Creole evolution: lessons from the Afro-Atlantic

Abstract

Wholistic approaches have allowed creolists to develop some of the more sophisticated explanations for language change compared to other branches of linguistics. Various works show, for example, how different population distributions, varying modes of economic production, differing ideologies about religion, ethnicity and race, and divergent legal-political dispensations decisively shaped the outcomes of language contact in the Afro-Atlantic (e.g. Alleyne 1971, 1980; Mintz 1971; Thurston 1987; Faraclas et al. 2007). A political-economic perspective on language contact and change can be combined with a linguistictypological approach that embeds the evolution of creoles and other contact languages in their areal context (e.g. Muysken & Smith 2015). Such an integrated approach, however, requires looking at creolization as part of a long-term evolutionary trajectory reaching into the 21st century, rather than a big-bang event (cf. Mufwene 2001). In this talk, I will present some of the salient characteristics of the genealogical and areal dynamics of Creole evolution in the Afro-Atlantic, pointing to possibilities of cross-fertilization with Asian contact ecologies. Intellectual exchange on the Western and Eastern hotspots of language contact can contribute to a better understanding of the processes and outcomes of language contact and change in multilingual ecologies through time.