1
00:00:05,705 --> 00:00:10,143
So is there any way to prove
that pidgins never existed,

2
00:00:10,143 --> 00:00:13,646
or can they only not
be proven to exist?

3
00:00:13,646 --> 00:00:15,248
So actually, I
think this question

4
00:00:15,248 --> 00:00:18,585
hinges on the way you def-- on
what you mean by pidgins, what

5
00:00:18,585 --> 00:00:20,420
is meant by pidgins, right?

6
00:00:20,420 --> 00:00:22,789
So at least wanted
define pidgins,

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00:00:22,789 --> 00:00:26,359
which is to say that there are
these systems of communication

8
00:00:26,359 --> 00:00:29,562
which are created when people
come from different language

9
00:00:29,562 --> 00:00:31,231
background and they
have to communicate,

10
00:00:31,231 --> 00:00:32,465
they have speak to each other.

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00:00:32,465 --> 00:00:35,835
So like in Africa, in Asia--

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00:00:35,835 --> 00:00:40,006
in fact, this term pidgin
arose in the coast of China,

13
00:00:40,006 --> 00:00:43,076
and it referred to
this business language

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00:00:43,076 --> 00:00:47,047
that people used to cross
linguistic barriers.

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00:00:47,047 --> 00:00:49,115
So from that
perspective, pidgins

16
00:00:49,115 --> 00:00:52,519
do exist, right, if you
take it as that definition.

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00:00:52,519 --> 00:00:55,722
Pidgins have been documented
over and over again.

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00:00:55,722 --> 00:00:59,759
They are non-native languages,
and typically, they indeed

19
00:00:59,759 --> 00:01:02,128
reduce in structure.

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00:01:02,128 --> 00:01:06,132
But as people use
them more and more,

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00:01:06,132 --> 00:01:07,967
they can develop structure.

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00:01:07,967 --> 00:01:08,835
So-- go ahead.

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00:01:08,835 --> 00:01:09,335
OK.

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00:01:09,335 --> 00:01:11,337
AUDIENCE: I guess my
question be more like, if--

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00:01:11,337 --> 00:01:13,873
you were saying that there was
no pidgin of Haitian Creole?

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00:01:13,873 --> 00:01:14,808
MICHEL DEGRAFF: Mm-hmm.

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00:01:14,808 --> 00:01:17,410
AUDIENCE: Like, uh-huh, like--

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00:01:17,410 --> 00:01:18,777
MICHEL DEGRAFF:
Right, so this is

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00:01:18,777 --> 00:01:21,448
where we need to be clear
about how we define pidgins,

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00:01:21,448 --> 00:01:24,951
because we looked at the
way Bickerton defined it.

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00:01:24,951 --> 00:01:27,220
So the claim was
a very strong one,

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00:01:27,220 --> 00:01:29,521
that in the history
of the Creole,

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00:01:29,521 --> 00:01:34,294
you have this earlier
speech system that's

34
00:01:34,294 --> 00:01:36,563
extremely rich using
structure, and he

35
00:01:36,563 --> 00:01:38,898
was very precise in
terms of what's missing.

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00:01:38,898 --> 00:01:42,068
And what's missing is affixes--

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00:01:42,068 --> 00:01:47,006
so no bits of words that can
be used to create larger words.

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00:01:47,006 --> 00:01:52,479
So we don't have things like
"-er" in English "singer."

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00:01:52,479 --> 00:01:54,214
So that's a very
extremely precise claims

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00:01:54,214 --> 00:01:56,683
that, according to
which pidgins are

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00:01:56,683 --> 00:02:02,021
supposed to be at the bottom
level of language complexity.

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00:02:02,021 --> 00:02:05,024
They are really simplest
system impossible-- in fact,

43
00:02:05,024 --> 00:02:07,293
even un-language-like.

44
00:02:07,293 --> 00:02:11,531
They might remind us, say, of
the language of homo erectus.

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00:02:11,531 --> 00:02:14,834
So that claim is a strong
one that we're looking at.

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00:02:14,834 --> 00:02:16,903
So in the history
of Haitian Creole,

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00:02:16,903 --> 00:02:19,806
according to the
evidence that we have,

48
00:02:19,806 --> 00:02:23,243
we don't see anything of
that sort that's documented.

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00:02:23,243 --> 00:02:25,845
So the earliest
archival data source

50
00:02:25,845 --> 00:02:30,116
that we have the
full-fledged language

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00:02:30,116 --> 00:02:32,685
with all the bells and
whistles, including

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00:02:32,685 --> 00:02:38,758
affixes, embedding, very complex
language from the very earliest

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00:02:38,758 --> 00:02:40,827
stages.

