Language X: A Controlled Experiment in Pidgin
Creation
Auteur: David J. Peterson
Date MS: 12-14-2001
Date FL: 07-01-2015
Numéro FL: FL-00002E-00
Citation: Peterson, David J. 2001. “Language X: UN
Controlled Experiment in Pidgin Creation.”
FL-00002E-00, Fiat Lingua,
droits d'auteur: © 2001 David J. Peterson. This work is
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David J. Peterson
Linguistics 152
Prof. McWhorter
Due: 12/14/2001
Language X: A Controlled Experiment in Pidgin Creation
1.1 Introduction: Pourquoi?
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One of the main problems with the study of pidgins and creoles is that there
aren’t any major ones being formed nowadays the way they were back in the Colonial
période. As an added impediment, records are sketchy at best until the early part of the
twentieth century, in many cases. What this means is that while there is quite a large
amount data on a few creoles and pidgins after they have developed over a period of
fifty to one hundred years, there is no significant record of what these languages were
like in their infancy1 . What I attempted to do with my experiment was to re-create
the conditions in which a pidgin is born, and to see what happened. In some ways, le
form of communication that developed (hereafter referred to as Language X) resembled
a prototypical pidgin; in some ways it did not. Toutefois, dozens of hypotheses can be
drawn from what resulted. Over the coming pages, I’ll be discussing the problems that
occurred, possible solutions, striking developments, features of Language X, and a few
of my own far-reaching, all-encompassing theories about pidgins and creolization.
1 John McWhorter, 2001.
1
1.2 The Setup
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In order to communicate verbally, one needs words to articulate. Ainsi, I set
about to come up with a list of 200 or so words with corresponding phonetic forms2 .
As my basis I used Swadesh’s extended list of 200 words that every natural language
(allegedly) has. I added some forms and deleted some others and came up with just
over 200 words. In designing forms for these words, I came up with a romanization
system and sound system that I thought would be relatively easy for English speakers
to read and pronounce (see footnote 2). Some words were based on words from natural
langues (par exemple.: zava from Russian /zovut/, azub from Arabic /zub/), some from
languages I constructed myself, and the rest were made up out of thin air. De plus,
to this, I came up with a complex, nearly unrecognizable class system to see if my
subjects would figure it out and make it productive3 . After this was done, I be-gan
my search for subjects.
!
The process was long and arduous, but in the end, I selected six subjects based
on their availability to meet at a pre-specified time during the week. A brief description
of each shall follow:
2 See Problem Alpha below.
3 See Morphology Gone Awry.
2
(À)!
Cindy: Cindy is a fluent English speaker, though she can understand Hindi. Elle
proved to be least willing to adapt to innovations or to innovate on her own. She often
monopolized conversation during our weekly meetings, though without raising the
level of comprehension. She was constantly using English, even when I expressly,
repeatedly forbade her. She has a slight background in linguistics, though no know-
legde of creoles or pidgins.
(b)! Marie: Another fluent English speaker, her only second language experience is
with French. She proved to be passive when others were domineering, though was the
second most innovative member of the group. She adapted very quickly to changes
and had a good memory. She was my number two; I could always count on her.
(c)!
Laura: As with Mary, fluent in English, some experience with French. More often
than not, she was having a “bad day”, and would excuse herself from making any
comments during our weekly meetings, though she always showed up. When lazy, elle
would use false English cognates (par exemple.: The Language X word for “four” to mean the
English word “for” in the benefactive sense). She would often use English, mais pas
as often as Cindy–only when in a bind. While she didn’t innovate, she adapted quickly.
3
(d)!
Peyton: The most active and most innovative member of the bunch. The one
week he didn’t show up, the meeting fell apart. He would never use English, had a
great memory, made a concerted effort to use the innovations already agreed upon and
came up with new ones. He continually stretched the boundaries of semantics to get
his point across, and more often than not was quite successful. Even if he didn’t
understand what someone else was trying to say, he would often try to help them, et
if no one else understood and he did, he would rephrase the sentence in Language X
that everyone else could understand. He’s a native English speaker, and has a similar
level of fluency with Chinese as Cindy does with Hindi, though moreso (he’s
relearning).
(e)!
Kurt: He was my number three; kind of a wild card. He discovered and made
use of the word for “with”, while no one else did (unless they were following his
exemple), and was quite good at understanding and making himself understood. Il
was given to periodic memory lapses, mais, and would often get frustrated and sink
into silence if he couldn’t express himself in the exact terms he wished. He’s a fluent
English speaker, and dabbled only in high school-level Spanish.
(f)!
Dan: If Dan ever said a word, I’m sure I didn’t hear it. That’s a bit of an exagger-
ation, but really, not much of one. For much of the experiment, he was Cindy’s boy-
4
ami, and she rarely let him open his mouth, though her influence seemed to continue
even after their split, for he never found his voice. When he did speak, it seemed as if
he understood what was going on just fine and that he could keep up with everyone
else’s innovations. He’s a fluent speaker of English, though it was his L2, Rumanian
being his L1.
!
All my subjects were between the ages of twenty and twenty-three during the
course of the project and of the same socioeconomic background.
!
The plan for the project (which spanned eleven weeks) was to meet for an hour
once a week during which time I’d prompt them to speak in various ways and then
record them on a handheld tape recorder while taking notes by hand. As compensation
for their time, I made (c'est à dire., bought) snacks such as cookies, chips and candy. Originally I
had planned to “teach” the language in the format of an elementary class for any
natural language. Once I realized, cependant, that it was more fun for them and more
interesting for me to have them tell stories, this pretty much became what we did every
semaine, and the results were quite fruitful. At one or two points during the experiment, je
invented words that were needed for specific contexts, one of which proved to be very
interesting4 , but that was the extent of my tinkering.
4 See What the Heck Is a “Go Bag”?.
5
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Also of note, I became quite fluent in Language X and able to make myself
understood. What was interesting, mais, was that the form of the language I used
differed from that of my subjects, even though I tried to make sure to use only the
innovations they themselves created (this will be discussed later). And now, sans
further ado, my long list of problems and possible solutions.
2.1 Problems and Solutions: Introduction
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Throughout the course of the semester I encountered many, many, many
problems of varying sorts. My intent with listing these problems and possible solutions
is to insure such problems don’t occur again, should my experiment be repeated in the
avenir.
2.2 Problem Alpha
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The very first problem that logically occurs didn’t occur to me until the very end
of the experiment. It can basically be summarized as follows: The Swadesh list was not
intended to be a basis for language creation. The following words occurred in the list of
words for Language X: heches “dust”; hezes “sand”; huches “smoke”; hoshes “fog”; ahosh
“breathe”; asaf “to blow”; ashas “to sleep”; atsash “to dance”; ginges “earth”. In most
modern-day languages, an argument can be made for having distinctions to separate
6
“dust”, “sand” and “earth”; in a pidgin–or, even more correctly, a set of words hoping
to become a pidgin–such distinctions are laughably unnecessary. De la même manière, the dif-
ference between “fog” and “smoke” and “blow” and “breathe” are also unnecessary.
But beyond that, look at the forms I accidentally gave “dust”, “sand”, “smoke”, “fog”,
“breathe”, “blow”, “sleep” and “dance”. One slip and there’s a change in meaning, et
this proved to be quite a problem–especially with “sleep” and “dance”. People become
tongue-tied and frustrated, and communication takes longer, and such lapses are quite
destructive to a project whose life is only eleven hours long. In addition, some people
(I’m thinking of Cindy, mainly) would pronounce the diphthong romanized as /ay/ as
[ej], whereas others would do it the predictable way: [un J]. Alors, because of English
orthography, there was varying pronunciations of /o/, /e/ and /i/, which led to
endless of confusion.
2.3 Possible Solution Alpha
!
When I was creating words, I tried to give them forms that reminded me of the
semantics. Given that the above-listed culprits are all, in one way or another, inter-
connected in my mind, it’s not hard to see how I came up with similar forms. Ainsi, dans
the future, a concerted effort should be made to create words that are maximally
different phonetically.
