What is Lexifier linguistics?
What is Lexifier linguistics?
A lexifier is the language that provides the basis for the majority of a pidgin or creole language’s vocabulary (lexicon). Often this language is also the dominant, or superstrate language, though this is not always the case, as can be seen in the historical Mediterranean Lingua Franca.
Why pidgins and creoles are important?
Because of their many points of interest, pidgins and creoles can be used to provide engaging examples of various aspects of syntax, morphology, language acquisition, second language learning, language planning, language rights, globalisation and multilingualism.
What are the characteristics of creole?
Like any language, creoles are characterized by a consistent system of grammar, possess large stable vocabularies, and are acquired by children as their native language. These three features distinguish a creole language from a pidgin.
Why is creole not considered a language?
Thus, Creoles are considered to be non-genetic “orphans” outside the family tree of human languages, that is, languages without any ancestors, not even among the languages whose native speakers were in contact during Creole formation.
Is a lexifier language a language of the colonizing group?
The lexifier is usually the language of the European colonizer, e.g. English, Spanish, French or Dutch (= the superstrate). Although they are lexically and grammatically influenced by their input languages, pidgins are not mutually intelligible with these languages.
What is a lexifier language quizlet?
lexifier language. The language that supplies most of the vocabulary (i.e. lexicon) for a pidgin or creole.
Why is pidgin important?
Pidgin plays a major role as it enables students from different cultural backgrounds to communicate with each other in any informal environment because there are no rules guiding its usage unlike the standard English where you have to abide by the rules of concord, syntax, phonology and semantics among others.
What is interesting about pidgins and creoles?
A pidgin is nobody’s natural language; a creole develops as a new generation grows up speaking the pidgin as its main language. The grammar of a creole usually remains simpler than that of the parent languages, but the new language begins to develop larger vocabularies to provide for a wider range of situations.
What is example of creole?
Creole languages include varieties that are based on French, such as Haitian Creole, Louisiana Creole, and Mauritian Creole; English, such as Gullah (on the Sea Islands of the southeastern United States), Jamaican Creole, Guyanese Creole, and Hawaiian Creole; and Portuguese, such as Papiamentu (in Aruba, Bonaire, and …
What kind of race is creole?
In present Louisiana, Creole generally means a person or people of mixed colonial French, African American and Native American ancestry. The term Black Creole refers to freed slaves from Haiti and their descendants.
Who invented creoles?
Coined in the colonies that Spain and Portugal founded in the Americas, creole was originally used in the 16th century to refer to locally born individuals of Spanish, Portuguese, or African descent as distinguished from those born in Spain, Portugal, or Africa.