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00:02:40,827 --> 00:02:42,629
You see?

55
00:02:42,629 --> 00:02:45,598
But you seem to have
some doubts about--

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00:02:45,598 --> 00:02:47,133
AUDIENCE: Yeah, because--

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00:02:47,133 --> 00:02:51,671
I didn't write this question,
but I was still having--

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00:02:51,671 --> 00:02:53,873
like we can't know if there
was no recording of there

59
00:02:53,873 --> 00:02:57,510
being a pidgin, but maybe
there was no recoding because--

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00:02:57,510 --> 00:02:59,946
like, if there is a recording,
we're like, OK, oh, then

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00:02:59,946 --> 00:03:00,780
a pidgin did exist.

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00:03:00,780 --> 00:03:02,382
But just because
there's no recording,

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00:03:02,382 --> 00:03:04,951
can we not say that, oh,
maybe there was a spoken one?

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00:03:04,951 --> 00:03:06,953
MICHEL DEGRAFF: Right,
but it was never--

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00:03:06,953 --> 00:03:12,492
yeah, I can see what
you're trying to drive at.

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00:03:12,492 --> 00:03:14,961
AUDIENCE: Or if
somebody were to ask--

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00:03:14,961 --> 00:03:17,564
also, what was in between--
between the current Creole

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00:03:17,564 --> 00:03:19,465
and the different languages.

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00:03:19,465 --> 00:03:23,970
If somebody-- how would I--
if somebody were to debate,

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00:03:23,970 --> 00:03:26,639
it's like, oh, Creole's are--
then how should I respond?

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00:03:26,639 --> 00:03:27,340
MICHEL DEGRAFF: Well,
you could say that--

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00:03:27,340 --> 00:03:29,008
OK, so actually, Bickerton
has used something

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00:03:29,008 --> 00:03:30,143
of that kind of argument.

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00:03:30,143 --> 00:03:32,645
Well, the way he put it,
he put it very succinctly.

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00:03:32,645 --> 00:03:35,982
He says that "the
absence of evidence

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00:03:35,982 --> 00:03:37,884
is not evidence of
absence," right,

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00:03:37,884 --> 00:03:40,420
which is exactly what
you're trying to claim here.

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00:03:40,420 --> 00:03:42,789
The fellows would not have
that clear kind of data

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00:03:42,789 --> 00:03:44,691
is that evidence that
this doesn't exists.

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00:03:44,691 --> 00:03:47,860
It might have existed, but
nobody recorded it, OK?

81
00:03:47,860 --> 00:03:50,730
But in this scenario,
right, the claim

82
00:03:50,730 --> 00:03:52,232
is stronger that--
you see something

83
00:03:52,232 --> 00:03:55,101
like if it could have existed
and nobody could pay attention,

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00:03:55,101 --> 00:03:58,004
because it could have existed
and be part of a community

85
00:03:58,004 --> 00:04:01,641
to the point, where children
being born in the community

86
00:04:01,641 --> 00:04:06,112
would have used that evidence
to create the creole.

87
00:04:06,112 --> 00:04:09,949
Remember that this
is what you get.

88
00:04:09,949 --> 00:04:11,017
At some point-- let's see.

89
00:04:11,017 --> 00:04:15,521
Let's call it
generation, I don't

90
00:04:15,521 --> 00:04:17,589
know-- let's call it zero.

91
00:04:17,589 --> 00:04:22,195
And for that generation,
all the hearing is--

92
00:04:22,195 --> 00:04:25,031
I think I'm going to have
to use a stronger marker,

93
00:04:25,031 --> 00:04:28,067
so Rachel could you help me?

94
00:04:28,067 --> 00:04:29,402
Maybe this one, it might work.

95
00:04:29,402 --> 00:04:31,304
Let's see.

96
00:04:31,304 --> 00:04:32,272
This is from here.

97
00:04:37,810 --> 00:04:40,313
Oh, yeah. That's better.

98
00:04:40,313 --> 00:04:43,182
OK, so there would
have been enough

99
00:04:43,182 --> 00:04:48,554
of this kind of data for these
children then to use that

100
00:04:48,554 --> 00:04:52,025
and then, from that,
create the creole.

