Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages - Volume 2, Issue 1, 1987

The paper deals with a Basque Nautical Pidgin from which a number of sentences have been preserved in a seventeenth century Basque-Icelandic word list. These sentences are interesting for several reasons. First, Basque may throw an interesting light on the pidginization process because it is not an Indo-European language and has several unusual features. Second, although the sentences come from a Basque word list compiled by an Icelander, there are also some words from other languages, of which English is the most prominent. It is suggested that the knowledge of an English Nautical Pidgin played a role in the formation of this pidgin. Third, in the current debate on the origin of fu and similar markers as complementizers, many claims have been made. In this Basque Pidgin, twelve of the fifteen sentences contain the lexical item for in diverse functions. The use of for in the pidgin is compared with similar lexical items in four other pidgins. It is argued that there was some transmission of the use of for in these pidgins to the for in creoles.

This study analyzes the oral traditions of Sri Lanka Creole Portuguese as a syncretism of European, African, and Asian sources, evidenced in literary themes, linguistic practice, and cultural traditions. Resulting musical, dramatic, and textual practices play a central role in defining tradition and maintaining group identity in the creole communities. Both the co-existence and the interrelationship of oral texts establish traditions which contribute to a system of creole culture that spread throughout Asia. References are primarily to Sri Lankan and Indian materials collected by scholars in the late nineteenth century and during my field work in the 1970s and 1980s. Sri Lankan verses refer to the east coast Burghers of Bat-ticaloa and Trincomalee and to the Kaffirs of Puttalam. This study also presents for the first time a unique source for data and comparative analysis from the H. Nevill collection at the British Library, which is an extensive manuscript of Sri Lankan Creole texts from the 1870s or 1880s written in Dutch orthography and including material subsequently published by Schuchardt, Dalgado, and others. The theoretical focus concerns the translation of European, African, and Asian materials into a Eurasian discourse that displaces the originals, creating a new textual system of Portuguese Creole oral materials in Asia. The texts that give definition to creole culture have proved remarkably persistent, surviving in Sri Lanka from the seventeenth century to the present.