World Englishes - Simplification or complexification?

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  Contents  

  Introduction  4

1.  An overview about the present discussion and research  7

1.1  Argumentation for simplification  9

1.2  Argumentation for complexification  23

1.3  Conclusion  33

2.  A closer look on the languages in question  34

2.1  Irish English  35

2.1.1  History and Background  35

2.1.2  Differences  36

2.2  Scottish English  42

2.2.1  History and Background  42

2.2.2  Differences  43

2.3  American English  46

2.3.1  History and Background  46

2.3.2  Differences  48

2.4  Caribbean English  55

2.4.1  History and Background  55

2.4.2  Differences  57

2.5  Indian English  60

2.5.1  History and Background  60

2.5.2  Differences  62

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2.6  South African English  67

2.6.1  History and Background  67

2.6.2  Differences  69

2.7  Other African Englishes  71

2.7.1  History and Background  71

2.7.2  Differences  73

2.8  Other Asian Englishes  76

2.8.1  History and Background  76

2.8.2  Differences  77

2.9  Australia New Zealand English  79

2.9.1  History and Background  79

2.9.2  Differences  80

  Conclusion  83

  Sources  86

Appendix 91   

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Introduction

In many parts of the world English is used as the main communicative device between people of different mother languages. In some areas it is known as the native tongue, in other countries, for instance in Germany, it is regarded as a second and global language.

There are cases though in which the English language serves a different purpose, namely works as a political way to express certain themes. In many former British colonies the English language was introduced and indoctrinated on the native people as the language of government, police, business and law. Of course, there were other native languages before the appearance of the British and there still remain local dialects and tongues today.

Nevertheless through time the sharp lines between local dialects and the language of the government have vanished.

This process of development or melting of two languages, that is English and one local language of the old inhabitants of the place is often referred to as Pidginization and Creolization in literature.

Pidgins are believed to be the first step of the development from a very simple basic language to a more complex one with native speakers through Creolization in later stages.

The final step for a language that has been going through this assimilation process would be linguistic independence, to be regarded as a separate and individual World English. Examples for World Englishes that took this way of development are Indian English, South African English or Caribbean Englishes.

Also, there are World Englishes that never were Pidgins or Creoles at any time. Irish English for instance simply followed a melting process of Gaelic and English, but at no point one could talk about an Irish Pidgin English. The difference is quite obvious.

In Pidgins like the ones cited above language tends to be simple and not very structuralized whereas through a melting process as in Ireland language

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basically remains on a high level of linguistic features. In the first case the new language was simply adopted by the locals and over time more and more used in daily speech. In the Irish example on the other hand features of the new language were slowly mixed with the native tongue and the other way around. And of course there are a lot more similarities between Gaelic and English than there are between Indian Hindi or African Swahili and English.

Thus it is quite difficult to say whether a language that is regarded as a World English today can be seen as being more complicated or as being simpler than Standard British English.

The first question one has to ask is in what linguistic regard the specific World English is more complex or simpler. If you look at Phonology and Morphology it is obvious to mark many differences between even the two main English variants British and American English.

Of course, these differences are important and certainly classify an American in England and a Briton in the US. But on the other hand it is basically not possible to provide an overview about all the phonological differences and similarities throughout the World Englishes on only 60 to 80 pages.

Thus in this paper I am going to try to limit my research to grammar and syntax. Once or twice I will also quickly refer to phonetic features if it is necessary to understand certain grammatical features.

Taking grammar and syntax might as well be more interesting.

As we have seen in the example above with British and American English it is not hard to find diversity in phonology. It is harder when you stick to grammar. You simply have to dig deeper. There are some differences between British and American English and in the process of this paper I will try to trace them but they are not easy to find.

In the very first part of this work I will present some ideas and opinions scholars have uttered about the problem of simplification and complexification

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lately. Since the topic of World Englishes includes Creolization and Creole studies most evidence I will provide will examine whether Creoles in general are more complex or simpler than their respective mother tongue. No one has so far exclusively studied World Englishes comparatively to Standard Englishes in order to make judgements about complexity and simplicity as scholars have done about Creoles.

That is why I have tried to provide some basic research in that specific direction in the second part of this paper relying on individual works about several World Englishes and their Grammar.

I will provide examples from World Englishes and I am going to try to judge

whether certain findings I have made classify that language as being more complex or simpler than Standard British English concerning grammar and syntax.