What’s more, rather than basing the list of words on the
Swadesh list, a new list should be created specifically for this project, with probable
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variations each time it’s repeated. I personally would do the following: More verbs,
fewer abstract nouns, more animal nouns, fewer adjectives. Aussi, the pronunciation
should be simpler than the target language: The three basic vowels, /a/, /i/, /u/; le
traditional row of stops, voiceless only; voiceless fricatives only; the alveolar and
bilabial nasal; one liquid, /l/; et, if necessary, the two glides, /j/ and /w/. Aussi, le
language should have a rhythm of its own. Because of the morphology I imposed upon
these words, I ended up with some words ending with vowels, some with consonants,
and this disrupted the flow of the language and inhibited normal speech. CV syllables
are a must with no consonant clusters permitted.
2.4 Problem Beta
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Because my six subjects were my friends, they really were doing me a favor by
participating in my project. Because of this, they didn’t feel obligated to show up if
there were more pressing matters, or to give their all at each meeting.
2.5 Possible Solution Beta
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This project needs to be funded. There needs to be some sort of compensation
other than the occasional treat to cause the subjects to feel obligated to show up and be
actif. My idea would be $10 per meeting, qui (with six people and eleven meetings) 8 would come out to $660, $110 per person. If money was involved, combined with ulti-
matums and expectations, I’ve no doubt that full cooperation would be achieved.
2.6 Problem Gamma
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I told everyone that they would never have to memorize any of the words at the
very beginning of the project because, quite frankly, I didn’t want to scare them off. My
idea was that they would memorize them unconsciously over time. This never really
happened, mais. Each person memorized a small set of words, and while there was
much overlap, there wasn’t total overlap.
2.7 Possible Solution Gamma
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The number of words should be reduced (particularly cutting back on the words
already mentioned) so that the list is less daunting. The words should also be basic, donc
that they’ll be words that are actually needed. En plus, it would probably help to
tell them to try to memorize the words. But this only goes part of the way towards
solving the problem.
2.8 Problem Delta
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These are several related problems. D'abord, there was never any level of speaking
fluency attained. This is partly due to the lack of rhythm which I already mentioned,
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but it’s also partly due to them not fully knowing the words, having to think before
each word, and because they had no motivation to try to speak, just to communicate–
two very different principles. En plus, there was the reliance on English. The fact
est, all seven of us spoke English fluently. If someone got fed up with trying to convey
what they wanted to convey, they could just say, in English, “The fish dives into the
ocean”. While this is not what they’re supposed to do, if they did do it, can the rest of
us pretend that we don’t understand what they mean? I could, because I’m the
coordinator, but the idea of communication amongst themselves is defeated, depuis
communication is easily achieved.
2.9 Possible Solution Delta
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I have three proposed solutions to this problem, and while each is different, ils
all involve changing the structure of this experiment:
!
(À) This option involves the same idea: A list of 200 or so basic words (modified
as the above solutions propose, bien sûr), only with an added twist. Since here at Cal
we have the wonderful De-Cal program, I propose it be utilized. Rather than arranging
meeting times separately and meeting only once a week (a woefully inadequate amount
of time), the De-Cal class will run for an hour five days a week. The basic idea will be to
speak using Language X the whole time. There’s no doubt in my mind that after two,
maybe three weeks, everyone in the class would be speaking far better than any one of
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my subjects was able to speak by the end of the semester. After fifteen weeks, là
should be some data that would really say something. As for incentive, the fact that it’s
a class that will give the students credit should be incentive enough.
!
(b) This option also involves utilizing the De-Cal class system, though it would
be a little different. The coordinator would speak a language to the subjects fluently,
and they would have to communicate with him/her as best they could. Ideally, le
language would be a natural language that no student knows, mais, since learning a
language that a group of people don’t know and have no access to is quite difficult, je
propose the language be a made-up language constructed by the coordinator. This may
seem a bit unorthodox, but I think it would (as nearly as possible) duplicate the
situation in which many creoles and pidgins arose: That being a person in a position of
authority having power over those in the subordinate position, who share a common
langue, but who still have to communicate in the language of the authority figure. UN
pidgin should naturally develop. The only problem would be that they shouldn’t
actually learn the language, by any means.
!
(c) This option is quite different and would most likely require a lot of funding.
Gather a bunch of monolingual speakers from around the globe, pay them hand-somely,
and stick them on an island somewhere, à la the reality show Survivor. If everything
works out the way theorists have theorized it would, a pidgin should develop. Ici,
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cependant, the language would end up being an amalgamation, Et ainsi, substrate and
superstrate theory would not apply (in theory).
2.10 Problem Epsilon
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In English, there are shared metaphors that don’t cross over linguistically. Pour
exemple, you couldn’t say “he goes” to mean “he says” in Spanish or French or just
about any other language I know of, whereas, in nonstandard English, you can. Simi-
larly, you also can’t translate word-for-word “he gets drunk” into any other language to
get the meaning in English (ex.: Sp. *él obtiene bebido). Encore, if you have words that are
translated as “to go” and “to get” and “to drink”, it’s not hard to imagine that English
speakers would use these words just as they’re used in English. And why not? They all
speak English; it gets the point across. It’s difficult to explain to non-linguists just how
much metaphor invades their thoughts, since metaphor is everywhere.
2.11 Possible Solution Epsilon
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I suppose one could try to explain the theories behind metaphor to a group of
non-linguists, but that would take time and effort on both the part of the linguist’s and
the non-linguists’. A better solution would be to take people of different language
backgrounds so that they don’t share metaphors. This would be quite difficult to do,
cependant, especially in America. An imperfect median solution would be to define the
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words in very specific ways. Ainsi, par exemple, the word lusa would not mean “to get”,
mais, rather “to obtain”, and the word ayas would not mean “to go”, but “to move from
one location to another”. These definitions are clunky and could lead to other prob-
lems, but would lead to fewer metaphor mishaps (especially with words translated as
“to come” and “to blow”). Ideally, the subjects would come up with their own meta-
phors as they went along, et, to some extent, this actually happened by the end of the
semester with my group.
3.1 The (Eventual) Structure of Language X
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I’ll be breaking this down into the following groups: Phonologie, Morphology,
Syntax and Semantics. Some will get more attention than others.
3.2.1 Phonology: Who Could’ve Guessed?
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When I originally envisioned myself writing this paper, I didn’t see myself
saying a word about the phonology. Pourquoi? Because I invented a romanization system
that had a one-to-one correspondence, and which is highly predictable, based on the
basic knowledge of the English spelling system. How wrong I was. If anything, what
follows should prove that pidgins (at least initially) really do have a simplified sound
system in comparison to their superstrate language.
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3.2.2 Predictable Stuff
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I could have predicted that voiceless stops would be aspirated word initially,
et, they were. This came over directly from English. Same with the velar /l/, long
vowels before voiced segments and vowel reduction, where possible. This I predicted,
and it all came true.
3.2.3 Unpredictable Stuff
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Oddly enough, all voiced consonants save glides, nasals and liquids became de-
voiced word-finally.
What’s more, they were treated as voiceless segments.
Pour
exemple, the word kuz was invariably pronounced /kus/ without a long vowel, qui,
were it pronounced with a [z], would have a long vowel in English. The simplification
seemed to come naturally, and occurred even when they were looking straight at the
spelling of the word.
3.3.1 Morphology
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There’s quite a lot to say about morphology, so it will be split up into a few
sections, one dealing with inflectional morphology, and the other two dealing with deri-
vational.
3.3.2 Morphology Gone Awry
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As previously mentioned, I included a class system with my words. It went as
follows:
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(J’ai) Animate nouns: -je
(Ii) Natural, non-animate nouns: -e
(iii) Manufactured nouns: -ev (vêtements, bâtiment, etc.)
(iv) Time nouns: - est (temps, jour, nuit, etc.)
(v) Sub-stance/mass nouns: -es
(vi) Other nouns: monosyllabic, beginning and ending with a consonant
(vii) Color adjectives: -o
(viii) Adjectives with the meaning “covered with” or “full of” x substance: vous-
(ix) All other adjectives: e-
(X) Transitive verbs: -un
(xi) Intransitive, non-experiencer verbs: À-
(xii) Intransitive, experiencer verbs: o-
(xiii) Ditransitive verbs: -u
(xiv) Adverbs: J’ai-
This was my system, and it was a fine system, yet it all came to naught; ils
didn’t use it. Maybe someone picked up on adjectives beginning with /e/, since they
were so difficult for them to say, but they never, for example, took the verb ayak, “to
win”, and formed the noun yaki, “winner”. This never, ever happened, and I don’t
anticipate that it ever would have.
