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Creoles, Pidgins and the Evolution of Languages
Fathom
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| Seminar Introduction |
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 The English that is spoken by Nigerians sounds different from that spoken at Buckingham Palace, yet the same kinds of forces shaped both British English and Nigerian English. This is news to many linguists, who have constructed a system that privileges the varieties of English spoken by people of European descent while describing the English spoken by people of non-European descent as "indigenized" or "creole"--thus suggesting that they are illegitimate offspring of English formed by a different set of processes.
In this seminar, Salikoko S. Mufwene, professor and former chair of the department of linguistics at the University of Chicago, looks at some of the issues surrounding the evolution of English. Drawing on material in his recent book, The Ecology of Language Evolution, Mufwene questions attitudes about the evolution of languages, especially English, in today's world. He argues that we must consider a language's ecology--the sum total of internal and external forces acting upon it--if we are to understand how it evolves, and he draws upon Old English, Romance languages and newer forms of English to explain the crucial role of contact in shaping the development of language.
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| Learning Objectives |
- Define the terms "illegitimate" and "legitimate" English and describe how racial and socio-economic factors may have influenced how language variants have historically been labeled.
- List two linguistic groups that may have influenced the development of Old English.
- Describe one way in which Mufwene's theory of language contact differs from traditional linguistic views of language acquisition and transmission.
- List three ecological factors that can influence an individual's unique language patterns.
- Explore how settlement patterns influenced language variation in North America throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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The text of this seminar is based on chapter 4 of The Ecology of Language Evolution, by Salikoko S. Mufwene, published by Cambridge University Press, copyright Salikoko S. Mufwene, 2001. Video footage was shot in Chicago in December 2001. Copyright University Of Chicago, 2001.
This major new work explores the development of creoles and other new languages, focusing on the conceptual and methodological issues they raise for genetic linguistics. Written by an internationally renowned linguist, the book discusses the nature and significance of internal and external factors--or {A145}ecologies{A146}--that bear on the evolution of a language. The book surveys a wide range of examples of changes in the structure, function and vitality of languages, and suggests that similar ecologies have played the same kinds of roles in all cases of language evolution. Drawing on major theories of language formation, macroecology and population genetics, Mufwene proposes a common approach to the development of creoles and other new languages.
Mufwene, Salikoko S., The Ecology of Language Evolution (Paperback 2001)
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| Technical Requirements |
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