Morphological Innovations in Creole Languages: An Insight into Language Contact
Downloads
Background. Creole language is a language that developed through contact between very different languages. Morphological innovations in these languages reflect dynamic adaptations to social and linguistic contexts. This study aims to explore morphological innovations in creole languages and how language contact plays a role in the formation of the language's morphological system.
Purpose. The purpose of this study is to identify and analyze the types of morphological innovations in creole languages, as well as to examine the relationship between morphological changes and social and cognitive factors in the speaking community.
Method. This study uses a qualitative approach with analysis of creole language morphological data obtained from interviews, daily conversations, and existing literature. The data were analyzed using descriptive and comparative methods to identify morphological innovation patterns.
Results. The study found that reduplication was the most dominant morphological innovation in creole language, followed by new affixation and morphological borrowing. These innovations are largely influenced by social interaction and the influence of superstratum and substrate languages.
Conclusion. Morphological innovations in creole languages demonstrate the ability of language to adapt and evolve despite having simple roots. This research contributes to a further understanding of how creole language evolved and served as a communication tool in complex social contexts.
Aboh, E. (2019). Our creolized tongues. Language contact, continuity and change in the …, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://www.torrossa.com/gs/resourceProxy?an=5001119&publisher=FZ4850#page=298
Baptista, M. (2020). Competition, selection, and the role of congruence in Creole genesis and development. Language, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/24/article/751036/summary
Beyer, K. (2020). Contact among African Languages. The Handbook of Language Contact, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119485094.ch33
BRASILEIRO, A. & ... (t.t.). CONTACT-INDUCED MORPHOSYNTACTIC SIMPLIFICATION IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE: THE CASE OF RELATIVE CLAUSES. Estudos em …, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://pedroejoaoeditores.com.br/2022/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Sociolinguistica-de-Contato_final-1.pdf#page=91
Chamorro-Díaz, M., & Suárez-Gómez, C. (2019). Language contact in Colombia: A pilot study of" Criollo Sanandresano". 2019, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://dspace.uib.es/xmlui/handle/11201/165577
Clements, C. (2022). Paradigmatic restructuring: The case of Northern Indo-Portuguese Creoles. Social and structural aspects of language contact …, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/60566/1/external_content.pdf#page=163
Eberl, M. (2019). Innovation and grammaticalization in the emergence of Tok Pisin. Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/28223/1/Eberl_Martin.pdf
Fitzgerald, S. (2022). the interlanguage hypothesis as a model of pidgin/Creole genesis: Evidence from Cameroon Pidgin English. sussex.figshare.com. https://sussex.figshare.com/articles/thesis/the_interlanguage_hypothesis_as_a_model_of_pidgin_Creole_genesis_evidence_from_Cameroon_Pidgin_English/23488202
Gardani, F. (2022). Contact and borrowing. The Cambridge handbook of Romance linguistics, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Francesco-Gardani/publication/345160098_Gardani_Francesco_2022_Contact_and_borrowing_In_Adam_Ledgeway_Martin_Maiden_eds_The_Cambridge_handbook_of_Romance_linguistics_845-869_Cambridge_Cambridge_University_Press_DOI_1010179781108580410034/links/5f9fcc39a6fdccfd7b94a4ca/Gardani-Francesco-2022-Contact-and-borrowing-In-Adam-Ledgeway-Martin-Maiden-eds-The-Cambridge-handbook-of-Romance-linguistics-845-869-Cambridge-Cambridge-University-Press-DOI-101017-9781108580410.pdf
Hauck, J. (2022). Grammaticalization, Language Contact, and the Emergence of a Hortative in Guaraché, a New Mixed Language in Paraguay. Languages, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/3/173
Hudson, K. (2019). Blending in: Hybridity, identity and creolization. Contacts and contrasts in cultures and languages, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04981-2_9
Igartua, I. (2019). Loss of grammatical gender and language contact. Diachronica, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.17004.iga
Jon-And, A., & Aguilar, E. (2019). A model of contact-induced language change: Testing the role of second language speakers in the evolution of Mozambican Portuguese. Plos one, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0212303
Kerswill, P., & Wiese, H. (2022). Urban contact dialects and language change. api.taylorfrancis.com. https://api.taylorfrancis.com/content/books/mono/download?identifierName=doi&identifierValue=10.4324/9780429487958&type=googlepdf
Kihm, A. (t.t.). Another story of Z: Plural marking in spoken French, Fa d’Ambô and Réunion Creole. Language, creoles, varieties, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/90238/external_content.pdf?sequence=1#page=361
Knapik, A. (2019). Jamaican Creole Proverbs: From the Prospective of Contact Linguistics. books.google.com. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=I1sAEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=morphological+innovation+creole+language+language+contact&ots=GVgAwurOgM&sig=EHOXzWF-EwCURWnflCu_EWnTr7I
Kouwenberg, S., & Singler, J. (2020). Are creoles a special type of language? Advances in contact linguistics: In honour …, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://www.torrossa.com/gs/resourceProxy?an=5001651&publisher=FZ4850#page=118
Kriegel, S., Ludwig, R., & ... (2019). Reflections on discourse ecology and language contact: The crucial role of some scalar terms. Linguistic …, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51.
