Pidgins and Creoles - Essay Example

Pidgins and CreolesDegraff explains a lot of things about language and how it is connected to the evolution of man. In his explanations full of linguistic jargon, he brings out different points. His main point however is the Creole language has the simplest grammar among all the other languages on earth. This may be largely because it is the origin of languages and has therefore not changed much or even advanced as the rest of the languages have done and hence it still maintains its natural glory.

The other reason Degraff uses to explain the simplicity of the Creole language is the fact that it has been the subject for research over the years and this has left it little room for growth and development. The other languages are not researched as much and hence they can scientifically grow and this growth facilitates changes in its grammar to adopt the modernity of the society. Lastly, Degraff’s main point also extends to explain the connection between Creoles and pidgin is that Creole originated from Pidgin and slightly improved their grammar but still made it remain simple (DeGraff, 2001).

One important point raised is the language age. The creole language which can be termed as the mother of languages as that is where language originated from has been in existence for centuries and hence it is considered as old language. The rest of the languages have recently been created and they keep on evolving as time goes by. They can therefore not be categorized the same as the Creole language. The more recent the language evolved, the younger it is. The other issue raised is about the evolution of languages from simple to more complicated ones.

The creole language was very simple in terms of grammar and writing but as it evolved, it became much more complicated as well as organized. This is an indication that evolution of language can be equated to evolution of organisms which as they evolve become much more organized and less simple to understand as well as write (DeGraff, 2001). The article was indeed an education lesson for me. I had very little prior knowledge of the creoles and more so their huge input in language. My understanding was based on the literature that their language has simple grammar and issue that still remained under debate from linguists but none offered elaborate explanations about them.

I am now in a better position having understood about the how the Creoles’ language simplicity and its maintenance of origin has made it a highly researched and subject of reference in as far as evolution of language is concerned. I am able to understand that the fact that their language has not undergone the scientific evolution that the rest of the world’s languages seem to have undergone is a reason for its maintenance of naturalness and this is a powerful tool in language research. The language evolution is a complicated piece of information that most researchers are unable to capture what with all the linguistic jargon involved.

Even though this is an almost similar issue with the author, he has tried to elaborately and in a less complicated language explain the evolution. The fact that he has compared it to scientific evolution is a big help. ReferencesDeGraff, M. (2001).On the origin of Creoles: A Cartesian critique of Neo-Darwinian linguistics. Linguistic Typology, 5(2/3), 213-310.