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Pidgin and Creole languages
REVIEWS
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COMPTES.-RENDUS
101
'vizinho' ought really to have been examined. I fully appreciate that in exploratory work of this sort it is not possible to cover every last contingency, but at least the major questions ought all to have been tackled. By contrast, precious time and space was wasted on a highly advanced and barely productive investigation conducted on the phonetic possibilities of the word 'vencia' as uttered in a variety of situations. In conclusion I would offer one final criticism with reference to this nevertheless admirable work, namely against the claim in the preliminary observations (p. 5) that an analysis of this sort can reveal norms that will assist the foreigner to leana 'in a few minutes' how to imitate correctly the nasality of Portuguese. This may be true with reference to the normal oral-nasal trajectory of all nasal vowels and nasal diphthongs, but the welter of add!tional complexities which this work introduces make the claim but a pious hope.
Manchester University
R. CLIVE WILLIS
ROBERT A. HALL, JR., Pidgin and Creole Languages. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York 1966. 188 pp. $ 7.50. This is another of Hall's popular books on linguistics, written in his very clear, non-specialized and often amusing style on one of his favorite subjects: Pidgin and Creole languages. It has certainly been an excellent idea to write an overall survey of these Cinderella languages, more often than not despised by the general public, but serving very useful functions in society. I know of no other specialist better suited to write this survey, as will become clear by a glance through the extensive bibliography under the entry Hall. Hall, indeed, is a worthy successor of Hugo Schuchardt in devoting special scholarly attention to this type of languages, and in the course of time has gained wide experience in the field. The book contains three parts: Nature and History (Part I), Structure and Relationships (Part II), and Significance (Part III). The first part offers in two chapters an impressive survey of all pidgins and creoles existing or having existed to our knowledge. The second part treats in five chapters common linguistic features, drawing heavily on examples from Neo-Melanesian and Haitean
102
RF~V~.~WS
-- C O M P T E S - R E N D U S
Creole, languages with which the author has had first-hand experience. The third part is the most interesting one from the point of view of the general reader. It has been divided in three chapters: Linguistic Significance (Ch. 8), Social Significance (C'h. 9) and Political Signifi:ance (Ch. 10). There follow some sample texts, select b;.bliography and index. The chapter on Linguistic Significance (Ch. 8) treats basically three related subjects: the substratum-theory, the method of historical linguistics applied to pidgir.'s and creoles, and the relexification-theory. I think Hall rightly points out, that pidgins and creoles are best suited to clarify the way in which a substratum influences the final form a language takes. Does a substratum exert its influence through physical heredity, through a kind of mystical aura, or as a relic of an earlier period of bilingualism ? I think with Hall that the last must be the case (though we might have different opinions about the exact substratum itself, as will become clear here-after), and that the extent of the substratuminfluence is conditioned by social factors: the amount of social pre~=ure towards conformity in the speech-community. I especially appreciate his remarks on a 'negative pressure' . . . 'in situations where the master' or owner does not wish the servant or slave to learn the full upper-class language, and therefore refuses to speak with him except in a pidgin' (p. 112). This is in full accordance with the results of my case-study on the origins of Sranan. 1) Sranan has been coined in the very first colonization period of Surinam (1651-1676), thanks to certain favourable social conditions (small plantations, scattered over a wide area, owned almost exclusively by English-speaking farmers, employing English-speaking indentured labourers next to small group of African slaves, using different African languages), and has preserved its deviant structure and vocabulary thanks to other favourable social conditions, operating after 1676 (big plantations managed by ~dmost exclusively non-English speaking directors without the hell2, of indentured hbourers, and creating a two-caste system to 1) P a r t of the result:~ have been published in a contribution to t h e Symposium on Multi-lingualism, Brazzaville, 1962. Cf. J. Voorhoeve, Creole Lanbmages and Communication. Symposium on Multilingualism, pp. 233242.