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00:04:52,025 --> 00:04:54,460
So it's not as if that
this would have been a very

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00:04:54,460 --> 00:05:00,633
fleeting type of language, so
given that they were observers

103
00:05:00,633 --> 00:05:02,902
of the speech patterns
of that period,

104
00:05:02,902 --> 00:05:07,407
people wrote about the patterns
of the Africans, you see.

105
00:05:07,407 --> 00:05:13,112
It would have been surprising if
it was indeed a communal lingua

106
00:05:13,112 --> 00:05:16,015
franca of sorts, and nobody
noticed that, whoa, there

107
00:05:16,015 --> 00:05:20,019
was a system where all the
French suffixes were gone.

108
00:05:20,019 --> 00:05:23,389
What one could
imagine along the line

109
00:05:23,389 --> 00:05:26,326
was that there might have
been some Africans who

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00:05:26,326 --> 00:05:29,696
will be producing something
that could be Pidgin-like,

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00:05:29,696 --> 00:05:32,332
which would be like a second
language version of French--

112
00:05:32,332 --> 00:05:33,633
which is what we expect, right?

113
00:05:33,633 --> 00:05:36,569
Because if you're
learning Italian,

114
00:05:36,569 --> 00:05:39,038
you might go to a stage where
you produce Italian verbs

115
00:05:39,038 --> 00:05:41,441
without affixes, right?

116
00:05:41,441 --> 00:05:44,077
And from that perspective, yes,
one could imagine that there

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00:05:44,077 --> 00:05:49,449
would be some speakers
producing Pidgin-like data,

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00:05:49,449 --> 00:05:52,819
but could there be a whole
community that would be using

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00:05:52,819 --> 00:05:53,353
that Pidgin--

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00:05:53,353 --> 00:05:56,723
including, say, people in
their own homes to the point

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00:05:56,723 --> 00:05:58,858
where the children
would be only getting--

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00:05:58,858 --> 00:06:01,160
because remember
that for Bickerton,

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00:06:01,160 --> 00:06:06,132
the crucial fifth piece is
that you have children here,

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00:06:06,132 --> 00:06:08,501
and the children are
transforming this Pidgin

125
00:06:08,501 --> 00:06:09,602
into a Creole.

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00:06:09,602 --> 00:06:12,438
And then you get, at
a later generation,

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00:06:12,438 --> 00:06:17,143
it's called this, I
don't know, plus one.

128
00:06:17,143 --> 00:06:22,281
Then you get the Creole
becoming a stable language

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00:06:22,281 --> 00:06:23,883
from the Pidgin.

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00:06:23,883 --> 00:06:26,552
AUDIENCE: And too, like,
[INAUDIBLE] like tunneling

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00:06:26,552 --> 00:06:28,421
the people [INAUDIBLE]?

132
00:06:28,421 --> 00:06:30,022
Would it be done,
like, that people

133
00:06:30,022 --> 00:06:32,492
were keeping their languages
while this was being developed

134
00:06:32,492 --> 00:06:33,826
at the same time?

135
00:06:33,826 --> 00:06:38,598
Or that how it would be-- is
that how it happened with like,

136
00:06:38,598 --> 00:06:41,200
were people keeping
their African languages--

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00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:43,302
MICHEL DEGRAFF: Yeah, in
fact, there is reports.

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00:06:43,302 --> 00:06:44,871
So someone like
Toussaint L'Ouverture,

139
00:06:44,871 --> 00:06:47,340
for example, the
well-known Haitian leader,

140
00:06:47,340 --> 00:06:51,144
was claimed to also speak
African languages from, say,

141
00:06:51,144 --> 00:06:55,481
the Bay family, so this is
likely that one could imagine

142
00:06:55,481 --> 00:06:58,518
at some point there would be
many speakers in the community

143
00:06:58,518 --> 00:07:02,922
who would be bilingual
or trilingual,

144
00:07:02,922 --> 00:07:06,526
even speaking four
or five languages.

145
00:07:06,526 --> 00:07:08,394
But the question
here is whether there

146
00:07:08,394 --> 00:07:11,264
was anything like
what Bickerton posits,

147
00:07:11,264 --> 00:07:12,765
that was spoken
across the community

148
00:07:12,765 --> 00:07:15,668
to the point where the children
had no choice but to use

149
00:07:15,668 --> 00:07:19,338
only the speech and data to
create the native creole,

150
00:07:19,338 --> 00:07:20,573
and the evidence is not there.

151
00:07:20,573 --> 00:07:22,809
And also, structurally--
and this is what we see.

