Editing Creole language (section)

==Recent studies==
The last decades have seen the emergence of some new questions about the nature of creoles: in particular, the question of how complex creoles are and the question of whether creoles are indeed "exceptional" languages.

===Creole prototype===
Some features that distinguish creole languages from noncreoles have been proposed (by Bickerton,<ref>See {{Harvcoltxt|Bickerton|1983}}</ref> for example).

[[John McWhorter]]<ref>See {{Harvcoltxt|McWhorter|1998}}, {{Harvcoltxt|McWhorter|2005}}, {{Harvcoltxt|McWhorter|2018}}</ref> has proposed the following list of features as defining the '''creole prototype''', that is, any language born recently of a pidgin:
* a lack of contextual inflection, that is, a lack of inflection that marks only agreement in case or gender (as opposed to inherent inflection that marks tense, mood or number);
* a lack of functional tone marking, that is, a lack of tone that serves to distinguish lexical items (e.g. Mandarin Chinese {{Transliteration|cmn|pinyin|mā}} {{gloss|mother}} vs. {{Transliteration|cmn|pinyin|mǎ}} {{gloss|horse}}) or to encode grammatical features; and
* a lack of semantically opaque word formation, that is, a lack of words like "understand" or "make up", the meaning of which is not analyzable in terms of the meanings of their components.

McWhorter argues that the absence of these three features is predictable in languages that were born recently of a pidgin, since learning them would constitute a distinct challenge to the non-native speaker. Over the course of generations, however, such features would be expected to gradually (re-)appear, and therefore "many creoles would harbor departures from the Prototype identifiable as having happened after the creole was born" (McWhorter 2018). As one example, McWhorter (2013) notes that the creole [[Sranan Tongo|Sranan]], which has existed for centuries in a [[diglossia|diglossic]] relationship with Dutch, has borrowed some Dutch verbs containing the {{lang|nl|ver-}} prefix ({{lang|srn|fer-}} in Sranan) and whose meaning is not analyzable; for instance the pair {{lang|srn|morsu}} {{gloss|to soil}}, {{lang|srn|fermorsu}} {{gloss|to squander}}.

McWhorter claims that these three properties characterize any language that was born recently as a pidgin, and states "At this writing, in twenty years I have encountered not a single counterexample" (McWhorter 2018). Nevertheless, the existence of a creole prototype has been disputed by others:
* [[Henri Wittmann]] (1999) and David {{Harvcoltxt|Gil|2001}} argue that languages such as [[Manding languages|Manding]], [[Soninke language|Soninke]], [[Magoua dialect|Magoua French]] and [[Riau Indonesian]] have all these three features but show none of the sociohistoric traits of creole languages. McWhorter (2011, 2018) disagrees: for instance, he points out that Soninke has "a goodly amount" of inherent (i.e. non-contextual) inflection, that Magoua "retains ample marking of gender, person and number distinctions on verbs as well as conjugational classes" and therefore that these languages should not be considered creoles.
* Others (see overview in {{Harvcoltxt|Muysken|Law|2001}}) have claimed the existence of creoles that serve as counterexamples to McWhorter's hypothesis – the existence of [[inflectional morphology]] in [[Berbice Dutch Creole]], for example, or [[Tone (linguistics)|tone]] in [[Papiamentu]].<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Muysken|Law |2001}}</ref> Again, McWhorter (2018) disagrees. For instance, he points out that the use of tone in Papiamentu to distinguish participial verb forms from base ones appeared only after extensive contact with native Spanish speakers.

===Exceptionalism===
Building up on this discussion, McWhorter proposed that "the world's simplest grammars are Creole grammars", claiming that every noncreole language's grammar is at least as complex as any creole language's grammar.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|McWhorter|1998}}</ref><ref>{{Harvcoltxt|McWhorter|2005}}</ref> Gil has replied that [[Riau Indonesian]] has a simpler grammar than [[Saramaccan]], the language McWhorter uses as a showcase for his theory.<ref name="Gil 2001"/> The same objections were raised by Wittmann in his 1999 debate with McWhorter.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nou-la.org/ling/1999a-prototype.html|title=Prototype as a Typological Yardstick to Creoleness|website=www.nou-la.org}}</ref>

The lack of progress made in defining creoles in terms of their morphology and syntax has led scholars such as [[Robert Chaudenson]], [[Salikoko Mufwene]], [[Michel DeGraff]], and [[Henri Wittmann]] to question the value of ''creole'' as a typological class; they argue that creoles are structurally no different from any other language, and that ''creole'' is a sociohistoric concept – not a linguistic one – encompassing displaced populations and slavery.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Mufwene|2000}}, Wittmann (2001)</ref>

{{Harvcoltxt|Thomason|Kaufman|1988}} spell out the idea of creole exceptionalism, claiming that creole languages are an instance of nongenetic language change due to language shift with abnormal transmission. Gradualists question the abnormal transmission of languages in a creole setting and argue that the processes which created today's creole languages are no different from universal patterns of language change.

Given these objections to ''creole'' as a concept, DeGraff and others question the idea that creoles are exceptional in any meaningful way.<ref name="DeGraff 2003" /><ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Ansaldo|Matthews|2007}}</ref> Additionally, {{Harvcoltxt|Mufwene|2002}} argues that some [[Romance language]]s are potential creoles but that they are not considered as such by linguists because of a historical bias against such a view.