REVIEWS - COMPTES-RENDUS
103
facilitate the maintenance of their authority over large groups of slaves). Sranan became in this way a caste language, the language of the slaves who did not have the opportunity to obtain full mastery of English. My case-study shows that some gain might be expected in refining the study of the social conditions that favour the birth of pidgins and creoles. I also fully agree on the possibility of reconstructing ProtoPidgin-English forms, and on the clear remarks about the value of the creole evidence in the theoretical debate in historical linguistics. I regret the many mistakes found in S~-anan examples, especially numerous in Table 8 (p. 119). I propose the following corrections (final -n always interpreted :~s nasalization of preceding vowel, followed by slight guttural - non alveolar - closnre before pause): a- (he, she, it), rddi (red), bfin (good; the form gfidu exists, meaning 'sweetheart'), yu- or i- (you sg. ; un- meaning 'you pl.', finu before pause meaning 'you pl.' or 'we'), ten (time), nen (name), sipi (sing). The proposed corrections do not alter Hall's conclusions basically. I object, however, to the historical reality of these Proto-forms, ~) or at least to the way of transmission that the historical reality seems to suggest. But this obiection is related to a different viewpoint regarding the theory of relexification. Hall describes this theory a ; follows: 'all modern creole languages have their ultimate origin in the fifteenth-century Pidgin Portuguese of West Africa, which in its turn may have been an imitat ion of a Mediterranean lingua franca' (pp 120f.). This theory implies that the slaves entered the new world with a basic knowledge of this Portuguese Pidgin and by a process of relexification replaced Portuguese words b y new ones acquires from their new masters, speaking English, French, Dutch or Spanish. I do not agree with Hall that this view-point 'is simply a somewhat more sophisticated version of the old notion that a pidgin or creole is simply a native language spoken with European vocabulary' (p. 122), but I might not be a good adherent of a pure relexification theory in that I certainly do not exclude other than lexical influences on the Pidgin Portuguese of the slave coast. I simply want to know what really happened in the formative period of creoles, and I am quite sure 2) Cf. m y review of Morris F. Goodman, A Comparative S t u d y of Creole French Dialects, Lingua 16 (1966) 421-426.
104
REVIEWS - COMPTES-RENDUS
that all instances of Portuguese words in Cacibbean creoles cannot be explained by the influence of Portuguese slave-owners in the new world. The substratum-theory outlined by Hall has one very weak point" the presupposed existence of a common African substratum, which was carried over directly via a bilingual stage. I never found more than chance occurrences of bilingualism in the new world with an African component. General bilingualism can only be expected, if we take into account some common language acquired in Africa, and this cannot be another language than the Pidgin Portuguese of West Africa. This Pidgin Portuguese never was the sole language of the slaves in a European colony, and surely did not exist long. The earliest travellers in Surinam report that the slaves speak English (not even the pidginized form of English is mentioned in Some Portuguese words in Sranan must have been acquired from Portuguese-Jewish slave-owners, as the words tr6fu (taboo) and kas&i (ceremonially clean) show. Herskovits pointed out that these religious terms are represented by African words in Saramacc~, although the percentage of Portuguese words is much higher in this bush-negro language than in Sranan. 4) He states that the Saramacc$ tribe recruited its members from the newly arrived slaves who did not have enough time to adopt their language completely to the English based slave language, Sranan. Saramacc~i therefore might represent a creole language that got stuck halfway in a process of adaptation of the African Pidgin Portuguese to the English based Creole of Surinam. I think, by reading and interpreting Herskovits article, that Hall has to revise his supposition that the bulk of the Portuguese words in Sranan and Sararnacc~ has been aquired from Portuguese slave-owners in the new world. In m y opinion, this
a) Cf. the following remark by J~n Reeps (1692): 'De Engelsen hebben
bier een colonie gemaekt en wordt die tael daer nog meest bij de slaven gesproken' (The English founded a colony here and their language is still spoken by the slaves.) 4) It is a pity that this important contribution of Herskovits got lost in a small Dutch journal and never came to the attention of interested scholars. Cf. M. J. Herkovits, 'On the Provenience of the Portuguese in Saramacca Tongo', West-Indische Gids 12 (1931) 545-5,57.
