish-based.

In this article we present newly found lexical and grammatical data pertaining to Skepi, the Dutch-lexified creole which is now extinct but was once widespread in the Essequibo area of what is today the Republic of Guyana. The source of this new material are the linguistic notes contained in the diary of Reverend Thomas B. Youd, a missionary in service of the Church Missionary Society, who was active in the area from 1833 to 1842.

Publicerad 2020-03-04.

Publicerad 2020-04-30.

Publicerad 2020-02-06.

Publicerad 2020-01-07.

Publicerad 2020-05-27.

Publicerad 2020-08-20.

Publicerad 2020-03-31.

This article argues that the three existing varieties of Chavacano are descendents of one and the same proto-variety. While their direct relatedness used to be agreed upon, it has recently been questioned to differing extents by Lipski (e.g. 1992, 2010, 2013) and Fernandez (e.g. 2006, 2011). There is a large gap in Chavacano research insofar as systematic attempts at verifying or falsifying the alleged kinship between the varieties are missing to date. This article makes a first such attempt and argues that the varieties are indeed genetically related.

Palenquero is a Spanish-lexified creole spoken in Columbia. We argue that existing hypotheses regarding its birth are problematic in several regards. This article addresses the inconsistencies in these hypotheses and provides an alternative, more coherent account. More precisely, we take issue with the following three claims: (a) Palenquero is the result of a two-language encounter; (b) it has its roots in a West African Afro-Portuguese proto-variety; (c) an ancestral form of the creole emerged in the port city of Cartagena. We then set out to present our own, more economical, formation scenario, according to which Palenquero was formed in the early 1600s in the linguistically heterogenous maroon communities of the Cartagenan hinterlands.

Publicerad 2019-06-04.

Publicerad 2019-04-25.

Publicerad 2019-10-18.

Publicerad 2019-02-01.

Publicerad 2019-01-04.