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creole language

creole language, any language that began as a pidgin but was later adopted as the mother tongue by a people in place of the original mother tongue or tongues. Examples are the Gullah of South Carolina and Georgia (based on English), the creole of Haiti (based on French), and the Papiamento of the Netherlands possessions in the West Indies (developed from pidgin Spanish and Portuguese). Similarities among creoles worldwide have led some linguists to speculate that they share a common origin, probably Sabir (see lingua franca); others attribute the similarities to universal laws governing human language.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

creole

creole, Span. criollo [probably from crío=child], term originally applied in West Indies to the native-born descendants of the Spanish conquerors. The term has since been applied to certain descendants in the West Indies and the American continents of French, Portuguese, and Spanish settlers. The creoles were distinguished from the natives, the blacks, and from people born in Europe. A sharp distinction of interest always lay between the creoles, whose chief devotion was to the colony, and the foreign-born officials, whose devotion was to the mother country. Never precise, the term acquired various meanings in different countries. It has biological and cultural connotations. The term was early adopted in the United States in Louisiana, where it is still used to distinguish the descendants of the original French settlers from the Cajuns, who are at least partially descended from the Acadian exiles. The word is also commonly applied to things native to the New World, such as creole cuisine and creole horses. The term is also used in places distant from the Americas, such as the island of Mauritius, but there it has lost much of its original meaning. The picturesque life of the Louisiana creoles has been ably depicted in the works of Lafcadio Hearn, George Washington Cable, and Grace King.

See F. J. Woods, Marginality and Identity (1972).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

Cane River Creole National Historical Park and Heritage Area

Cane River Creole National Historical Park and Heritage Area: see National Parks and Monuments (table).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

creole

Any pidgin language that has become established as the native language of a speech community. A creole usually arises when speakers of one language become economically or politically dominant over speakers of another. A simplified or modified form of the dominant group's language (pidgin), used for communication between the two groups, may eventually become the native language of the less-powerful community. Examples include Gullah (derived from English), spoken in the Sea Islands of the southeastern U.S.; Haitian Creole (derived from French), spoken in Haiti; and Papiamentu (derived from Spanish and Portuguese), spoken in Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.