Pidgins and Creoles Volume I

The first volume of Holm's major survey of pidgins and creoles provide an up-to-date and readable introduction to a field of study that has become established only in the past few decades. Written for both students and general readers with a basic knowledge of linguistics the book's original perspective will also attract specialists in the field seeking a broad overview of the linguistic and sociolinguistic relationships between these languages.<P>Restructured versions of English French Spanish Dutch Portuguese and other languages arose during European colonial expansion resulting in such creoles as Jamaican Haitian Papiamentu and some one hundred others as well as such semi-creoles as Afrikaans non-standard Brazilian Portuguese and American Black English. Scholar have tended to work on particular language varieties in relative isolation rather than undertaking comparative research into the genesis development and structure of creoles. In writing this book however Holm draws on studies of a broad range of languages to make clear the extent of creoles' differences and similarities and to demonstrate how this challenges current linguistic theory. The core of this volume is a comparative study of creoles based on European languages in Africa and the Caribbean in terms of their lexical semantics phonology and syntax.<P>Volume II presents an overview of the socio-historical development of each of some one hundred pidgins creoles and semi-creoles providing texts and highlighting the salient linguistic features of each.