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13 - Reconstructing the Sociolinguistic History of Expansion Languages in the Americas: A Research Program

from Part Two - Contact, Emergence, and Language Classification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2022

By
Pieter Muysken
Edited by
Salikoko Mufwene  and
Anna Maria Escobar
Salikoko Mufwene
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
Anna Maria Escobar
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
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Summary

In this chapter the author addresses the following questions: What does it mean to say that a language is a creole? Do creoles constitute a separate global typological class apart from other language typological groupings? The author calls for research on creole languages that is free from linguistic feature bias, creole language list bias, and genealogical bias. He compares expansion languages from the Meso and South American indigenous language families, particularly the Quechuan family (focusing on Ecuador, the northern border), with the Arawakan, Tupian, Cariban, Jêan, Chibchan, Uto-Aztecan, Mayan, and Otomanguean families. The comparison highlights processes of ethnogenesis, morphological reduction, and sub- or adstrate influence. The findings help broaden the definition of “creole” to refer to a special lexifier– descendant relationship, making the notion of creole a relational one, to facilitate comparisons with other languages and with “linguistic areas.” Questions that remain include: Are there area-specific features? And can this approach shed light on the characterization of creoles as a particular group of languages? What role can language contact play in reconstructing language families?

Keywords

QuechuacreolepidginlexifiersubstrateAmerindianUto-Aztecanexpansionoutlierbias
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Language Contact
Volume 2: Multilingualism in Population Structure
 , pp. 344 - 369
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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