Lipski, J. (2021). Morphological and Syntactical Variation and Change in Latin American Spanish. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-486
López, L. (2021). Contact phenomena: The I-language of a bilingual. Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2018, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.357.07lop
Luís, A., & Michaelis, S. (t.t.). 58th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea. societaslinguistica.eu, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://societaslinguistica.eu/sle2025/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2024/12/Morphological-boundaries-in-Creole-languages_updated.pdf
McWhorter, J. (2020). Heritage Language, Creole Language: Incomplete Acquisition and Modern Language Contact Typology. Heritage Language Journal, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://brill.com/view/journals/hlj/17/2/article-p264_7.xml
Meakins, F., Hua, X., Algy, C., & Bromham, L. (2019). Birth of a contact language did not favor simplification. Language, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/24/article/727838/summary
Mompelat, L. (2023). To Infinitive and Beyond, or Revisiting Finiteness in Creoles: A Contrastive Study of the Complementation Systems of Martinican Creole and Haitian Creole. search.proquest.com. https://search.proquest.com/openview/dc85082a861620ae4b2e297a708e9feb/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
Mufwene, S. (2020). Creoles and pidgins: Why the latter are not the ancestors of the former. The Routledge handbook of language contact, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351109154-20
O’Shannessy, C., & Davidson, L. (2020). Language contact and change through child first language acquisition. … Handbook of Language Contact, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119485094.ch3
Radatz, H. (t.t.). Contact-induced change in Romance. researchgate.net, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hans-Ingo-Radatz/publication/383660766_Contact-induced_change_in_Romance/links/66d5c8fe2390e50b2c26b53d/Contact-induced-change-in-Romance.pdf
Rivera, Y., & Armstrong, C. (t.t.). INNOVATIONS IN THE PHONOLOGY OF HAITIAN CREOLE AND ST. LUCIAN CREOLE: A PILOT STUDY. MOVING FORWARD WITH MERVYN ALLEYNE, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://www.academia.edu/download/94570286/Moving_Forward_with_Mervyn_Alleyne_Sargasso_2019_2020.pdf#page=62
Rodríguez-Riccelli, A. (2024). An overview of recent research on the sociolinguistic role of Luso-Africans, ladino Africans, and criollos of African descent in the early colonial Spanish Americas. Spanish in Africa/Africa in Spanish: Current …, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111340678-002
Salaberri, I., & Wolfsgruber, A. (2023). A Typological and Diachronic Analysis of Replication: Body-Part Reflexives in Romance-Lexifier Pidgins and Creoles. Journal of Language Contact, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://brill.com/view/journals/jlc/15/3-4/article-p512_003.xml
Silva, C., & Moran, S. (2025). Consonant stability in Portuguese-based creoles. Diachronica, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.23006.sil
Stewart, J., & Meakins, F. (2021). Advances in mixed language phonology: An overview of three case studies. … languages: From core to fringe. language …, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501511257-003
Sugimoto, Y., & Baptista, M. (2022a). A late-insertion-based exoskeletal approach to the hybrid nature of functional features in creole languages. Languages, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/2/92
Sugimoto, Y., & Baptista, M. (2022b). A Late-Insertion-Based Exoskeletal Approach to the Hybrid Nature of Functional Features in Creole Languages. Languages 7: 92. Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://www.academia.edu/download/87104967/pdf.pdf
Truppi, C. (2024). Linguistic reconstruction and creole emergence: The case of Upper Guinea creoles. Speakers and Structures in Language Contact …, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111188348-005
Yakpo, K. (2023). Two types of language contact involving English Creoles: Why Krio (Sierra Leone) has evolved more towards English than its relative Pichi (Equatorial Guinea) …. English Today, Query date: 2025-02-18 10:15:51. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/english-today/article/two-types-of-language-contact-involving-english-creoles/DD2FC19B55E041440F3BFC5235234968
Copyright (c) 2025 Yulian Purnama, Zainab Al-Mousaw

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.