The black slaves who were arriving in Jamestown, Va. In 1619. Manhattan Island in 1635 and Massachusetts in 1638 have used the Afro- European varieties for communication among themselves. In 1692, justice Hathorne recorded Tituba, an African slave from the island of Barbados in the British West Indies, speaking in the pidgin of the slaves. Tituba was quoted as saying “He tell me he God,” The words of the phrase are English, but the structure and grammar of the phrase are congruous with that pf the West African languages that Smitherman identifies. (32, 8)
During the early years of American settlement, a highly distinctive form of English was emerging in the island of the West Indies and the Southern part of the mainland, spoken by the incoming black population. The emergence of slave trade was a consequence of the important of African slaves to work on the sugar plantations, a practice started by the Spanish in 1517.
First the industrial revolution then the Civil War disrupted slavery and promoted African-American migration within the U.S., s a result of which slave dialects were transplanted from Southern plantation to the factories of the North and Midwest. Slave labor in the south gave birth to diverse linguistic norms; former indentured servants from all parts of the British Isles, who often became overseers on plantations, variously influenced the foundation of Black English. There was a widespread exodus to the industrial cities of the northern states, and black culture became known throughout the country for its music and dance. (15, 36). Black English was born of slavery between the late XVI c.- early XVII c. and middle XIX c. and followed black migration from the southern states to racially isolated ghettos throughout the United States.
Slave labor in the south gave birth to diverse linguistic norms; former indentured servants from all parts of the British Isles, who often became overseers on plantations, variously influenced the foundation of B.E.V. first the industrial revolution the Civil War disrupted slavery and promoted African American migration within the United States, as a result of which slave dialects were transplanted from Southern plantation to the factories of the North and Midwest. An artifact not of race but of a speech community, Black English originated as a pidgin (a simplified language used in a commercial context to facilitate communication among speakers of different languages) that the slaves coming from a variety of language backgrounds used to communicate among themselves.
In the XVIII century, more records of the speech of slaves and the representations of their speech were produced. In fact, J.L. Dillard claims that “By 1715 there clearly was an African Pidgin English known on a worldwide scale. In 1744, an ad in The New York Evening Post read: “Ran away … a new African Fellow named Prince, he can't scarce speak a Word of English.” In 1760, an ad in the North Carolina Gazette read: “Ran away from the Subscriber, African Born, speaks bad English. In 1734, the Philadelphia American Weekly Mercury read: “Ran away …; he's Pennsylvanian born and speaks good English.” (33, 16)
Quotations from Black English speakers became abundant in the records of Northern states by about 1750, nearly half a century before the earliest records in the Southern colonies were found in Charleston, S.C. (10, 1)
Black characters made their way into show business in 1777 with the comical Trial of Atticus before Justice Beau, for Rape. In this farcical production, "one of our neighbor's," says "Yes, Maser, he tell me that Atticus he went to bus 'em one day, and a shilde cry, and so he let 'em alon". Much like Tituba's statement, the statements above use English vocabulary, yet the structure and grammar of the statements well in keeping with that of the West African Languages.
Other informative evidence in tracing the development of Black English lies in newspaper ads reporting runaway slaves. In locating and identifying a runaway slave, the slaves' speech played an instrumental role. It is important to remember that the slave trade was not outlawed until 1808, and even then it was not strictly adhered to. Smitherman reports that "As late as 1858, over 400 slaves were brought direct from Africa to Georgia". Consequently, there was a constant influx of Africans who spoke no English at all. This produced a community of people with a broad array of mastery of Black English and even Standard English. (32, 84)
This is made clear when we see the newspaper ads that reported runaway slaves. This stratification of language is vital in the development and the development of the perception of Black English, if it is remembered that not all Blacks were slaves in Early America. Successful runaways were likely to be those who attained a relative mastery of Standard English. The mastery of Standard English would prove invaluable to a slave who had to travel a long distance across American soil to win his freedom. Further more, early Black writers, such as Frederick Douglass, wrote in the Standard English of his time. A mastery of Standard English was also beneficial in passing as a free Black. In a very real and disturbing way, Black English became the language of slavery and servitude. (35, 212)
During the Civil war period, abolitionists made the speech of slaves know to all serious readers of that era. Writers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Thomas Halliburton produced many works that indicated their knowledge of the existence of Black English. While the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves were significant historical events, their impact was mitigated severely by the Jim Crow era. Although everyone labeled "Negro" by the Jim Crow laws did not speak Black English, it is safe to assume that those Blacks who did speak Black English far outnumbered those who spoke Standard English.
