The English term Creole comes from French Créole. The specific sense of the term was coined in the 16th and 17th century, during the great expansion in European maritime power and trade that led to the establishment of European colonies in other continents. The terms criollo and crioulo were originally qualifiers used throughout the Spanish and Portuguese colonies to distinguish the members of an ethnic group that were born and raised locally from those who immigrated as adults. However in Brazil, the term was also used to distinguish between blacks born in Brazil from African slave ancestors and those born in Africa. Over time, the term and its derivatives (Creole, Kreyol, Kriol, Krio, etc.) lost the generic meaning and became the proper name of many distinct ethnic groups that developed locally from immigrant communities. As a consequence of colonial European trade patterns, most of the known European-based Creole languages arose in the equatorial belt around the world and in areas with access to the oceans, including the coastal regions of the Americas, West Africa, Goa, the west coast of India, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Macau, Philippines, Malaysia and Oceania.
"…. criollo and crioulo were originally qualifiers used throughout the Spanish and Portuguese colonies to distinguish the members of an ethnic group that were born and raised locally from those who immigrated as adults...."
Pidgin Around the Globe
CHINLISH: Chinese Pidgin English originated as a lingua franca for trade between the British and mostly Cantonese-speaking Chinese people. It originated as a Chinese mispronunciation of the English word "business". Following the first and second war from1839 to 1842, Pidgin English spread north to Shanghai and other treaty ports. Pidgin usage began to decline in the late 19th century when Chinese and missionary schools began teaching standard English. In 1982, the China made English the main foreign language in education. Chinglish may have influenced some English expressions; for instance, lose face derives from diulian - be humiliated. Some sources claim long time no see is a Chinglish term from hǎojiǔbújiàn- long times no see. More references note this jocular phrase used as a greeting after prolonged separation was first recorded in 1900 for a Native American's speech, and thus more likely derives from American Indian Pidgin English. Chinese officials carried out campaigns to reduce Chinglish in preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and the Expo 2010 in Shanghai.
HAWAII: Hawaii Creole originated as a form of communication used between English speaking residents and non-English speaking immigrants in Hawaii. It supplanted the pidgin Hawaiians used on the plantations and elsewhere in Hawaii. Many languages including Portuguese, Hawaiian and Cantonese have been influenced by it. As people of other cultural backgrounds such as the Japanese, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Filipinos and Koreans settled in Hawaii, Pidgin acquired words from their languages. Even today, Pidgin retains some influences from these languages. For example, the word stay in Pidgin has a form and use similar to the Portuguese or Spanish verb estar, which means to be but is used when referring to a temporary state or location. In the 19th and 20th centuries, Pidgin was used outside the plantation between ethnic groups. Children in public schools learned Pidgin from classmates, and eventually it became the primary language of most people in Hawaii, replacing the original languages. For this reason, linguists generally consider Hawaiian Pidgin to be a Creole language.
MAROON SPIRIT LANGUAGE: The Jamaican Maroons who live in the mountainous interior of Jamaica have preserved a ritual language which according to linguists, resembles the West African Pidgin English that was spoken along the coast of West Africa centuries ago during the era of the Atlantic Slave Trade. The Maroons' ancestors were runaway slaves who created free settlements in the interior of Jamaica and managed to hold on to their freedom for generations. Today, the Maroons speak Jamaican Creole in their daily lives, but they have also retained a ritual language they call Deep Patois used during their Kromanti Play- a ceremony in which the
participants are said to be possessed by their ancestors and thus speak as their ancestors did centuries ago. Linguists call this deep patois Maroon Spirit Language and point to many phonological and grammatical features in MSL that are not found in modern Jamaican Creole; but are found in related Creole languages, such as Sierra Leone Krio in West Africa and Sranan Tongo in Suriname, South America. MSL has a number of English-derived words like waka (walk), dede (dead), and aksi (ask).
"…Africans who picked up elements of Pidgin English for purposes of trade with Europeans along the coast probably took the language into the interior where other Africans who may never have seen a white man adopted it as a useful device for trade along the rivers…"
WEST AFRICAN PIDGIN also known as Guinea Coast Creole English is an English based pidgin and a Creole language spoken as a lingua franca across Nigeria and beyond. Commonly referred to as Brokin, it is often not considered a Creole language since most speakers are not native speakers, although many children do learn it early. It is said that Nigerian Pidgin is a language of approximately 3 to 5 million people and is a second language to at least another 75 million. Variations of Pidgin are also spoken across West Africa in countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Cameroon. Pidgin English despite its common use throughout the countries has no official status. West African Pidgin English arose during the period when the British dominated the Atlantic slave trade in the late 17th and 18th centuries, ultimately exporting more slaves to the Americas than all the other European nations combined. During this period, English-speaking sailors and slave traders were in constant contact with African villagers and long-distance traders along thousands of miles of West African coastline. Africans who picked up elements of Pidgin English for purposes of trade with Europeans along the coast probably took the language from the river systems and trade routes into the interior where other Africans who may never have seen a white man adopted it as a useful device for trade along the rivers.
The African Pidgin in the various countries of West Africa share similarities to the various dialects of English found in the Caribbean. Some of the returning descendants of slaves returned to the New World of West Africa with many words and phrases from the Jamaican Creole (also known as Jamaican Patois or Patois) and the other Creole languages of the West Indies, which are components of Nigerian Pidgin. The pronunciation and accents often differ a great deal, mainly due to the extremely diverse mix of African languages present in the West Indies. However, if spoken slowly, the Creole languages of West Africa are for the most part mutually intelligible with the Creole languages of the Caribbean. The presence of repetitious phrases in Jamaican Creole such as su-su (gossip) and pyaa-pyaa (sickly) mirror the presence of such phrases as koro-koro (clear vision), yama-yama (disgusting), and doti-doti (garbage) in the West Africa versions. Furthermore, the use of the words of West African origin in Jamaican Patois display some interesting similarities between the English pidgins and Creoles of West Africa and the English pidgins and Creoles of the West Indies. For example, unu or wuna (you people) in Jamaican Patois is a word that comes from the Igbo word unu also meaning you people. Being derived partly from the present day Edo-Delta area of Nigeria, there are still some leftover words from the Portuguese and Spanish languages in Pidgin English since the Portuguese and Spanish trade ships traded slaves from the Bight of Benin. For example, you sabi do am? means do you know how to do it? Sabi means to know as Saber in Portuguese and Spanish means to know or to know how to.