3.3.3 What the Heck Is a “Go Bag”?
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While the class system method of derivational morphology didn’t work out, mon
subjects devised a way to derive new words from other words semantically. To go
along with a viewing of the Bugs Bunny cartoon Herr Meets Hare, I created a word for
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sac, duwev, because they would need it to describe a specific scene, and I didn’t want to
have them sitting there scratching their heads trying to figure out a way to come up
with a word for “bag”. I figured that, after that week, the word would never see the
light of day again. Ils, cependant, had a different idea altogether. They wouldn’t let it
aller, and they kept bringing it back pretty much any time they needed a word for
something they didn’t know–in other words, a word for “thing”. That was interesting
assez, but the shock came in week 9, when they started using it in combined forms.
The first was for the word “television”. I had told them at the beginning that, in cases
where there was no clear way to express the meaning of a particular English word, ils
could just use the English word and be done with it. Praise the heavens they forgot, pour
they came up with the gem osim duwev for “television”, which means “see bag”. Alors,
right after that, in order to describe a picture where a family gets into a car and drives
hors, Mary invented the word ayas duwev for “car”, which glosses as “go bag”. While one
could argue that there’s a metaphorical connection between a car and a bag (things go
in a bag; people go in a car), there’s very little to suggest a connection between a
television and a bag, and that innovation came first. This proves that duwev had all but
lost its meaning as “bag” and had merely become “thing”, and functioned similarly to
the “-er/or” suffix in English (par exemple.: “to radiate”>“radiator”; “to freeze”>“freezer”). Ce
change is something like the change of English “sh*t” to sit in Tok Pisin5 .
5 John McWhorter, 2001.
16
3.3.4 Inflectional Morphology: There Is None
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That’s the simple answer: There is none. They never once distinguished between
the past, présent, future or irrealis tenses. Every so often someone would try, usually in
the beginning of a story by saying something like “one day”, but once they saw they
could convey the meaning just as easily without having to think, they gladly did it the
easy way. There are a couple ways to account for this. One might say that they were all
just lazy and didn’t care enough, and that if there had been any real incentive involved,
they eventually, grudgingly, would have come up with something that re-sembled a
tense system. This might very well be true, but that would be ignoring the mighty role
of the substrate language: Anglais. The English tense system, whether anyone will
admit it or not, is dying. It’s dying only in speech, but it’s dying, nonethe-less. I’ll
digress briefly to give my account of this.
!
In casual speech (and this means all speech unless one is giving a speech), le
present tense is used to express the past and the future. The future came first with the
help of the verb “to go”, so when, par exemple, the Southern California English speaker
of today says something like “I’m’a go ta store; you comin’?”, we know it evolved from
“I’m gonna go to the store” which evolved from “I am going to go to the store”. Le
phrase “I am going” is quite noticeably a present tense verb. Néanmoins, it expresses
the future. It was only a matter of time before this spread to the past. So now, in casual
17
discours, it’s more than common, even if one starts out in the past tense, to resume in the
présent. Exemple:
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“So what did you do yesterday, Dave?”
“I went to pick up a present for my girlfriend.”
“Oh? How’d that go?”
“Okay, so I go to the mall, Oui, et, of course, there’s this enormous line of
people stretching out of every store that I could possibly want to visit. So I get in one of
those lines, and…”
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In this exchange (which is 100% normal), one will note the switch to not only the
present tense to indicate the past, but the little used present indicative tense, which was
slain by the present progressive tense in the department of what is labeled as “the
present tense”. How I think it came about was as follows: (J’ai) In story telling situations,
one often uses the imperfect, which is, par exemple, “he was going”, “he was eating”,
etc.; (Ii) this imperfect tense, in speech, is often reduced: “he’s going”, “he’s eating”, etc.,
where there’s a short, almost imperceptible schwa in between the end of the word “he”
and the beginning of the [z] to differentiate the “he was” “he’s” from the “he is” “he’s”;
(iii) this is reinterpreted as actually being the “he is” “he’s” since the schwa is often lost
in fast speech; (iv) from this point, the semantic shift has already occurred, and the
switch from progressive to indicative can occur. Ainsi, the narrative tense is born.
18
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What I mean to prove with all this is that the omission of overt past tense mark-
ing is not a sign of laziness on the part of my subjects, mais, plutôt, the natural form,
depuis, in most casual speech, and always in narrative tone, there is no overt marking of
the past tense in modern English (American English, de toute façon). Since no overt tense
marking was needed, no overt marking appeared, and my subjects understood each
other the same way they do in English: by intonation. Generally when the present or
future tense was needed, there was a break between the subject and the verb, and the
first syllable of the verb drew emphasized stress. In narrative tone, the distinction was
less marked, and the sentence portrayed a falling intonation pattern.
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One obstacle to tense markers arising, cependant, was the fact that Language X
was merely a list of words and not a real language. Generally, tense markers in pidgins
arise from other expressions in the superstrate language6 . In Tok Pisin, par exemple,
the past tense marker bin clearly came from the English word “been”, which can be
associated with the past tense in English, as with “Where have you been?” The future
marqueur, bai, derived from baimbai, came from English “by and by”, which can be used as
a future marker, even though it’s not terribly common in Modern English. In this
project, cependant, the only full language they were hearing was English, which they
were not allowed to use. Et, of course, their substrate language was English as well,
so they wouldn’t be able to take something from their L1 and use it as a tense marker.
6 John McWhorter, 2001.
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Ainsi, it’s highly unlikely that a tense marker would have developed after any given
period of time.
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There is one other bit of inflectional morphology that occasionally popped up,
and that’s the plural marker. There is no official plural marker, but an impromptu plu-
ral marker became be, the word for “two”. Generally, the marking of the plural was
considered unimportant, but when they felt it necessary, they inserted be. In the
sentence “Bob put his two feet into a bag”, Bob sambu zali (être) kuz (est) duwev, the number
two is used because the natural plural of one foot is two feet. It’s in parentheses, le long de
with is, because they were revisions, meaning somebody said the sentence without the
words in parentheses, and someone else added the words right afterwards. In most
cas, the nouns that were pluralized had natural number plurals associated with them,
Et ainsi, my subjects used the number words. Later on, mais, since be was the most
common word used to pluralize nouns, since most of the nouns pluralized had two as
their natural plurals, be became used as a general plural, though only to get the point
à travers. Be never lost its status as “two”; people just understood that it had been used to
indicate the plural before, and so assumed that it could be again, even if the natural
plural wasn’t “two”, and “two” wasn’t what was meant to be indicated. Once, le
word for “twenty”, zo, was used to indicate the plural. It was used to describe a whole
bunch of fish, and the phrase was Zo zo zo kusi, “twenty twenty twenty fish”. En général,
mais, plurality was not considered important enough to give weight (or voice) À.
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3.4.1 Syntax
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In this section I’ll be mainly talking about some word order issues, the genitive,
conjunctions/relative clauses and prepositions.
3.4.2 Word Order: Order Word
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The word order employed by my subjects mirrored English exactly: ALORS. Il
seems unlikely that anything else would happen in the elementary stages of any pidgin,
since the first attempts at communication would likely be either imitation or code
switching, such that the one attempting to communicate, par exemple, learns the words
for “I”, “eat” and “food”, and then simply puts them into the slots in which they belong
in his/her own language. There were a few variations, mais.
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In noun/adjective phrases, the order was completely arbitrary.
Note the
following uses of “big man” in this utterance (epsiz is “big”; sangi is “man”): Barnacle
osim sangi epsiz. Epsiz sangi pek azub. Epsiz sangi gen elif. Barnacle gen keza iso sangi
epsiz pek azub. Here one sees a 50/50 split as to whether the noun or the adjective
comes first. Adjective initial phrase order would be what was expected, since that’s the
way it is in English. A couple things can account for the switch, mais. All six of my
subjects took either Spanish or French in high school, and so all of them are familiar
with adjectives following the nouns they modify.