REVIEWS
-
COMPTES-RENDUS
I05
gives more weight to the relexification-theory than Hall now seems to attach to it. May I conclude m y review of this remarkable book by stating that it really deserved a special chapter on the cultural significance of creoles, more than the short paragraph (p. 135) devoted to it by Hall. The fact that pidgins and creoles have grammars is not conclusive for the general public that Hall has in mind. The argument that these languages have no grammar and hence are not real languages can be easily rcfuted (and should be by all means); but it was never more than an argument disguising the real motives for cohtempt, namely fear of being cons!dered an uncultured barbarian. This fear can only be ~vercome by demonstrating the cultural achievements of artists, proud of their creole language. Such achievements of high artistic quality are to be found in Haitian creole, Papiamentu, Sranan a r d Krioo They m a y not always be very numerous, as there has not e cer3~cchere been a favourable climate for cultural expression, but they are highly important. In Surinam, it really was the poets who tore down the barriers of social prejudice and unmasked the linguistic snobbery of their compatriots in the space of less than five years, just by writing poems of an artistic achievement never before reached by their countrymen ia the official language. Now there is no-one left who dares publicly to denounce the value of Sranan as a means of creahve expression. Books of Sranan p<)etryare published regularly. Cultural periodicals cannot afford t,~ ignore regular contributions in creole. The language has gained a respected place in theatre and radio performances everywhere. _The national anthem has been accepted in a Sranan version. In short, in less than five years after the publication of the first Sranan poems, the language has become respectable and even fashionable. I am doubtful about the social influence of our scholarly work as linguists. I do not mean we should stop writing books like this one, that we should stop setting an example of detached attention, regardless of the social standing of the .!anguages studied. But I think that only the poets can really convince the general public that these languages are worth sincere admiration.
University o] Leyden
J. VOORHOEVE
-
COMPTES.-RENDUS
101
'vizinho' ought really to have been examined. I fully appreciate that in exploratory work of this sort it is not possible to cover every last contingency, but at least the major questions ought all to have been tackled. By contrast, precious time and space was wasted on a highly advanced and barely productive investigation conducted on the phonetic possibilities of the word 'vencia' as uttered in a variety of situations. In conclusion I would offer one final criticism with reference to this nevertheless admirable work, namely against the claim in the preliminary observations (p. 5) that an analysis of this sort can reveal norms that will assist the foreigner to leana 'in a few minutes' how to imitate correctly the nasality of Portuguese. This may be true with reference to the normal oral-nasal trajectory of all nasal vowels and nasal diphthongs, but the welter of add!tional complexities which this work introduces make the claim but a pious hope.