Rounding up this paper in the end I hope that I can make some comments whether it is possible to prove the idea of Simplification or oppose it.

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1. An overview about the present discussion

and research

When talking about World Englishes and complexity one encounters quite a lot of adversaries.

The main problem is most likely a problem of definition. Most scholars nowadays agree that Creole languages (and of course Pidgins) are by no means as rich in grammatical features as older languages are. I will provide evidence for this hypothesis later.

Referring to the topic of this paper I have to draw a line between World Englishes and Creoles.

That is not an easy task though. As stated in the introduction many World Englishes either still are, even today, or just have recently turned from Creole status to become a World English.

Following this line of argumentation it would not be possible to provide an overview about the complexity of World Englishes without including English Creole languages.

The main question of this paper should therefore be rendered thus: English Creoles are generally assumed to lack many grammatical features and components Standard English exhibits. Does the shift from Creole status to a renowned World English outbalance, sustain or strengthen this difference? Starting from this point I will be able to include both Creoles and World Englishes in my discussion and I will furthermore have the chance to look at the development of the grammatical features of World Englishes not only from a synchronic but also through a diachronic way.

I believe that it is absolutely necessary to include the diachronic aspect when

comparing complexity and simplicity of languages. Many grammatical features of older languages that are absent in Creoles have emerged through long periods of time and these languages as a result carry a huge weight of structure. Nevertheless this does not mean that these older languages are automatically more complex than Creoles as I will show.

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A second problem of definition is to find a way to compare complexity of

grammars. John H. McWhorter puts it:

“Rankings of complexity here will obviously differ according to acquisitional or structural framework, and whether one approaches the data from a first-language as opposed to second-language perspective; it is unlikely that any single ranking could be constructed that would stand as incontestable.” 1

Nevertheless, scholars so far have been able to provide rankings for all sorts of linguistic aspects. McWhorter:

“Indeed, the truism that languages cannot be compared in terms of complexity conflicts with the fact that linguists readily rank grammars in terms of complexity in terms of phonology and, to a lesser but considerable extent, morphology.” 2

So it should be possible to compare the grammar of two languages at least concerning a specific phenomenon. And even more, thinking about the overt similarities probably to be encountered when comparing Standard English and other Englishes rather than Standard English and for instance Russian.

Nevertheless there are linguists who completely oppose McWhorter’s view on simple Creoles and I will sum up their ideas in the next two chapters.

One should not be surprised when I will rarely refer to World Englishes in this first part of the paper but rather to Creoles of all kinds.

As stated above, not many linguists have focussed on the theme of this paper. Secondly I feel that it is absolutely necessary to include Creoles since many World Englishes took that path of development. Thirdly, I need some theoretical data to provide the basis for my own findings and research on World Englishes later.

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McWhorter, John H. The World‘s simplest grammars are Creole grammars, Linguistic Typology 5-2/3 (2001). p.133 2 McWhorter.p.133

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1.1 Argumentation for simplification

In this chapter I have gathered points from various scholars who have written about Creoles and who have tried to compare Creole grammars to older languages and their grammar. Creole studies are quite important in modern linguistics. Especially in Sociolinguistics as we will see later. From the very beginning ideas about Creoles were connected to social classifications and used in order to divide people: namely slaves from masters, Blacks from Whites, Europeans from Africans and rich from poor.

It has been estimated that 6-12 million people speak a Pidgin next to their mother tongue. About 10-17 million make use of a Creole as their mother tongue. 1 Exact numbers are very difficult to measure because Creoles and Pidgins are dynamic systems which constantly change, like most languages do through time but not as fast:

“Schätzungen von Sprecherzahlen sind auch deshalb Schwankungen unterworfen, weil Sprachen dynamische Systeme sind, die sich in der Zeit verändern. Gerade bei Pidgin- und Kreolsprachen können sich solche Veränderungen in erstaunlich kurzer Zeit vollziehen.” 2

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1 cf. Hellinger, Matthias. Englisch-orientierte Pidgin- und Kreolsprachen, (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1985).p.3 2 Hellinger.p.3 3 Hellinger.p.5

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About 127 Pidgin and Creole languages are known today. 81 of these relating to a European ancestry. 1 In regard to English 35 languages can be quoted. The most important one of these in the Caribbean area is Jamaican Creole (1) with more than a million speakers. 2 It is followed by the Surinam (2) language Sranan (350 000) and Gullah (125 000) which is spoken on the Sea Islands off Georgia.(3) 3 Smaller linguistic groups can be found in Guyana (4), in parts of Belize (5), Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Columbia. Also on the Bahamas (6) and the Small Antilles.(7) 4 In the Western parts of Africa and the remote islands off the shore we also encounter many English based Creoles. Krio is spoken by 120 000 people in Sierra Leone (13), Liberia (14), Nigeria (15) and Cameroon. (16) 5