What’s more, few have had
21
significant contact with non-Romance languages. Ainsi, if they thought of Language X
as some sort of a “foreign language”, they might most easily associate it with one of the
Romance languages, in which it’s common to follow the modified noun with its
modifier. In addition to this, the construction of the adjective itself favors initial stress
with its initial vowel and final consonant. The stress pattern of each form would be as
follows (accent ague=stress; accent grave=unstressed): épsìz sángì; sàngì épsìz. (By the
chemin: I’m basing this solely on what I heard my subjects say, not on any kind of rule, par
any means.) In the second version there’s only one stressed segment, and so the
adjective phrase feels more like a solitary unit, whereas in the first version, there are two
stressed segments, and it’s more difficult to have them feel like they go together. Plus,
in general, if one puts the adjective first, there will be two consonants that fall next to
each other. In this case they happen to be the same manner of articulation and in the
same place of articulation, but that isn’t always the case. If one puts the adjective after
le nom, mais, the noun is generally going to end in an [J’ai], since most of the nouns
that got modified were animate nouns, and the adjective is either going to begin with [e]
ou [je]. While it’s unpredictable what kind of a consonant cluster you’re going to get if
you put the adjective first, the vowel/glide/vowel part is very predictable if you put
the adjective second.
!
Another variation came with questions. En anglais, the noun and its auxiliary are
inverted in questions: “Are you going to the store?” “Yes, I am going to the store.” The
22
same is also true of French, which two of the speakers were very familiar with. Contrairement à
French7 , cependant, English requires some sort of an auxiliary verb to come be-fore the
nom, and not the main verb (“Go you to the store?” is not something a Modern English
speaker would say if s/he didn’t wish to sound archaic). In Language X there are, de
course, no auxiliaries, and so it could be argued that the subjects merely copied English
question order as nearly as they could, picking up directly after the missing auxiliary.
Example question: Yani sanya “tali”? (Meaning “Do you have ‘sister’?” They were
playing Go Fish, and the cards were labeled with Language X words, so they would ask
for a particular word–in this case, tali.) The only thing that would be missing in this
question for it to be good, standard English would be the “do”. Toutefois, even that’s
unnecessary, since now in speech one can drop any and all auxiliaries in questions and
still be understood: “Where you going? You going to the game?” “No, I’m going to the
library to learn more about Sranan. You going?” Thus, this type of varied word order
can still be explained by the substrate influence of English.
3.4.3 The Mysteries of the Genitive
!
I mentioned in the word order section that adjective/noun order in noun phrases
was relatively free. This was not entirely true. In cases of possession, the possessing
noun always came before the possessed noun. This was seen more often with the
7 This is changing, with the “Est-ce que” question form becoming more and more common.
23
pronoms: zali kuz (his foot); ani giskwe (my stick); sangi meb (the man’s leg). Some other
interesting things happened, mais, in terms of possession. As shown above, sanya,
meaning “to hold”, came to be used for the verb “to have”. It pretty much got used in
every way “to have” is used in English (except for the perfect, bien sûr), but then came
this particular sentence: Sangi epsiz ya giskwe is sangi meb. What this comes out to is
“man big with stick at man leg”, and what it means is “The big man had a stick in his
leg”. The fact that “sangi” is used rather than “zali” in “sangi meb” leads me to believe
that Cindy was the one who said this, though I can’t tell for certain8 . At any rate, ici
in English we would use the word “to have”, though the semantics differ, and in the
Language X sentence, the speaker evidently was sensitive to this semantic disparity.
The man certainly doesn’t consciously, ou, plutôt, willingly possess the stick if it’s stuck
into his leg and hurting him, and so the speaker highlighted this by saying the stick was
with him and not being possessed by him. This came as a bit of a surprise, depuis, sur le
entier, the preposition ya was vastly unpopular, for whatever reason. This wasn’t the
only instance in which it was used for possession, mais. In the following insults, ya is
used to indicate possession of a body part: Yani demi ya etas giskwe. Yani demi ya won
même. (Interlinear: You person with small stick. You person with heart afraid.) What
these were meant to mean is “You small-penised person” and “You fearing-heart
8 See my section on gesture, and why videotape is more reliable than audio tape.
24
person”, or something equivalent. There’s one more issue with possession, but it shall
have to wait until I get to the section on relative clauses.
3.4.4 Relative Clauses and Conjunctions
!
There were no conjunctions to begin with in Language X, and I was quite inter-
ested to see how far they’d get without conjunctions. As it turns out, not very. On the
very first day a word for “and” popped up, mainly as a continuation of the previous
syllable: dangi i bashi (husband and wife). It didn’t stick, mais, and it was soon for-
gotten. Alors, cependant, as we began to focus more on story-telling, the word “and”
became more and more necessary. They could get by without “but” and “however” and
“if” (par exemple.: Sangi zava David losa elif shiles sanya egzam melay. “Guy named David drinks
alcool [parce que] [il] had a bad day.” Here, there was a space between “elif shiles” and
“sanya”, and there was renewed stress placed on the first syllable of “sanya”, indicating
a new but related thought), but “and” was another matter entirely. The form eventually
and unconsciously decided upon was /e/, realized as [E], [e], [J’ai] et [ej], by turns–more
often than not [E]. Initially it was used for conjoinment of two noun phrases (I found
one instance of ya used in this manner, but discovered later that it was my usage): Papi,
mashi e landi (père, mother and child). Soon, cependant, it was used everywhere: Blandi
glasa David e Blandi meva David (The dog bit David and [alors] the dog ate David). Là
was one usage of ya for an “and”-like construction, and that occurred in the sentence:
25
Pistachio ya David meva coconut (Pistachio and David ate the coconut). In this sentence,
the idea was that they shared the coconut together, so they really felt that ya was needed
as opposed to plain old e.
!
I’ve already mentioned one instance of a relative clause–the one which began
with “because”. Other than that one sentence, most places where a relative clause could
have appeared, one did not. Generally my subjects gave simple, declarative sentences,
one right after the other. There was one interesting sentence, cependant, given by Cindy:
Yani landi sanya mashi blandi (you child have mother dog). What she was trying to
convey was the insult, “You son of a b–––h”. What she said, cependant, was “You child
who has a mother-dog”, or a dog for a mother. This was the only time any type of
construction like this was used and should probably be considered an isolated inci-dent,
since it wasn’t spontaneous.
3.4.5 Prepositions
!
There are only two: is which I defined for them as “at” and ya which I defined for
them as “with”. As has already been mentioned, ya got the short end of the stick, et
was used mainly by Kurt, who was as fond of it as I was. I could actually make a pretty
short catalog of every instance in which ya was used, but I won’t. In speech it was only
used in the sense of “with”, such as Ani atsash yebish beves atsash ya yani ta baks mashi,
which comes out to, “I dance the dirty meat dance with your four-breasted mother”,
26
word-for-word. It was used quite a bit when I had them translate a quote by Doris
Lessing, but with that they prepared their phrase beforehand and presented it later.
Pretty much all of them, in various ways, used ya when translating the phrase “think for
yourself”: omem yani ya yani; omem ya yani demi; omem ya yani. Here it takes over the
benefactive role. It would have been interesting to see whether this would have held
en haut, but the occasion never arose. The most common benefactive situation that came up
was with livu “to give”, but in all cases they duplicated English word order: Zali livu
David blandi (she gives David a dog). The preposition had a highly restricted usage and
was directly associated with the English definition.
!
Unlike ya, est, the other preposition defined as “at”, had an extremely broad
usage, and was used quite frequently. The one way it was almost never used, mais,
was as it was defined–that is, the simple locative adverb “at”. There are four phrases
where the meaning of “at” could be construed. One is simply the phrase Is yenev Bob,
that being “at Bob’s place”. Here is where one would think the word would be used the
most, but this type of fronting is rare, and it was prompted, since they were trans-lating
the sentence “at Bob’s place”, not coming up with their own. The next came when they
translated the phrase “when he…”, which they translated as Is lay zali… (à [le] temps
he…). This was just about the only time when they used a combination to express one
of the WH words. The third was the phrase “They eat at Denny’s”, and here there was
pretty much no other way of wording it. The last would be conveyed using the word
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“on” in English: David osim mape is ginges (“David sees a tree on the land”). This phrase
is rather awkward when it stands on its own, mais, and the last two words were
added primarily to indicate that David was swimming in the ocean when he saw a tree
on an island. The rest of the usages vary, though they all seem to involve movement or
agency of some kind:
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À) Zali hosi alos is zali (“his brother says to him”–metaphorical extension)
b) Zali bacha ekop kuz is zali duwev (“he takes new feet out of his bag”–movement
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hors de, exlative)
c) Zali sambu busi is zali meb (“he puts them onto his legs”–movement onto with
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the idea of attachment)
d) Epsiz kusi agan is kwame (“the big fish comes to the moon”–movement to-
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wards, allative)
e) Kwame ayas is ginges (“the moon crashes to the ground”–movement towards
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with the idea of concussion)
f) Busi alank is shiles (“they sit [bas] in the sea”–submersive movement into,
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inlative)
g) David aluv is shiles (“David swims in/through the sea”–movement through)
h) Sangi vaza meva beves is shazes (“The man burns the food-meat [turkey] dans
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fire”–metaphorical; change in status)
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J’ai) Sangi epsiz ya giskwe is sangi meb (“The big man has a stick in his leg”–indicates
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finished motion, breaking of the skin–they didn’t mean that there had
been some sort of stick surgically implanted into his leg, and such a mean-
ing would never have been construed)
j) Barnacle keza iso sanya giskwe is epsiz sangi meb (“Barnacle knows how to get the
!