Manchester University
R. CLIVE WILLIS
ROBERT A. HALL, JR., Pidgin and Creole Languages. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York 1966. 188 pp. $ 7.50. This is another of Hall's popular books on linguistics, written in his very clear, non-specialized and often amusing style on one of his favorite subjects: Pidgin and Creole languages. It has certainly been an excellent idea to write an overall survey of these Cinderella languages, more often than not despised by the general public, but serving very useful functions in society. I know of no other specialist better suited to write this survey, as will become clear by a glance through the extensive bibliography under the entry Hall. Hall, indeed, is a worthy successor of Hugo Schuchardt in devoting special scholarly attention to this type of languages, and in the course of time has gained wide experience in the field. The book contains three parts: Nature and History (Part I), Structure and Relationships (Part II), and Significance (Part III). The first part offers in two chapters an impressive survey of all pidgins and creoles existing or having existed to our knowledge. The second part treats in five chapters common linguistic features, drawing heavily on examples from Neo-Melanesian and Haitean
102
RF~V~.~WS
-- C O M P T E S - R E N D U S
Creole, languages with which the author has had first-hand experience. The third part is the most interesting one from the point of view of the general reader. It has been divided in three chapters: Linguistic Significance (Ch. 8), Social Significance (C'h. 9) and Political Signifi:ance (Ch. 10). There follow some sample texts, select b;.bliography and index. The chapter on Linguistic Significance (Ch. 8) treats basically three related subjects: the substratum-theory, the method of historical linguistics applied to pidgir.'s and creoles, and the relexification-theory. I think Hall rightly points out, that pidgins and creoles are best suited to clarify the way in which a substratum influences the final form a language takes. Does a substratum exert its influence through physical heredity, through a kind of mystical aura, or as a relic of an earlier period of bilingualism ? I think with Hall that the last must be the case (though we might have different opinions about the exact substratum itself, as will become clear here-after), and that the extent of the substratuminfluence is conditioned by social factors: the amount of social pre~=ure towards conformity in the speech-community. I especially appreciate his remarks on a 'negative pressure' . . . 'in situations where the master' or owner does not wish the servant or slave to learn the full upper-class language, and therefore refuses to speak with him except in a pidgin' (p. 112). This is in full accordance with the results of my case-study on the origins of Sranan. 1) Sranan has been coined in the very first colonization period of Surinam (1651-1676), thanks to certain favourable social conditions (small plantations, scattered over a wide area, owned almost exclusively by English-speaking farmers, employing English-speaking indentured labourers next to small group of African slaves, using different African languages), and has preserved its deviant structure and vocabulary thanks to other favourable social conditions, operating after 1676 (big plantations managed by ~dmost exclusively non-English speaking directors without the hell2, of indentured hbourers, and creating a two-caste system to 1) P a r t of the result:~ have been published in a contribution to t h e Symposium on Multi-lingualism, Brazzaville, 1962. Cf. J. Voorhoeve, Creole Lanbmages and Communication. Symposium on Multilingualism, pp. 233242.
REVIEWS - COMPTES-RENDUS
103
facilitate the maintenance of their authority over large groups of slaves). Sranan became in this way a caste language, the language of the slaves who did not have the opportunity to obtain full mastery of English. My case-study shows that some gain might be expected in refining the study of the social conditions that favour the birth of pidgins and creoles. I also fully agree on the possibility of reconstructing ProtoPidgin-English forms, and on the clear remarks about the value of the creole evidence in the theoretical debate in historical linguistics. I regret the many mistakes found in S~-anan examples, especially numerous in Table 8 (p. 119). I propose the following corrections (final -n always interpreted :~s nasalization of preceding vowel, followed by slight guttural - non alveolar - closnre before pause): a- (he, she, it), rddi (red), bfin (good; the form gfidu exists, meaning 'sweetheart'), yu- or i- (you sg. ; un- meaning 'you pl.', finu before pause meaning 'you pl.' or 'we'), ten (time), nen (name), sipi (sing). The proposed corrections do not alter Hall's conclusions basically. I object, however, to the historical reality of these Proto-forms, ~) or at least to the way of transmission that the historical reality seems to suggest. But this obiection is related to a different viewpoint regarding the theory of relexification. Hall describes this theory a ; follows: 'all modern creole languages have their ultimate origin in the fifteenth-century Pidgin Portuguese of West Africa, which in its turn may have been an imitat ion of a Mediterranean lingua franca' (pp 120f.). This theory implies that the slaves entered the new world with a basic knowledge of this Portuguese Pidgin and by a process of relexification replaced Portuguese words b y new ones acquires from their new masters, speaking English, French, Dutch or Spanish. I do not agree with Hall that this view-point 'is simply a somewhat more sophisticated version of the old notion that a pidgin or creole is simply a native language spoken with European vocabulary' (p. 122), but I might not be a good adherent of a pure relexification theory in that I certainly do not exclude other than lexical influences on the Pidgin Portuguese of the slave coast. I simply want to know what really happened in the formative period of creoles, and I am quite sure 2) Cf. m y review of Morris F. Goodman, A Comparative S t u d y of Creole French Dialects, Lingua 16 (1966) 421-426.