1 cf. Hellinger.p5

2 cf. Hellinger.p.5 3 cf. Hellinger.pp.5-6 4 cf. Hellinger.p.6 5 cf. Hellinger.pp.7-8 6 Hellinger.p.6

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In the Pacific area we have to mention Tok Pisin, a Pidgin English spoken by more than a million people in Papua (23) and the surrounding regions. Furthermore there is Chinese Pidgin English (24) and Hawaiian Creole English.(25) 1

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We can now turn to the question whether these Pidgin- and Creole languages tend to be simpler or even more complex than their respective mother tongues as a first step to achieve the goal of making a judgement for World Englishes, of which these Creoles are surely an important part.

Most of the following quotes are taken from an article in “Linguistic Typology” from 2001 (LT2001) titled “Creoles – A structural type?” In his lead article “The world’s simplest grammars are Creole grammars” John H. McWhorter strongly argues that Creoles are of a simpler grammar than other languages.

According to him this is due to the fact that Creoles have not lived long enough to create a rich and powerful grammar as older languages did have the chance over many years. Creoles were born as Pidgin languages, mostly in Colonies as 1 cf. Hellinger.p.8

2 Hellinger.p.7

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stated in the introduction of this paper, and therefore had to serve only as a mean to provide a common ground for masters and slaves, basically free from any superfluous grammatical phenomena:

“By this metric, a subset of Creole languages display less overall grammatical complexity than older languages, by virtue of the fact that they were born as pidgins, and thus stripped of almost all features unnecessary to communication, and since then have not existed as natural languages for a long enough time for diachronic drift to create the weight of “ornament” that encrusts older languages.” 1

McWhorter concludes that Creoles “are qualitatively distinguishable from older grammars as a predictable result of their youth” 2 It is subject to further discussions, as I will show, if these assumptions of McWhorter prove true.

To put it in short he is basically saying that “millennia of grammaticalization and reanalysis” 3 have led old languages to occupy even the remotest areas of grammar to fill them up with semantic space. 4 This idea formulates two questions. Does complexity of a language necessarily have to involve lots of morphemes, irregularities, strange word orders and richness in forms? And secondly, and that is going to be the main problem of this entire paper, how are we able to value whether certain grammatical features render one language more complex than another?

McWhorter puts forward some ideas how to measure grammars but none of them seem very convincing, as I will show. Nevertheless we do have to rely on something, on a certain system, to evaluate this problem and McWhorter ideas are a good starting point.

The author himself gives rise to some criticism by saying that a language that lacks grammatical features in one particular area might as well be rich in another, very different grammatical category:

“However, there is a strong implication underlying such statements that anything ‘simple’ in a given language will be ‘compensated for’ by a ‘complex’ feature, a typical example being Crystal’s provisional observation that ‘[a]ll languages have a complex grammar: there may be relative simplicity in one respect (e.g., no word-

1 McWhorter.p.125

2 McWhorter.p.125 3 McWhorter.p.126 4 cf. McWhorter.p.126

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endings), but there seems always to be relative complexity in another (e.g., word- position)’.” 1

So, here McWhorter himself gives critics a point to begin with. Why should not Creoles, which lack certain grammatical morphemes and inflections, tend to compensate this absence with an abundance of rhyme, stress and phonology? Later on I will illustrate examples from World Englishes where this very phenomenon can be observed.

McWhorter tries to stress his line of argumentation. Most linguists today agree that no two languages of the world can be regarded as equal compared to each other in respect of their grammars. They might resemble each other and have been born from similar grounds but in general the assumption is that there are some very grammaticalized languages, some very poorly grammaticalized and all the others are to be found somewhere in between, without being 100 percent equal. 2 Creoles now, which have not had time to develop through many years, tend to belong to the second class:

“...because so much of a grammar’s complexity results from the operations of random accretion over time, Creoles display less complexity than the rest of the world’s natural grammars.” 3

McWhorter presents this as a fact without giving further information and given the criticism above it is doubtful if this argumentation can hold its grounds. How can we now justifiable rate different languages and put them into a levelled diagram of complexity. McWhorter mentions a problem:

