{"id":66667,"date":"2015-09-04T20:38:29","date_gmt":"2015-09-04T18:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/?p=66667"},"modified":"2025-10-21T22:00:43","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T20:00:43","slug":"questions-on-the-genesis-of-creole-languages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sorosoro.org\/en\/2015\/09\/questions-on-the-genesis-of-creole-languages\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions on the genesis of Creole languages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted by Marie-Christine Haza\u00ebl-Massieux on June 23, 2011<\/span>
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\nBy Marie-Christine Haza\u00ebl-Massieux, professor of linguistics at the university of Provence, author of Textes Anciens en Cr\u00e9ole Fran\u00e7ais de la Cara\u00efbe : Histoire et Analyse (\u00ab Ancient Texts in Caribbean French Creole: History and Analysis \u00bb), Publibook, 2008.<\/em>
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\nWhat does the term creole mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The ambiguity of the term creole must be pointed out. It is often understood as a synonym of \u00ab mixed language \u00bb \u2013 a difficult concept to define, incidentally \u2013 and one forgets that the adjective first qualifies any \u00ab product \u00bb that was generated in the islands from foreign parents: that explains why one might refer to \u00ab creole cattle \u00bb, \u00ab creole pigs \u00bb, or by the same token, to \u00ab Creole children \u00bb (White creoles, Black creoles).<\/p>\n

So at first, the term creole does not mean \u00ab mixed \u00bb at all, but only underlines that the parents\/ancestors weren\u2019t originally from the colony.<\/p>\n

Masters & slaves<\/strong><\/p>\n

In many European colonies, the 16th century through to the 18th century saw the rise of Creole languages (languages of the Creole populations), which, according to where the colonists came from, ended up being called Portuguese Creoles, English Creoles, French Creoles, etc.<\/p>\n

French-based Creoles were all born in situations of intense linguistic contact involving languages that were spoken by the masters and their slaves. Arriving from various regions of Africa, the slaves spoke a very large number of languages that prevented them from understanding each other.<\/p>\n

Besides, the slaves fulfilled new and diverse duties as the decades went by: farm hand to begin with, but also semi-skilled workers in the different areas considered useful to the life of the colony, housework servants in the grand\u2019case [\u00ab big hut \u00bb] and sometimes even gradually emancipated, merchants and dealers to handle the town owner\u2019s business \u2013 which explains the increasing complexity and richness of the local language of communication, although in some spheres it never entirely took over French.<\/p>\n

The newly arrived non-Creole were also forced to learn the \u00ab island speech \u00bb, which consequently underwent rapid changes. It became a means of communication for the whole of society (missionaries, masters, merchants\u2026) as society kept developing. And it was first referred to as \u00ab Creole \u00bb at the end of the 18th century.<\/p>\n

If the French origins of Creole languages often appear easier to prove than the influence, although undisputable, of the languages of the slaves, it is because:<\/p>\n