Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 5 (1976), pp. 169-193.Since pidgin and creole languages have not previously been surveyed in this review series (nor, save as a sub-subdepartment of linguistics, in its biennial predecessor), it may be appropriate to begin by very briefly summarizing the history and development of the field before proceeding to discuss the work that is currently taking place therein.
Until relatively recently, pidgin and creole languages were regarded, even by most linguists, as constituting objects hardly worthy of attention from serious students of language. Despite the fact that attempts to describe such languages date back at least to the second half of the eighteenth century (90), and that a few nineteenth-century linguists, in particular Schuchardt (115), had observed their possible relevance to any general theory of linguistic change, the popular view that they constituted merely "corrupted" versions of European languages was widely accepted. As a result, development of the field was delayed, and when it came was very uneven. According to a survey by Hancock in the Hymes collection (72), there exist at present over 200 pidgin and creole languages (59), but of these, only about six could be said to have acquired an extensive literature (Haitian Creole, Sranan, Papiamentu, Jamaican Creole, Hawaiian Pidgin-Creole, and Neo-Melanesian or Tokpisin), while many are known only through anecdotal reference and have never been described at all. Similarly, there has never been complete agreement even on the precise boundaries of the field. Although the definitions of Hall (57)—that a pidgin is a language with "sharply reduced" grammatical structure and vocabulary, native to none of its users, while a creole is a pidgin that has acquired native speakers—would probably still be accepted by a majority of linguists, we will find that more recently some linguists have tried to narrow the first definition and others to broaden the second, while still others, adopting what has been called the "domestic" theory of creole origins, have attempted to short-circuit Hall's cycle.