stick out of the big man’s leg–the opposite of insertion)
k) Barnacle ayas is indo (“Barnacle goes to the left”–directed movement)
l) Laura osas is David (“Laura laughs at David”–malefactive)
m) Laura vaza is shazes (“Laura burns within the fire” or “Laura’s burned by
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the fire”–oblique/middle voice)
Some of these may not seem related, but I think they are. The proof is a bit
roundabout in coming, mais. In letters a, b, c, h, J’ai, j, l and m, the word is is used be-
cause it seems as if some sort of word has to go there or the meaning wouldn’t be clear.
Quelques exemples: *Laura vaza ø shazes (“Laura burns the fire”?); *Sangi epsiz ya giskwe ø
sangi meb (“The big man with a stick man-leg”?); *Sangi vaza meva beves ø shazes (“The
man burns the food fire”?). Toutefois, this was their judgment of the meanings. Dans
letters a, b, c and l I’ll argue that they used is only because in the sister phrase in English
there is some sort of preposition. The phrase in a is the beginning of a quote and not a
stand-alone sentence. I translated the verb as “to say”, and so, sans aucun doute, they thought
29
of it as the Language X version of “say”, and not just talking in general, which is what I
destiné. Pour, while you’d have to say in English “He says to him”, you could simply
say “He tells him”, with no preposition. Ainsi, I’ll posit that they used is because they
were accessing the English category of how they thought the word should be used, et
not the semantic category of speaking. In l we see a similar situation. There need not be
some obligatory preposition in the idea of one person laughing at another, but there
happens to be in English, so is is used. The usages in b and c are a different matter,
mais. The ideas expressed are “pulling x out of y” and “putting x onto y”. If two
arguments are used with the ideas of “pulling” and “putting”, it seems to me that the
natural association would be just those used: pulling something out of or away from
something else and putting something onto something else. It would seem that an extra
preposition would be needed to convey something like “putting x into y” and “pulling x
close to y”. Ainsi, if a language has only one preposition, I would have supposed that
they’d used it only where necessary, and thus, only in the most special-ized locations.
Ainsi, I would expect a sentence like Zali bacha ekop kuz zali duwev or Zali sambu busi zali
meb. Ces, cependant, prove ungrammatical, and I believe it’s because of the substrate
influence of English.
!
The rest of the examples require a bit of explanation. Examples d, e, f, g and k all
involve some sort of volitional movement in relation to something else. In order to
30
understand why these particular phrases required is an examination of the word ayas,
“to go” will be necessary.
!
I catalogued every instance of the usage of the word ayas, and I discovered
something rather surprising. With only one argument, the verb ayas means “to go
away” or “to leave”: Zo zo zo kusi ayas (“Many fish go [mass exodus]”); Bob ayas elas vala
(Bob go far fly: “Bob runs away really fast”–elas and vala are used as intensifiers); Heni
ayas (“The rabbit leaves”). With two arguments, ayas means “to go into”, when the
second argument is an established, recognized, bordered area: Zali ayas gale (“He goes
[dans]to the forest”); Bob ayas duwev (“Bob goes into a bag”); Pa melay heni ayas Taxidermy
(“One day, the rabbit went [dans]to a Taxidermy”) Heni ayas Germany (“The rabbit goes to
Germany”); Heni okesh ayas Las Vegas (“The rabbit wants to go to Las Vegas”); Ebwiz
sangi omem zali ayas Las Vegas (“The fat man thinks he’s going to Las Vegas”? [It’s
possible the speaker misunderstood the context, since the fat man was thinking about
how one gets to Las Vegas. The usage stands, mais]); (Busi) ayas shifto gale (“They go
[dans]to the Black Forest” [the speaker originally said ayani meaning “you all” and then
corrected her mistake]); Veni lusa heni ayas duwev (“The bird puts the rabbit in[À] À
bag”); Ani ayas yenev (“I go [dans]to a building”). This last sentence was uttered recently
when I asked Peyton, days after the conclusion of the experiment, how he’d say “I go to
the building”. He replied with that sentence and said it was pretty obvious. Yet why no
est? When I was prompting them, if I didn’t give immediate feedback, a silence would
31
ensue, and someone would usually say is afterwards, as if it were an answer that I was
looking for–and, most likely at that time, I was. Néanmoins, in these specialized
circumstances, using is seemed counterintuitive to them, and they would always use
ayas by itself first. In examining these examples, you can see that each thing that the
subject goes to can be something that one is in: A country, a building, a city, a bag, À
Taxidermy (dans ce cas, it was in response to Bugs Bunny running into a room that said
“Taxidermy” on it) or a forest. Pour cette raison,, is is unnecessary. There are other cases
where it would be necessary, mais, and would distinguish meaning. In the sentence
Kusi ayas is mape (fish go at tree), the fish are jumping towards the tree. The sentence
Kusi ayas mape would still be grammatical, but it would mean something like, “The fish
go into the tree” or “the fish climb the tree”.
!
Further evidence of this can be seen in the metaphorical extensions of ayas. In the
sentence David ayas heches plinye, Mary was trying to convey the meaning “David (après
completely combusting) turns into dust which fertilizes the ground which gives birth to
a flower” (it took a picture on her part to get the meaning across, but this really was
what she meant to say). The metaphor she was accessing was the “Inward move-ment
is change” metaphor. Ainsi, she was thinking “David turns into a dust which turns into a
flower”, and so she used ayas, trying to convey the idea of inward movement which
would give rise to change. Another metaphorical extension was the insult Ayas aslan,
which is simply, “Go die”. While this could be a word-for-word translation on the
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speaker’s part, it’s another illustration of the “inward movement is change” metaphor.
Ayas really did mean for them “to go into”, not just “to go” when it was used with
multiple arguments.
!
This brings us all the way back to examples d, e, f, g and k. The problem with de-
ciding that ayas only takes care of inward movement is that people are still going places,
even if they’re not going into places. Ainsi, in examples e and k, the word ayas is used with
est. In e, the moon is crashing into the ground, but it’s not really going into it (it’s rather
interesting that the speaker noticed the semantic difference between the two usages of
“into” and wasn’t hung up on the English category of “into”). The phrase kwame ayas
ginges would mean something like “The moon goes underground”. In order for the
collision idea to be conveyed is is needed. In k, Barnacle’s running to the left. Dans
Modern English, if someone’s going to his/her left, it’d be more common to say “S/he’s
going left”, and thus would be simpler than the Language X sample shown. This would
be one example in the argument against the theory that my subjects were trying to
communicate in the simplest way possible. But anyway, since indo–the adverb meaning
“left”–isn’t a defined place, the rule would predict that is should be used, and it is. In d,
f and g, ayas isn’t used, et, for reasons beyond my comprehension, this fact was
apparently important to my subjects. Any other motion verb never obeyed the rules of
ayas even if the motion was similar. Ainsi, agan doesn’t mean “to come into” with two
arguments, and any time it was used with two arguments, is was used before the
33
deuxième. In cases like these, is really resembled long from Tok Pisin, since it governed
any object that was relationally involved in some sort of movement in verbs other than
ayas.
!