“There is no conventionally agreed-upon metric for measuring complexity in grammars. This is partly because of the reign of the truism that all languages are equally complex, partly because the construction of a comprehensive diagnostic for precisely ranking any human language upon a scale of complexity is a daunting task, and perhaps most of all because the construction of such a diagnostic would be of little relevance or usefulness within most frames of reference in modern linguistic inquiry.” 4

1 McWhorter.p.127

2 cf. McWhorter.p.131 3 McWhorter.p.133 4 McWhorter.p.133

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I would like to comment on the last point to make this problem very clear. If a

scholar analyses a language he certainly has a result of his study in mind. As we have seen above, many languages might be complex in one area, simple in another. Consequently he will tend to choose these examples, which will underline his ideas and leave out those that contradict his views. This is especially problematic when we are dealing with Creoles, which not many people can claim as their mother tongue.

As a researcher you will always have to rely on secondary sources and thus the outcome might not be as objective as it should be.

McWhorter sees three main means to rate the complexity of a language:

“The guiding intuition is that an area of grammar is more complex than the same area in another grammar to the extent that it encompasses more overt distinctions and/or rules than another grammar.

[...] Second, a syntax is more complex than another to the extent that it requires the processing of more rules, such as asymmetries between matrix and subordinate clauses (e.g., Germanic verb-second rules), or containing two kinds of alignment rather than one.

[...] Third, a grammar is more complex than another to the extent that it gives overt and grammaticalized expression to more fine-grained semantic and/or pragmatic distinctions than another.” 1

As we have seen above, these points might very well point out a specific Creole as being quite simple, but they do not involve possible compensations. But since I do have to stick to certain measurements in the second part of this paper I will follow McWhorter’s ideas in this regard.

Why exactly does McWhorter take Creoles to be simpler than older languages? According to the author the differences between a Creole grammar and that of its source language “are due to certain syntactic results following from loss of inflection during second language acquisition”. 2 He particularly refers to

1 McWhorter.pp.135-136

2 McWhorter.p.144

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processes such as “lack of verb movement to I, with subsidiary results due to the filtering out of low-frequency features”. 1 Furthermore he claims that the ellipsis of certain functional categories in Creoles leads to a deficiency in markedness. 2 For McWhorter it is clear that the main point to observe is not the grammar of Creoles itself but the way in which they exhibit this grammar and as a result separate from older languages:

“The crucial point is whether or not Creoles tend to exhibit AS MUCH complexity as older grammars do overall.

I suggest that they do not, and more to the point that Creoles are MUCH less complex than all but a very few older languages.” 3

He is saying that Creoles might have a lot of grammatical features, but they are unable or unwilling to express them through well-known linguistic methods. This does imply though that a Creole might as well be more complex than Standard English, for instance, we are just not able to grasp this fact with our measurements.

Other authors have tried to prove exactly that point, as I will show later. Let us stay with McWhorter for a little more time though. Taking note of possible criticism McWhorter puts forward another idea. He illustrates that there might very well be old languages that tend to be as simple as Creoles because they are constantly changing. Some older grammatical features might “erode”, others might grammaticalize though time:

“Doubtlessly, certain older languages have evolved into states approaching the relatively low complexity level of Creoles. However, evidence suggests that it would be formally impossible for an older language to actually attain the state of, for example, Saramaccan or Tok Pisin.” 4

Surely, what the author is saying in the first sentence is completely true; nevertheless he simply fails to provide evidence for his second proposal. Tok Pisin, as we have seen, belongs to English based Creoles and can certainly be taken as being simpler than Standard English. But does that also imply that all

1 McWhorter.p.144

2 cf. McWhorter.p.144 3 McWhorter.p.151 4 McWhorter.p.154

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English based Creoles tend to be simpler? I would reply “no”. Just take elaborated English Creoles like Jamaican or Hawaiian Creole and, even more, their modern forms as being World Englishes. In the second chapter of this paper I will examine and illustrate that it is positively possible to speak of Caribbean English as being at least equally complex to modern Standard English.

