Plurilingualism, language contact, and creole evolution

Abstract

The Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles (AECs) arose barely four hundred years ago and today constitute one of the largest language continua of the western hemisphere, with over 100 million speakers from Nigeria to Nicaragua. The linguistic grouping as a whole has undergone a considerable degree of genealogical differentiation in the short span of its existence. The AECs today show a fascinating typological diversity that corresponds with a remarkable linguistic and cultural heterogeneity of the linguistic ecologies these languages have been spoken in since their emergence, characterized by generalized individual and societal plurilingualism, tolerance for variation, elastic ethno-linguistic identities, and high degrees of geographic mobility. In this talk, I provide an account of the roles of language contact and areal convergence in the genealogical differentiation of the AECs. Based on first-hand field data from West Africa and the Caribbean, I carry out a comparative analysis of specific structural areas in individual AECs. Detailed investigations of particular features across these languages can reveal the mechanisms of genealogical differentiation of the Afro-Caribbean English-lexifier Creoles and the role of language contact in this process. The findings can also help us understand language change in other world regions characterized by a similar degree of cultural and linguistic pluralism.