Pidgins and Creoles
Notes from Educational Cyber Playground
A pidgin is a new language which develops in situations where speakers of different languages need to communicate but don't share a common language.
The vocabulary of a pidgin comes mainly from one particular language -- called the "lexifier". The early "pre-pidgin" is very restricted in use and variable in structure. But the later "stable pidgin" develops its own grammatical rules which are quite different from those of the lexifier. Once a stable pidgin has emerged, it is generally learned as a second language and used for communication among people who speak different languages.
When children start learning a pidgin as their first language and it becomes the mother tongue of a community, it is called a creole.
Like a pidgin, a creole is a distinct language which has taken most of its vocabulary from another language, the lexifier, but has its own unique grammatical rules. Unlike a pidgin, however, a creole is not restricted in use, and is like any other language in its full range of functions. Examples are Gullah, Jamaican Creole and Hawaii Creole English.
A pidgin is a version of a language which is stripped of virtually everything except what is necessary to basic communication.
Creole is a latter-day descendant of something that began as a pidgin.
Hawaii Pidgin: The Voice of Hawaii
For example. . .
In a collaborative project between a Russian ballet company and a U.S. ballet Theatre, the two companies would begin to combine languages and form a pidgin to speak of artistic items and concepts.
Linguistics of Color
What is Black English? What is Black?
Janet Holmes:
A vernacular language "is an uncodified or unstandardized variety" and is acquired "in the home as a first variety." The word, vernacular, "generally refers to the most colloquial variety in a person’s linguistic repertoire." This implies that what some may call ungrammatical, slovenly slang – others may identify as an example of very active linguistic maintenance!
"It is a basic axiom of sociolinguistics that bias against a language or dialect stands in for bias against its speakers.
-- Dr. Peter L Patrick
"The speakers of African American English have often been assumed to be black Americans, or African Americans, and indeed most of them are. But there are obvious problems with defining a language (or anything else) racially . . ."
-- Dr. Peter L Patrick
Role of Public Schools
Often due merely to linguistic differences and communication difficulties, Black students are harshly disciplined, unfairly suspended from classes, and wrongly classified as "learning disabled" by their teachers.
In Minnesota, Black students are admitted to Gifted - Talented programs at less than half the rate of Whites, and nearly three times as many are labeled "cognitively impaired." Once given this label -- or a similar exceptionality classification -- the Black student is far less likely to receive the same quality of general classroom instruction other children receive. They are tracked for failure. According to the Minnesota Department of Education -- in 2009, Minnesota's graduation rate for White students was 82%. For Blacks, the rate was 44%.
Relationship of Dialect to Spelling Instruction
There is some research on the spelling performance of children who speak so-called, "Black English" and other "minority dialects" which suggests dialect should be considered when teaching spelling. But what we know for certain is that cultural competence is required in the multicultural classroom. Sometimes the problem is hearing . . . sometimes the problem is listening!
This scene from the movie, Akeelah and the Bee -- about children of color in a spelling bee -- is a particularly effective dramatization of these issues.
http://youtu.be/ZolebXNInrs
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