Linguistic Hybridization in the Emergence of Creoles

In this article I show how ubiquitous hybridity is in cultures. It is enabled by layers of population movements and contacts since the dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa around 50,000 years ago. I demonstrate how hybridization has proceeded in the emergence of creole language varieties and show...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCambridge journal of postcolonial literary inquiry Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 74 - 89
Main Author Mufwene, Salikoko S.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, USA Cambridge University Press 01.01.2023
Subjects
Forum
ecology
population structure
selection
feature recombination
language contact
competition
hybridization
hybridity
feature pool
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Summary:In this article I show how ubiquitous hybridity is in cultures. It is enabled by layers of population movements and contacts since the dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa around 50,000 years ago. I demonstrate how hybridization has proceeded in the emergence of creole language varieties and show that the same process has also driven, for instance, the emergence and differential evolution of English and the speciation of Vulgar Latin into the Romance languages. Differences in outcomes are determined by the specificities of the contact ecologies, including population structure, differences in the demographic proportions of the populations in contact and power relations between them, as well as patterns of population growth, among other factors. I argue that hybridity is not unique to languages. It is conspicuous in other domains of culture, including cuisine, music, clothing fashions, and technologies, for example. I submit a uniformitarian approach inspired by evolutionary biology to better understand how hybridization occurs.
ISSN:2052-2614
2052-2622
DOI:10.1017/pli.2022.32