2. Development of Pidgin and Creole.
In this part we introduce pidgin languages and their characteristics. A pidgin is a system of communication which has grown up among people who do not share a common language, but who want to talk to it other, for treading or other reasons. The characteristic of a pidgin is that it is no one's native language: it is a second language for all its speakers. This is true of a pidgin whether it is still in the process of formation or it has been around in a stable form for hundreds of years as West African Pidgin English has. However, it is possible for a pidgin to become a native language for some or all of its speakers.
Pidgins have been variously called `makeshift', `marginal', or `mixed' language. They have a limited vocabulary, a reduced grammatical structure, and a much narrower range of functions, compared to the language which gave rise to them. They are the native language of no-one, but they are nonetheless a main means of communication for millions of people, and a major focus of interest those who study the way languages change.
In many parts of the world pidgin languages are used routinely in such daily matters as news broadcasts, safety instructions, newspapers, and commercial advertising. And the more developed pidgin languages have been used for translations of Shakespeare and the bible. Pidgin grew up along the trade routes of the world- especially in those parts where the British, French and Dutch built up their empires. (8, 36)
Pidgin English's are mainly to be found in to big families- one in the Atlantic, one in the Pacific. The Atlantic varieties developed in West Africa, and were transported to the West Indies and America during the years of the slave trade. In Africa they are still widely used in the Gambia, Sierra Lione, Liberia, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, and Cameroon. The Pacific varieties are found in wide sweep across the south- western part of the ocean, from the coast of chine to the northern part of Australia, in such part as Hawaii, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea. In the Americas, they are found, in a developed form, in most of its islands and on the mainland, spoken largely by the black populations. Estimates very, but probably about sixty million people speak or understand one or other of these forms of English.
Pidgins often have a very little life span. While the Americans were in Vietnam, a Pidgin English grew up there, but it quickly disappeared when the troops left. In similar way, many pidgins which grew up for trading purposes have ceased to exist, because the countries which were in contact stopped trading with each other. On the other hand, if a trading contact is very likely learn each other's language, and there will then be no reason for the continued use of the pidgin.
A very significant development then took place. People began to use the pidgin at home. As children were born into these families, the pidgin language became their mother tongue. When this happened, the status of the language fundamentally altered, and it came to be used in a more flexible and creative way.
The term Creole comes from Portuguese cariole, and originally meant a person of European descent who had been born and brought up in a colonial territory. Later it came to be applied to other people who were native of these areas and then to the rind of language they spoke. Creoles are now classified as English based, French based, and so on- though the genetic relation ships of a Creole to its dominant linguistic sector is never straightforward, as the Creole may display the influences of several contact languages in its sounds, vocabulary and stubby. (17, 22)
A Creole is a pidgin language which has become the mother tongue of a community- a definition which emphasizes that pidgins and Creole are two stages in a single process linguistics development. First, within a community, increasing numbers of people begin to use pidgin as their principle means of communication. As a consequence their children hear it more than any other language, and gradually it takes on the status of a mother tongue for them. Within a generation or two, native language use becomes consolidated and widespread. The result is a Creole, or “creolized” language.
Despite the existence of many political and cultural differences, and then considerable geographical distances separating some of the countries involved there are striking similarities among the English based Creole languages of the world. This identity can bee seen at all levels of language structure, but is most dramatic relation to grammar. It can be explained, according to the Creole hypothesis, as a consequence of the way this languages have developed out of the kind of Creole English used by the first black slaves in America and the Caribbean. (17, 36)
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