Introduction

Why should there be a field of pidgin and Creole language studies? Since the languages are not all genetically related, nor spoken in the same area, they must be considered to have something else in common in order to be meaningfully studied as a group. In the field there is an implicit assumption that the Creole languages share some property that calls for an explanatory theory. What property this is depends on the theory concerned. Any of three properties are assumed to play a role (I will limit myself here to the Creole languages, since pidgins raise a series of issues of their own):

1. (i) creole languages are assumed to be more alike than other languages.

2. (ii) creole languages are assumed to be more simple than other languages.

3. (iii) creole languages are assumed to have more mixed grammars than other languages.

These assumptions play a role in the various theories of Creole origin in the field, theories which can be organized in terms of two dominant intellectual traditions: historicism and romanticism. The historicist tradition stresses the continuity of transmission of conventions and institutions, and the romanticist view stresses discontinuity and the intervention of (human) nature. Table 1 presents these theories, grouped as either romanticist or historicist, in relation to the three underlying assumptions of being alike, simple, and mixed. Before going on to discuss these properties in more detail, I will briefly sketch the nine theories listed in the table.