There’s one last comment that I’d like to make on ayas that has absolutely
nothing to do with prepositions. There was one instance of serial verb usage and it
occurred only with ayas. Since there was only one, the occurrence could be written off
as a fluke. I think, mais, that it was far from a fluke, and would be repeated every
single time such an idea needed to be expressed. It just so happens that the only idea
the serial verb construction expressed was the idea of “x moving y into z”. This is a
rather specialized usage, so it shouldn’t be hard to see how it would come up only
rarely. The only time it was used was the bird putting the bunny in the bag, as listed
au-dessus de (Veni lusa heni ayas duwev). I was so amazed by this unexpected development that
I tried to get a repetition the next week. I’m afraid my sentence was a bit confusing,
mais, and was not understood. The idea was this: A guy named Bob meets a woman
whom he likes but who does not like him. In order to woo her, he takes off his feet, puts
them into a bag and then takes out new feet and puts them on and starts to dance. Ce,
bien sûr, pleases the woman, and so they get together. This sequence of events seemed
perfectly logical and commonplace to me when I dreamt it up the night before, mais
when I proposed it to my subjects, they really couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Ainsi,
they translated the sentence “Bob puts his feet into a bag” as Bob sambu zali be kuz duwev.
34
What I think they thought I was trying to convey was Bob stepping into a bag, not
actually physically detaching his feet. Ainsi, the idea wasn’t agentive movement of one
thing into something else, but just Bob stepping into something. This is unfortunate,
since the serial verb construction remains an isolated incident (I gave up looking for it
after this since there were plenty of other interesting things to test out). Semantically, je
say that it was probably used because ayas was associated with the English preposition
“into”, and is was thought of as more of a stative preposition. I maintain that it would
probably be used again.
3.5.1 Semantics
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The semantics of ayas have already been discussed, and it was one of the largest
semantic mysteries in Language X, and in addition to that, there have already been
some comments about derivational morphology. Outside of that, mais, there was not
much deviation from the definitions I gave to each of the words, qui, to me, was
rather disappointing. I told them all at the very beginning, and periodically throughout
the course of the project, that the respective definitions I wrote down for the words
should be thought of as general, overarching categories rather than exact definitions.
Néanmoins, they tended to stick to the definitions. The only place where there was
significant metaphorical play was in the realm of sexuality, and before I get into that, Identifiant
like to put up the following disclaimer.
35
3.5.2 Disclaimer in Regards to Sexuality
!
My project consisted of meeting with six college students, three female and three
mâle, and getting them to communicate using made-up words with no overt grammar.
While my subjects knew this was a serious project on my part, they used the hour each
week to have fun and goof off, which is fine, because they goofed off in Language X. Comme
tel, one of their favorite subjects was sex (this was enhanced by the fact that we met
from eight to nine at night, which I’ve been known to refer to as “The Giggle Hour”).
They had the most fun and said the most interesting things when they were talking
about sex. Cela dit, one of my subjects felt that the sexual banter was inappropriate,
since s/he viewed any sexual joke as a form of aggression. This person felt it important
that the complaint be lodged, et ainsi, here it is.
3.5.3 Sex
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My subjects had a plethora of sexual terms they pretty much coined on the fly.
Any object that could be construed as sexual became so by adding the word elif
“happy” to the front of it. Ainsi, elif became sort of a taboo classifier. The first terms
showed up in the second week: elif giskwe (“happy stick”–penis) and elif plinye (“happy
flower”–vagina). And so, there came pick-up lines like Yani okesh nal ani elif giskwe (Toi
want tongue I happy stick) and Ani sambu ani posh is yani eslim kwame (I put I hand at
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you smooth moon–“Let me put my hand on your smooth bottom”), where basically
they carried over the metaphors already in place in English. They would sit there for
twenty minutes at a time just making up sex jokes–they really would. The interesting
thing that came of it was that when you combined elif with shiles, you got “alcohol”.
Alcohol doesn’t have anything to do with sex, and certainly didn’t in the context, mais
the idea that it was the version of the thing described (eau) that couldn’t be enjoyed in
publique, or at least wasn’t as socially acceptable. Ainsi, a possible new derivation might be
something like elif moshi (“happy woman”) for “prostitute”.
4 Gesture and Supragesture
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One probably would not encounter a discussion of gesture in a book on a pidgin
or creole. I believe, cependant, that it’s extremely important not only in day-to-day,
natural language communication, but also in situations where a common language isn’t
shared. In Language X there was an exorbitant amount of gesturing accompanying
each statement. Not surprisingly, there was more in the beginning than there was at the
fin. Toutefois, it’s not the level of natural gesture that I’m talking about (par exemple., moving
one’s hand down when one is making a point or stating a fact), but what I call
supragesture. Supragesture is the animated, excited gesturing one uses in place of
actual language, especially when one can’t think of the appropriate language to express
one’s idea.
37
!
One of the most common supragestures I came across was what I call the “like,
you know what I mean” gesture. This typically involved a number of movements: (1)
Nodding the head, (2) Smiling, (3) Moving the hands in a circular motion away from the
corps, (4) Leaning forward. This gesture accompanied, par exemple, the sentence Sangi
ayas wet kuz yenev. What this was trying to describe was a man falling off a building.
The way it was actually said was as follows: “Sangi ayas…like, wet kuz…yenev”. Le
ellipses show a pause where the speaker became most active. It also accompanied a
furrowing of the brow of myself and my other subjects who were trying to understand
what the heck “man go head foot building” could possibly mean. Dans ce cas, le
gesture failed, since what the gesture is really supposed to accomplish is it’s supposed
to indicate to the listener that they really understand what’s being said, and if they just
think about it quickly, they’ll get it, at which time they can say, “Ohhhhhhhhhhh, yeah, je
get it”, and the speaker can stop struggling. Other times it works–sometimes so well
that the speaker and listener don’t even have to speak. Ce, cependant, didn’t happen in
any of the Language X sessions.
!
Another common gesture is the “help” gesture. It’s similar to the “like, toi
know what I mean” gesture, except that only one hand is propelled, and it’s pointed
towards a particular person–the person who the speakers wants to help him/her. Dans
Language X, the helper was almost always Peyton, and the one gesturing was more
often than not Cindy. Ce, cependant, is something I don’t have an example of. I have
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an example for the previous gesture because I remember that specific incident. Ce
latter, mais, I can’t remember a specific incident, donc, having used a tape recorder only,
I can’t list an example; this is merely the impression I got. This is why, à l'avenir, À
video recorder should be used at all times–that is, if the experiment is to be done right.
Gesture is tremendously important, and there’s no way to get it saved with a video
camera. The fact that people’s voices–especially guys’–tend to sound the same if you’re
not that familiar with the individuals speaking is also a problem when using a tape
recorder, since there are times when you can’t tell who is speaking. It isn’t always
important, but sometimes it is, and it’d just be nice to have a video camera at every
session.
5 Language X Has No Copula
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Language X has no copula: Sangi e Barnacle elif (Man and Barnacle happy: “The
man and Barnacle are happy”).
6 Theorizing: Ainsi, What’s the Point?
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I’d like to spend the rest of this paper talking about what I think this experiment
means to the study of pidgins and creoles.
!
First off, I’d like to restate all the differences this experiment has between the
actual creation of most pidgins and creoles:
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(1) Language X speakers were not my slaves or servants.
(2) My subjects and I shared a common language.
(3) My subjects didn’t feel coerced into speaking Language X (for the most part).
(4) We were not trying to accomplish a task, like plowing a field or mining.
(5) The superstrate language wasn’t a complete language.
(6) This really wasn’t a contact situation.
Cela dit, I still think this experiment was important.
!
As I said in the very first paragraph, there is no significant documentation of
what the various pidgins and creoles were like in the first twenty years of their creation,
let alone the first few months. Fifty years is practically a lifetime, and yet those are the
earliest records we have, which themselves aren’t exactly anything like “A Complete
Grammar and Examination of the Pidgin Spoken by the Slaves on My Plantation”9 .
Who knows how on earth these people communicated in the first few months of their
cohabitation? By now, it’s impossible to tell. This is where my experiment comes in.
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In an actual contact situation, the subordinate group probably wouldn’t try to
learn the language of the dominant group right away. I would think there would be
little communication at all in the typical plantation situation: The master barking out
9 Not a real book.
40
orders in his native tongue and the slaves not understanding until someone got down
and showed them exactly what they wanted them to do. It would seem to me that
communication would be undesirable and avoided altogether at first. When it finally
did get going, it would probably be with code switching or imitation, as I said. Et, de
course, there would be large amounts of gesturing and exemplifying, demonstration.
The mode of communication that would develop wouldn’t even be pidgin, or even a
jargon. It would just be whatever worked to get by with each particular situation. Le
rules would change constantly, and the only correct form would be the form that
conveys the correct information or produces the intended result. This is pretty much
what happened in my experiment from week to week. There was no discussion or talk;
just communication. As soon as one person conveyed the idea that they wanted to
convey, they were done. Ainsi, some of the ways my subjects expressed ideas may be
closer to many pidgins in their earliest stages.
