SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This study comprises an analysis of three creoles of Portuguese, English and French lexical inputs, i.e. Casamance Kriul, Gambian Krio and St. Lucian Patwa. Highlighted in this study are grammatical similarities shared between African languages and creoles having lexical inputs from three different European languages. These common African influences are described in each creole by means of chapters focussing upon the following viewpoints: 1. Historical, 2. Descriptive, 3. Sociolinguistic, 4. Lexical, 5. Literary (oral) and 6. African Grammatical The historical backgrounds, especially for Patwa, underline the trans-Atlantic dimensions of Creole social development, and, especially for Kriul and Krio, its inter-ethnic context. The descriptive and sociolinguistic chapters indicate the importance of social pressures upon the grammatical structure of creole languages and suggest a framework for the analysis of resultant sociolinguistic correlations. Within the latter, a distinction is drawn between 'relexifying* creoles such as Patwa, *decreolizing* creoles such as Krio, and creoles which remain relatively less affected by other languages due to their established prestige, as exemplified by Kriul. Within the lexical and literary chapters, new evidence of the perpetuation of African lexical items in creole oral literature, especially that of Patwa, is offered within an outline for a new in-depth analysis of literary form and content in African and creole oral literature. African grammatical features in creoles are analysed for both their particular local and their wider general influences upon creoles.