104
REVIEWS - COMPTES-RENDUS
that all instances of Portuguese words in Cacibbean creoles cannot be explained by the influence of Portuguese slave-owners in the new world. The substratum-theory outlined by Hall has one very weak point" the presupposed existence of a common African substratum, which was carried over directly via a bilingual stage. I never found more than chance occurrences of bilingualism in the new world with an African component. General bilingualism can only be expected, if we take into account some common language acquired in Africa, and this cannot be another language than the Pidgin Portuguese of West Africa. This Pidgin Portuguese never was the sole language of the slaves in a European colony, and surely did not exist long. The earliest travellers in Surinam report that the slaves speak English (not even the pidginized form of English is mentioned in Some Portuguese words in Sranan must have been acquired from Portuguese-Jewish slave-owners, as the words tr6fu (taboo) and kas&i (ceremonially clean) show. Herskovits pointed out that these religious terms are represented by African words in Saramacc~, although the percentage of Portuguese words is much higher in this bush-negro language than in Sranan. 4) He states that the Saramacc$ tribe recruited its members from the newly arrived slaves who did not have enough time to adopt their language completely to the English based slave language, Sranan. Saramacc~i therefore might represent a creole language that got stuck halfway in a process of adaptation of the African Pidgin Portuguese to the English based Creole of Surinam. I think, by reading and interpreting Herskovits article, that Hall has to revise his supposition that the bulk of the Portuguese words in Sranan and Sararnacc~ has been aquired from Portuguese slave-owners in the new world. In m y opinion, this
a) Cf. the following remark by J~n Reeps (1692): 'De Engelsen hebben
bier een colonie gemaekt en wordt die tael daer nog meest bij de slaven gesproken' (The English founded a colony here and their language is still spoken by the slaves.) 4) It is a pity that this important contribution of Herskovits got lost in a small Dutch journal and never came to the attention of interested scholars. Cf. M. J. Herkovits, 'On the Provenience of the Portuguese in Saramacca Tongo', West-Indische Gids 12 (1931) 545-5,57.
REVIEWS
-
COMPTES-RENDUS
I05
gives more weight to the relexification-theory than Hall now seems to attach to it. May I conclude m y review of this remarkable book by stating that it really deserved a special chapter on the cultural significance of creoles, more than the short paragraph (p. 135) devoted to it by Hall. The fact that pidgins and creoles have grammars is not conclusive for the general public that Hall has in mind. The argument that these languages have no grammar and hence are not real languages can be easily rcfuted (and should be by all means); but it was never more than an argument disguising the real motives for cohtempt, namely fear of being cons!dered an uncultured barbarian. This fear can only be ~vercome by demonstrating the cultural achievements of artists, proud of their creole language. Such achievements of high artistic quality are to be found in Haitian creole, Papiamentu, Sranan a r d Krioo They m a y not always be very numerous, as there has not e cer3~cchere been a favourable climate for cultural expression, but they are highly important. In Surinam, it really was the poets who tore down the barriers of social prejudice and unmasked the linguistic snobbery of their compatriots in the space of less than five years, just by writing poems of an artistic achievement never before reached by their countrymen ia the official language. Now there is no-one left who dares publicly to denounce the value of Sranan as a means of creahve expression. Books of Sranan p<)etryare published regularly. Cultural periodicals cannot afford t,~ ignore regular contributions in creole. The language has gained a respected place in theatre and radio performances everywhere. _The national anthem has been accepted in a Sranan version. In short, in less than five years after the publication of the first Sranan poems, the language has become respectable and even fashionable. I am doubtful about the social influence of our scholarly work as linguists. I do not mean we should stop writing books like this one, that we should stop setting an example of detached attention, regardless of the social standing of the .!anguages studied. But I think that only the poets can really convince the general public that these languages are worth sincere admiration.
University o] Leyden
J. VOORHOEVE