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An interesting experiment which would require both Bill Gates and Donald
Trump as its sponsors would be to keep one of the experiments I listed going for about
fifty or sixty years. Autrement dit, to create a pidgin. Si, after sixty, seventy, maybe a
hundred years, the language that developed looked like other pidgins and creoles at
their seventy year mark, then whatever the language originally looked like might
closely approximate the early stages of the pidgins and creoles of the world. It’s highly
unlikely that this would ever come to be, but it’s worth mentioning.
41
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I think one of the things this experiment exemplifies is the switch from what I
call Hemingway to Fitzgerald language usage. In the beginning, my subjects merely
tried to convey their idea in as quick and cheap a way as possible, much like Ernest
Hemingway does with his short, jerky, to-the-point prose. Later on, they were still in it
to get the job done, pour ainsi dire, but rather than trying to utilize what was quickest or
what was easiest, they started to look for what was best, just like F. Scott Fitzgerald,
whose books are about the same length as Hemingway’s, but whose sentences do a lot
more. It was when they stepped up to Fitzgeraldian communication that the various
rules with ayas and is arose, and I’ve no doubt such rules would have continued to arise.
I think the reason that the switch eventually occurs has to do with pride, and the fact
that it’s not empowering to be able to say any old thing and have it mean whatever you
vouloir. It’s as if the rules–any rules–are a sign of advancement.
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The long and short of it is this: I did see Language X becoming a pidgin and
doing pidgin-like things. Perhaps a better word is feel. As I was looking through my
pages of notes to find examples of things, I would notice that, every time I found a
counterexample to some rule that I had proposed, it usually showed up in my speech.
A quick example: In the middle of a story (we took turns speaking), I said Laura ayas is
kwame (Laura go at moon). This totally breaks the rule I proposed, since the moon is a
specified place. Encore, it’s not as if they were going to correct me. They understood what
I meant; it’s just something they wouldn’t say. And so it was at places like this where I
42
noticed that what I perceived to be Language X was not what they perceived it to be. Il
hadn’t gotten to the point where they would see it as a language and start to correct my
grammaire, though I’ve no doubt that if it would have kept going, it would’ve come to
ce. Based on what I’ve seen throughout the course of this experiment, I’d like to posit
a hierarchy of development from pidgin to creole:
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1.) Bare Communication: Speakers of the substrate language slowly learn a few
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words or fixed expressions of the superstrate language. To communicate,
they put words from the superstrate language into the grammar of their
own language. There are no rules. Whether the correct idea is conveyed
is the basis for determining correct or appropriate usage.
2.) Pidginization: Substrate speakers begin to systematize the language they
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parler. A few general rules which don’t so much necessarily correspond
to any rules in the substrate or superstrate languages, but feel right begin
to take shape. These “rules”, cependant, are totally mutable, since the em-
phasis is still placed on information conveyance. Ainsi, it doesn’t matter if
every speaker uses every rule every single time; it’s just a pattern that
seems to simmer under the surface.
3.) Pidgin Birth: A pidgin is born. All the rules that had been growing come to
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fruition in this stage. Toutefois, there aren’t many rules, and there doesn’t
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necessarily have to be a rule for everything in the pidgin; just a few rules
that speakers recognize as being valid. There may still be some misuse,
and possibly competition between various types of rules pertaining to the
same thing. The language is still used only for communication, and so the
vocabulary is small. It’s now simply a system for communication that can
be used reliably.
4.) Creolization: The language becomes a language, used not just for communica-
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tion, but for leisure and art, aussi. The vocabulary expands, rules are
finalized, the language is standardized. From this point on, the changes
that the language will undergo are the same changes that every language
undergoes.
I won’t go so far as to put a timeline on this, but I would guess that a pidgin moves
from stage 1 to stage 2 rather quickly, given how soon rules developed in Language X,
even though it was only spoken for one hour once a week. Ce, cependant, would be
largely dependent on the need for communication, mais, and the importance placed
on it. Though we only met for an hour once a week, it was clear that we were coming
together to speak the language and to do nothing else, and so there was more emphasis
placed on speaking and innovation, and systematicity more quickly became a necessity
for them. Cela dit, I’d never claim that Language X got beyond stage 2. I believe the
44
jump from stage 2 to stage 3 would take much longer, especially with the random
communication that would occur on a plantation (one slave speaks to the master once
during the week and uses some construction, but no one else hears it, and by the time
he has the opportunity to use that construction again, maybe he’s forgotten it, maybe
another strategy has developed, etc.). Et, bien sûr, the jump from stage 3 to stage 4 is
the longest jump of all.
7 Concluding Remarks
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On the whole, I think this experiment was a rousing success, despite the fact that
one of the sessions was canceled and two or three weeks of tape were, for all intents and
fins, lost. I think if I were to attempt this experiment again I would be more aware
of what to do and what not to do. I’d like to thank my sponsor, Prof. John McWhorter,
who provided me with the opportunity and gave me advice and much encouragement.
The experience is one I’ll never forget, and I’m grateful to have been able to take part in
il.
Ani okesh yani sanya eyan melay!
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Language X Word List (This is what each subject had to work with):
English-Language X!!
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len!
yof!
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losh!
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afraid!!
même!
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all………………………….eyos!
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animal!
lavi!
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à……………………………est!
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dos (body part)!
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mauvais………………………..egzam!!
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ventre! !
grand…………………………epsiz! !
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oiseau!
veni!
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to bite!……………………glasa!
shifto! !
noir! !
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sang…………………….pifes!
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asaf!
to blow (breath)!
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bleu……………………….ishlo!
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os!
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sein, poitrine…………..baks!
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ahosh!!
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to breathe!
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frère………………….hosi!
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vaza!
to burn!
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enfant! !
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landi!
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vêtements…………………yonzev!
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nuage! !
froid……………………….enish! !
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venir!
agan!
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to cook…………………..zela!
correct!
enats! !
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to count………………….andal!!
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to cut! !
daya!
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to dance!
atsash!!
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jour………………………..melay!!
aslan! !
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to die! !
fuve!
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Language X-English
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to fall
to count (as in “one, two…”)
to turn (par exemple., to turn around)
to lie (prostrate, not “fib”)
abim!
ablag…………..to vomit
achak!!
achul…………..to work
agach! !
agan……………venir (movement only)
ahosh!!
to breathe
alank…………..to sit
alos!
dire
aluv…………….to swim
andal !!
ani………………je
apan!
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asaf……………..to blow (using your lungs)
ashas! !
aslan…………..to die
atsash!!
ayak……………to win
ayan!
to play
ayani…………..you (pluriel), you all, y’all
ayas!
ayaz…………….to sing
aywa! !
azub……………to urinate, to relieve oneself
to go, bouger, to walk
yes, yeah
to dance
to stand
to sleep
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to pull
bacha!!
baks…………….breast, poitrine
bande!!
étoile
bashi…………..wife
deux
être!
beves…………..meat
bezda!!
blandi…………chien
blaza! !
to fight
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to scratch (par exemple., to relieve itching)
46
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ge!
dirty………………………yebish!!
blandi!!
chien!
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to drink………………….losa!
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efes!
sec!
dull……………………….ebez!
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heches!!
dust!
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oreille!
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zay!
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Terre……………………..ginges!!
meva! !
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to eat! !
œuf………………………..wome!!
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huit! !
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œil…………………………pek!
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achak! !
to fall!!
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loin………………………….elas!
rapide!
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efis!
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fat………………………….ebwiz!!
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paki!
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père!!
few………………………..enek!
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to fight!
blaza! !
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fire………………………..shazes!!
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fish!
five………………………..de!
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plinye!!
flower!!
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to fly……………………..vala!
hoshes!
brouillard!
pied……………………….kuz!
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quatre!
fruit……………………….hashe!!
esuf!
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complet!
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to give!
livu!
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to go/move…………….ayas!
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eyan!
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bien!
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herbe………………………seles!
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hino!
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vert! !
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mayes!!
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cheveux!
kusi!
orienté vers!
