AN INTRODUCTION TO PIDGINS AND CREOLES

What earlier generations thought of pidgin and creole languages is all too clear from their very names: broken English , bastard Portuguese , nigger French , kombuistaaltje ('cookhouse lingo'), isikula ('coolie language'). This contempt often stemmed in part from the feeling that pidgins and creoles were corruptions of 'higher', usually European languages, and in part from attitudes toward the speakers of such languages who were often perceived as semi- savages whose partial acquisition of civilized habits was somehow an aVront. Those speakers of creole languages who had access to education were duly convinced that their speech was wrong, and they often tried to make it more similar to the standard.