Pidgins and Creoles - Essay Example

Pidgins and Creoles Order no. 161944 No. of pages-5 – 6530 The concept of the Pidgin or Creole language originated during the “Middle Ages” inEurope among the traders in the Mediterranean. These languages are said to have developed from “Sabir” which was a common Pidgin. The Portuguese who traveled far and wide over the Atlantic and Indian Oceans stopped in the Mediterranean for exploration and trade purposes and had to interact with the tribes there. They used a mixture of Pidgin English with Portuguese to carry out their transactions. Pidgin English is created by interaction of people of two different languages. It is actually a simplified form of one of the languages. It has very simple grammar with few synonyms. Pidgin English is the name said to be given to a Chinese- English- Portuguese Pidgin used for Commerce in Canton. It is also known as “Canton English”. The speech of the Aborigines too was mostly in Pidgin English and was perceived as a sign of inferiority more than a means of communication. But since the year 1860, the whites accepted Pidgin as the voice that represented the Aborigines. There are many different Pidgins such as “Chinook Jargon” used for trade in some parts of North America, West African Pidgin English used in different parts of Africa and Taglish a famous kind of pidgin used in the Philippines and many, many more. . However Creolization is widely used by anthropologists when referring to a cultural medley of contexts. They also refer to it as ‘hybridism’ or ‘intermixture’ (Bolland 1992: 50-1). In the Caribbean, it is described as -- the cruel but creative dialectical accommodation of cultural potential into a workable social life (Austin-Broos 1997: 4-6; Bolland 1992; Brathwaite 1971: 307) but it is also said to be able to sustain itself. Creole culture does not merely mean culture medley but it is instead a cultural landscape where there is an interplay of different cultural elements and a commitment to various social forms that all together make up their cultural backdrop. According to Routledge, the acceptance and diverse patterns of different cultural groups served as a “melting pot”( COPYRIGHT 1992 Routledge) for relations between races and thereby giving them a ‘collective identity’ of their own but were not considered to be homogenous. Examples of this would be -Pidgin’ and ‘Creole’. In the early colonial society, these changes got manifested due to the social and racial equilibrium that existed between the different castes and different ethnic groups. The most dramatic of these traits among the various groups was a constant conflict in striving to gain a common foothold with the limited autonomy they possessed. These traits were widely noticeable in the rural areas. Years of mutual adaptation and acceptance of other cultures and interaction between all these ethnic groups paid off in their gaining a distinct ‘sub-culture’ by themselves. Creolization refers to a pattern of interplay of cultural elements, a disjuncture between formations with an absolute commitment to various social forms which culminates what we recognize as “Creole Culture”. Likewise, what especially characterizes the Creole situation is the degree to which the contradictory dynamic of flux and interplay, disjuncture, and commitment is visible to and requires choice by actors simultaneously (Drummond 1998 [1982]). The triad that goes to give us the synchronized picture of Creole Culture is – commitment, ambiguation and disjuncture. It is the simultaneous working of this triad that gives us a clear picture of the Creole culture. Commitment: Edith Clarkes “My mother who fathered me”, an analysis of three field sites, is widely recognized as a classic of the first phase of West Indian ethnography (Nettleford 1997). In this book Clarke sheds light on the contrast between ‘Orange Grove’, an affluent and prospering farming village with ‘Sugartown’ a working class plantation settlement which was an opposite extreme. Though ‘Sugartown’ was noted for its riotous life of ‘drunkenness, gambling, prostitution and viciousness (1957: 189) yet Clarke brought out many of its redeeming qualities such as its strength in the face of diversities. So in the 1950’s Clarke achieved to bring to the forefront the life and culture of the people of Jamaica which was until then unknown. Anthropologists are suddenly aware of the fact that Caribbean Society is largely defined if not entirely on its “mobility”. There is a continuous social cultural exchange due to the networks linking the rural hinterlands with the far off urban in cosmopolitan surroundings. This transmigration and continuous cultural communication is what goes to make up the ‘Creole’. The Creole commitment is manifested because of the committed priorities of – the family, to Afro-centric identities and to West Indian nationhood. An example of this would be ‘Child-shifting, the relocation of children between family members and others, is a central element in the functioning of West Indian transmigrant family networks (Philpott 1973; Wardle in press-a). Approximately about 30% of children are shifted at birth from its mother to another domicile. Jeanette who was shifted to finally stay with Aunt Erica, had this to say while reinforcing her place in the family network of relationships – “A mother is a dear loving person to their children: a child who dont have a mother they lost everything. But this mother I have got from God is a real good mother. She is better than the mother that birth me. Make I tell you this: your mother dont must be your mother. The one that feel the pain sometime is not your real mother, but the one that dont feel the pain is the real good mother. Because she does not feel the pain to carry me here, but she treat me as if she carry me into this world” (Wardle 2000: 57). Ambiguation: In contrast, ambiguation deals with an attempt to explore, negotiate and in some cases evade cultural values and social formations. Ambiguation becomes an integral part in creative negotiation and finally crystallizing in open –ended social relationships. This mode of response neither advocates nor rejects the relationships immediately. Disjuncture: “Cultural identity is always situational in character”. (Waters 1999: 44-9). From the perspective of interaction, the idea of identity arises from an abundance of minor and major communicational acts. This capacity to displace without losing the sense of connection to a social network has a global political-economic dimension. W.A. Lewis (1978). Cultural expressions of disjuncture are omnipresent at all times and surface whenever the need arises. Ten (Socio-) Linguistic Axioms Peter L Patrick, University of Essex   1. Language is speech, or sign; writing is a secondary technology. 2. Children are biologically designed to become multilingual. 3. But acquiring literacy is best done in one’s own mother tongue. 4 All natural languages are equivalent in their potential value – moral, aesthetic and social. 5. Language is a primary means for engaging the world, developing & expressing an individual or group identity. 6. Educational institutions use arbitrary language standards as gate-keeping devices to reproduce the status quo. 7.   Standard languages and writing-based norms historically have privileged elite minorities, and continue to do so 8.   Bias towards a language or dialect stands in for bias towards/against its speakers. 9. Ethnicity and language have complex and dynamic relations with each other. 10. .  Language planning or interference and legislation, even by expert practitioners, frequently backfires.   Linguistic Human Rights homepage Peter L Patrick homepage Peter L Patrick coursepages Both Pidgin and Creole is learned only as a second language and not a Native language. It can only be used to cross the borders of communication but could never be taken seriously as an official language because it is not a language by itself – it has borrowings from different cultures and languages which it uses to lend itself only as a tool of communication. In conclusion it can be summed up that Pidginization and Creolization is here to stay. It may not take the place of the proper English Language, but it will continue to influence all the nations of the world with its simplicity and forthrightness there by bridging the gap of communication and building good relationships. Pidgin and Creole English would continue to find favor between peoples of different cultures paving a pathway to connect people of different cultures and religions. In a major way it covers the yawning gap of communication thus making it possible for trade to be carried on smoothly finally leading to the progress of the Nation as a whole. References Source Citation: Megged, Amos. "The rise of creole identity in early colonial Guatemala: differential patterns in town and countryside." Social History 17.n3 (Oct 1992): 421(20). British Council Journals Database. Thomson Gale. British Council - India. 3 Apr. 2007  Read More