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bleza…………..to kill
bos!
busi…………….they
queue
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chaga! !
chises…………..salt
frapper
husband
dangi! !
daya…………….to cut
de!
demi…………….person
bouche
dol!
five
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fat
vieux
dull
ebez!
ebiz……………..warm
ebwiz!!
edaf…………….many
efes!
sec
efis……………..fast
egal !
autre
eglash…………slow
egosh!!
egwish………..thick
egzam!!
mauvais
ehin…………….this
nouveau
ekop!
eksin…………..thin
ekwim!
mouillé
elas……………..far
elif!
elik……………..wide
what
emi!
emits……………quelques
enats! !
correct
enek……………few
enen!
près
engid………….heavy
enish! !
eniz…………….straight
happy
froid
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47
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main………………………posh!
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happy!!
elif!
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il…………………………..zali!
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mouillé!
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tête!
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entendre……………………oniz!
cœur! !
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won!
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heavy…………………….engid! !
ici!
isnap! !
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frapper……………………..chaga! !
sanya! !
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to hold!
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chaud…………………………ezats!
comment!
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husband………………..dangi! !
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je!
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glace………………………….sayes! !
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il!
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ani!
zali!
iso!
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bleza! !
to kill!!
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knee……………………….fun!
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keza!
to know (facts)!
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yande!!
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lac!
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to laugh…………………osas!
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gauche (côté)!
indo!
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jambe…………………………meb!
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to lie (bas)!!
abim!
to like/love/enjoy…owis!
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owem!!
to live!!
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long………………………evag!
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sangi! !
homme!
many……………………..edaf!
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viande!
beves! !
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lune……………………..kwame!
mashi!!
mère!
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montagne……………….gibe!
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bouche!
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dol!
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grand
petit
epsiz! !
eslim…………..smooth
eslit!
étroit
esuf…………….full
etas!
evag……………long
afraid
même!
eyan……………bien
eyos!
all
ezats……………chaud
eziz!
pointu
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année
folay! !
fone…………….stone
fun!
knee
fuve…………….cloud
vent
fuyes! !
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Non, not
forêt, woods
gale!
ge………………..eight
gen!
gibe…………….mountain
Terre, sol!
ginges!
giskwe………..stick, bois, bifurquer
glasa! !
to bite
gwega…………to tie (ensemble, par exemple)
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Ha!
neuf
hashe…………..fruit
heches!
dust
hezes…………..sand
vert
hino!
hoshes…………brouillard
hosi!
frère
huches…………fumée
huwes!!
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ifay!
indo…………….left (côté)
neige
là
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48
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Ha!
Pennsylvanie!
egal!
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demi!
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zava!
to name!
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étroit…………………..eslit!
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près!
enen!
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neck……………………….shed!
nouveau!
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ekop!
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nuit……………………..molay!!
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neuf!
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nez……………………….yas!
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gen!
Non, not!
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to obtain!
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lusa!
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vieux………………………..egosh! !
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un!
one hundred………….zuyu! !
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autre! !
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personne!
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place/building………yenev! !
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to play!
to pull…………………..bacha! !
to push!
tusha! !
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to put/place…………..sambu!!
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sezes! !
pluie!
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reason/purpose……..yom!
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zeso!
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rouge!
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Oui (côté)…………….inko!
rivière!
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yole!
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road/path………………konev!!
corde!
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to rub…………………….vamba!
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sel!
chises!!
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sable……………………….hezes! !
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dire!!
to scratch……………….bezda!!
spuse! !
mer!
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to see……………………..osim!
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Sept! !
lesev!
ayan!
alos!
le!
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Oui (côté)
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inko!
est…………………à
ishlo! !
bleu
isnap…………..here
comment
iso!
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Sept
to throw
le!
keza…………….to know (facts, information)
klasa! !
konev………….road, chemin, rue, thoroughfare
kusi!
fish
kuz………………pied
kwame!
lune
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enfant
landi! !
lavi……………..animal
lay!
temps
lekso…………..white
os
len!
lesev…………..rope, cord, twine, string
livu!
to give
losa…………….to drink
losh!
lusa…………….to obtain
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dos (where your spine is)
!
mère
to shoot
macha!!
mape……………arbre
mashi!!
mayes………….hair
meb!
jambe
melay………….day
mesha!!
meva……………to eat
mi!
trois
misha…………..to squeeze
miyes!!
molay………….night
femme
moshi!!
mubo…………..yellow
to wash
peau
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49
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Ni!
tel!
vales!
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to sew (w/needle)….slesa!
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pointu! !
eziz!
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elle…………………………zali!
macha!!
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to shoot!
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to sing……………………ayaz!
sœur! !
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to sit………………………alank! !
six!
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peau……………………….miyes! !
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ciel!
to sleep………………….ashas! !
eglash!!
slow!
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petit……………………..etas!
to smell !
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onet!
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fumée…………………….huches!
eslim! !
!
lisse!
neige………………………huwes!
quelques! !
emits! !
!
to split…………………..skaza! !
misha!!
to squeeze!
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to stab/pierce…………zitsa!
to stand!
!
apan!
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étoile…………………………bande!!
giskwe!
!
stick!
!
droit!
eniz!
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eniz!
!
droit!
!
soleil…………………………zeye!
!
aluv!
!
to swim!
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queue!
bos!
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dix…………………………sur!
!
ifay!
là! !
ils……………………….busi!
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épais! !
egwish!
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mince………………………..eksin! !
omem!!
to think!
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ce………………………..ehin!
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trois! !
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to throw!
mi!
klasa!
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mup!
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dent
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nal!
Ni…………………six
langue
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to want, to need, to desire
okesh!!
omem…………..to think, to cogitate
onet!
to smell
oniz…………….to hear
osas!
osim…………….to see
owem!!
to live
owis…………….to like, to love, to enjoy
to laugh
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un
Pennsylvanie!
paki…………….father
pek!
pifes……………sang
flower
plinye!!
posh……………main
œil
!
glace
dix
homme
sur !
sambu………….to put, to place, to position
sangi! !
sanya…………..to hold
sayes! !
seles……………herbe
sezes! !
pluie
shazes…………fire
shed!
sheka………….to wipe
noir
shifto!!
shiles………….water
skaza! !
slesa……………to sew (w/needle and thread)
spuse! !
to split (in two, par exemple)
neck
mer
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!
quatre
orienté vers!
tel………………sœur
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to tie (ensemble)…….gwega!!
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temps……………………….lay!
!
langue!
nal!
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dent……………………..mup!
arbre!
mape! !
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to turn (soi-même)…….agach!!
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zo!
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twenty!
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deux………………………..be!
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to urinate!
azub!
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to vomit!
ablag! !
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okesh! !
to want/need!!
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chaud……………………..ebiz!
mesha!!
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to wash!
eau……………………..shiles! !
nous!
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mouillé………………………..ekwim!!
what!
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blanc……………………..lekso! !
large!
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wife……………………….bashi! !
to win!!
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vent………………………fuyes! !
sheka! !
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to wipe!
avec……………………….ya!
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moshi!!
femme!
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woods/forest…………gale!
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achul! !
to work!
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folay!
!
!
année!
jaune…………………..mubo! !
yes!
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toi (sg.)………………..yani
toi (pl.)!
ayani! !
ayak!
wani!
aywa
elik!
emi!
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tusha! !
to push
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to fly
vala!
vales…………..sky
vamba!
vaza…………….to burn
veni!
to rub
oiseau
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nous!
wani!
mouillé……………..head
wome!!
œuf
won…………….heart
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toi (singular)
de!
avec
yande………….lake
yani!
yas………………nez
yebish!
dirty
yenev………….place, bâtiment, chambre
yof!
ventre
yole…………….river
yom!
yonzev………..clothing
raison, purpose
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il, she and it
zali!
zava…………….to name, to call
zay!
oreille
zela…………….to cook
rouge
zeso!
zeye…………….sun
zitsa!
zo………………..twenty
zuyu!
one hundred
to stab, to pierce
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*stress ideally is on the last syllable
51
Pronunciation:
This was designed to be easy to pronounce for English speakers. Néanmoins,
!
here’s a pronounciation guide:
a=“a” in “father”; e=“e” in “get” or the “a” in “gate” (either way); i=“ea” in “seat”;
o=“o” in “vote”; u=“oo” in “boot”; z=“z” in “zoo”; g=“g” in “gate” not “giant”;
sh=“sh” in “shoe”; s= “ss” in “boss”; ch=“ch” in “chimp”; y=“y” in “yet”;
ay=“i” in “kite”; the rest should be pretty self-explanatory.
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