152
00:07:22,809 --> 00:07:25,311
So maybe we should come
back to that question

153
00:07:25,311 --> 00:07:26,913
when we look at the
data, because we're

154
00:07:26,913 --> 00:07:29,148
going to come back to
the data that we have

155
00:07:29,148 --> 00:07:31,517
and try to make
sense of this claim.

156
00:07:31,517 --> 00:07:33,886
AUDIENCE: If you think about
the situation with Spanish--

157
00:07:33,886 --> 00:07:36,155
or with Spanglish in
the US, it's very--

158
00:07:36,155 --> 00:07:39,959
I mean, I would say that
there's several generations that

159
00:07:39,959 --> 00:07:41,961
speak it.

160
00:07:41,961 --> 00:07:45,164
I also would say that it's
relatively unstable in the way

161
00:07:45,164 --> 00:07:47,967
that a Pidgin might
be, but I also

162
00:07:47,967 --> 00:07:49,602
wouldn't know what
the difference would

163
00:07:49,602 --> 00:07:53,873
be between an unstable Pidgin
and code switching in the sense

164
00:07:53,873 --> 00:07:58,444
that, like, if you think about
more of a modern day example,

165
00:07:58,444 --> 00:08:02,148
I would say that Spanglish
is the best candidate,

166
00:08:02,148 --> 00:08:04,150
but that also is my concern.

167
00:08:04,150 --> 00:08:05,318
MICHEL DEGRAFF: But again--
so that's a good point

168
00:08:05,318 --> 00:08:06,519
that you're bringing up here.

169
00:08:06,519 --> 00:08:08,221
So the idea is that
would Spanglish be

170
00:08:08,221 --> 00:08:10,890
anything like a Pidgin, right?

171
00:08:10,890 --> 00:08:14,327
And first of all, I would
say that the conditions that

172
00:08:14,327 --> 00:08:17,296
surrounds Spanglish are very
different from those that

173
00:08:17,296 --> 00:08:20,733
surrounded, say, the
creation of Haitian creole,

174
00:08:20,733 --> 00:08:24,103
so in terms of just a mix, you
see-- so in Haitian creole,

175
00:08:24,103 --> 00:08:27,673
where we have lots of African
languages being spoken

176
00:08:27,673 --> 00:08:29,876
and plus many
varieties of French.

177
00:08:29,876 --> 00:08:31,077
There wasn't just one French.

178
00:08:31,077 --> 00:08:34,447
There were many languages
that were now called French,

179
00:08:34,447 --> 00:08:36,381
but in fact they were
quite different in terms

180
00:08:36,381 --> 00:08:38,451
of the structures-- what
the French themselves

181
00:08:38,451 --> 00:08:41,087
called the Patois, right.

182
00:08:41,087 --> 00:08:43,121
AUDIENCE: I thought when
we talked about Pidgins,

183
00:08:43,121 --> 00:08:46,659
we talked about Pidgins
as non-genetic languages,

184
00:08:46,659 --> 00:08:48,728
so then, if we're looking
at that definition,

185
00:08:48,728 --> 00:08:53,366
then technically the only
Pidgins would be the very, very

186
00:08:53,366 --> 00:08:54,700
first languages.

187
00:08:54,700 --> 00:08:57,436
So then you can't
have creole of Pidgin,

188
00:08:57,436 --> 00:09:00,306
because it is influenced
or derived from something?

189
00:09:00,306 --> 00:09:01,707
MICHEL DEGRAFF:
Well, that's what

190
00:09:01,707 --> 00:09:03,342
we're going to see exactly--

191
00:09:03,342 --> 00:09:08,314
that in a way, there's a
sense in which by using that--

192
00:09:08,314 --> 00:09:10,483
[INAUDIBLE] creoles
derive from Pidgin,

193
00:09:10,483 --> 00:09:14,253
you're already creating a
bias against the area that--

194
00:09:14,253 --> 00:09:16,789
the Africans, actually
they were learning

195
00:09:16,789 --> 00:09:18,925
French in the same way,
say, that the French people

196
00:09:18,925 --> 00:09:21,827
themselves in Europe, back
when France was being created,

197
00:09:21,827 --> 00:09:22,995
were learning Latin.

198
00:09:22,995 --> 00:09:25,331
And in fact, we're going to
look at some data like that.

199
00:09:25,331 --> 00:09:27,733
OK, so this is all
good, so you guys

200
00:09:27,733 --> 00:09:29,869
have been have been asking
all the right questions.