One reason for old languages to remain on a high grammatical standard McWhorter has found is the language’s state of being in constant change. Of course, through time, they loose features and become simpler, but there is also complexification at work at the same time:

“Because this complexification is always “working against” the simplification, and at any given time only a subset of a grammar’s complexifications are eroding, an older language retains at all times a degree of complexity alongside the simplifications it is undergoing.” 1

Hence, he follows, it is impossible for Creoles, which have not started this cycle yet and are still working to attain certain features to “climb up the ladder” and equal older languages:

“Creole languages are unique in having emerged under conditions which occasioned the especial circumstance of stripping away virtually all of a language’s complexity (as defined in this paper), such that the complexity emerging in a Creole is arising essentially from ground zero, rather than alongside the results of tens of thousands of years of other accretions. As such, Creoles tend strongly to encompass a lesser degree of complexity than any older grammar.” 2

Going into detailed analysis again, McWhorter argues that Creoles exhibit various unmarked parameter settings. He specifically names “weak feature specifications such as “lack of verb movement to INFL, SVO order, preverbal tense-mood-aspect particles, absence of pro-drop, and absence of complement clitic movement.” 3

Again, it remains doubtful and unclear whether specific Creoles might not be able to compensate this deficiency in various other grammatical areas.

1 McWhorter.p.155

2 McWhorter.p.155 3 McWhorter.p.157

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Coming to the ending part of his argumentation McWhorter prepares for possible and expected criticism by rendering his views more generally and accepting exceptions:

“Nevertheless, returning to my specific analysis, the fact is that if Creoles do reflect the “default” settings of Universal Grammar, this does not in the logical sense entail that they are simpler in the overall sense than older grammars.

In fact, upon examination it becomes clear that the question of whether or not Creole grammars are less complex than older ones as I have posed is essentially independent of markedness of parameter settings.” 1

Comparing this to his ideas he uttered in the very beginning he is surely taking a step back.

He continues:

“This becomes clear when we note that (i) a grammar could have only parameter settings considered unmarked and yet be immensely complex according to our metric, while (ii) a grammar could have all marked parameter settings and yet be quite simple according to our metric.” 2

That is exactly what I have discussed a little earlier on the objectiveness of measuring languages in comparison. If I had cited the entire essay McWhorter has written (which I have not done because it focuses too much on non-English based Creoles) one could say that he has deliberately taken a specific Creole and its mother language in order to prove what he had in mind. I am not proposing that without any evidence and support as you will be able to read in the second part of this chapter, especially when dealing with one of McWhorter’s main critics: Michel DeGraff.

Although one can pretty much argue about McWhorter’s points, his final remarks on the topic tend to express what might result as the “golden middle” path to take when rating Creole grammars against World languages:

“To be precise, the claim is not that all Creoles fall further towards the “simplicity” pole than any older language, since there are Creoles whose social histories have lent them moderate inflection and various other elaborations. However, our claim is indeed that if all of the world’s languages could be ranked on a scale of complexity, there

1 McWhorter.p.159

2 McWhorter.p.159

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would be a delineable subset beginning at the “simplicity” end and continuing towards the “complexity” one all of which were Creoles.” 1

Other Creolists have found similar results as McWhorter has but they try to express their thoughts differently.

Peter A.M. Seuren, for instance, fully supports McWhorter’s view about Creoles being simple grammars. As the preceding author Seuren sees Creoles at the very low end of grammatical complexity. He renders his ideas by giving an example from daily life:

“It is as with cutlery: in some families there is a piece of cutlery for almost every specific purpose, but when they go on a camping trip they will do with the simplest of forks, knives, and spoons. Creole languages are still on a camping trip.” 2

Another famous supporter of McWhorter’s ideas is the well-known linguist Peter Trudgill.

He clearly notices differences between the complexities of languages. According to him this is mostly due to the fact that adult language learners try to simplify matters. Since Creoles are highly contact induced languages between adults these languages thus tend to the simpler end of the grammatical spectrum:

“My thinking was, and is, that “linguistic complexity”, although this, as McWhorter says, is very hard to define or quantify, equates with “difficulty of learning for adults”. I therefore entirely agree with him, as the above quotation shows, that some languages are more complex than others.” 3

Trudgill also agrees with McWhorter in terms of languages gaining grammatical weight through time. ”The implication is that the longer a language exists, the more ‘historical baggage’ it acquires.” 4 He favours the idea that older languages are more complex simply because they had enough time to attain a high level of complexity.

1 McWhorter.p.162

2 Seuren, Pieter A.M. Simple and transparent, Linguistic Typology 5-2/3 (2001), p.179 3 Trudgill, Peter. Contact and simplification: historical baggage and directionality in linguistic change, Linguistic Typology 5-2/3 (2001),p.371 4 Trudgill.p.372