A new language in one generation

A. Creoles show that humans are genetically programmed to use real language. Most creoles were gradually expanded from pidgins by adults over time. But in some situations, children exposed to a pidgin turn it into a creole.

B. American businesses established plantations in Hawaii in the late 1800s, staffing them with Portuguese foremen and workers from China, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines. The first generation of workers spoke a pidgin English with little grammar, as in:

Gud, dis wan. Kaukau enikain dis wan. Pilipin ailaen no gud. No mo mani.

“It’s better here than in the Philippines—here you can get all kinds of food—but over there, there isn’t any money [to buy food with].”

People often used word order according to their native language. Because Japanese puts verbs last, Japanese pidgin speakers often put the verb last in the pidgin. Languages of the Philippines put their verb first; thus, for example, a speaker of Ilocano would often put the verb first in the pidgin:

Japanese speaker:

Mi kape bai. “He bought my coffee.”

Ilocano speaker:

Meri dis wan. “He got married.”

C. But the children born to these workers in Hawaii streamlined and expanded the pidgin into a creole English (now still called “pidgin”), with the same rules used by all speakers whatever the language they were using at home. For example, the creole has full machinery for placing actions in time:

dei bai                    they buy

dei bin bai              they bought

dei stay bai             they are buying

dei go bai               they will buy

dei bin stay bai       they were buying

dei go stei bai         they will be buying

D. This creole is now the casual language of Hawaii, spoken by people of various ancestries.