Pidgins and Creoles

Nigerian Pidgin in Lagos

Language contact, variation and change in an African urban setting

By Dagmar Deuber, 25 x 17 cms, xiv + 274 pages, 4 maps, 6 black and white photos, CD of selected recordings and texts. ISBN 1903292107, £25.

This is a detailed and innovative social and linguistic study of Nigerian Pidgin English as spoken in Nigeria’s largest urban area and former capital. A CD containing a vast amount of written and audio data is included in the price.

“This book is a must for all those interested in the varieties of English in Africa and beyond” Magnus Huber, Professor of English Linguistics, University of Giessen, Germany

Growing up with Tok Pisin

Contact, creolization, and change in Papua New Guinea's national language

by Geoff P Smith, 256 pages, 24 photos, 7 maps, many tables, extensive bibliography, index. ISBN 1 903292 06 9. £18 (= ca. 25 US dollars or 29 euros). published February 2002.

Growing up with Tok Pisin is by far the most comprehensive account yet published of what has become Papua New Guinea's most important language and how it is changing as more and more people adopt it as their first language. It draws on the author's experience of living and working in PNG for more than 20 years, and on recordings made of the speech of more than 500 young people living in widely dispersed parts of the country. This book is essential reading for everyone concerned with how Pidgins and Creoles develop, as well as for educators and language planners.

Out of Africa

African influences in Atlantic Creoles

by Mikael Parkvall, London: Battlebridge,viii + 188 pages, maps, author index, ISBN 1903292050, £15 (approximately US $22, EUR 25) Published 24 November 2000.

The extent of African influence in the Atlantic Creoles has long been a matter of controversy. While some people have tried to deny the existence of African influence, others have claimed that these Creoles are essentially African languages in which African words have been replaced by European words. Mikael Parkvall provides a systematic and critical review of virtually all the non-lexical features of these Creoles for which other authors have proposed an African origin. Furthermore, wherever he assesses the evidence to favour an African source for a particular feature, Parkvall attempts to pinpoint its place of origin in Africa, drawing on a wealth of historical and demographic, as well as linguistic, data.

Out of Africa is the most comprehensive survey of African features in Atlantic Creoles to date. With reference to more than 150 African languages and language families, and using data culled from more than 800 sources, this volume deals with potential Africanisms on all linguistic levels. It is an essential work of reference for everyone interested in the cultural heritage of African Americans and African Caribbeans, for students of language contact in general, and for Creole specialists of every persuasion.

Westminster Creolistics Series

Westminster Creolistics Series includes two kinds of books: collective works which derive from a series of small international "workshops" focussed on a single topic, and books intended to aid the teaching of university courses on contact languages. Volumes 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 belong to the first category; volumes 3, 5 and 7 to the second. The first workshop was held in 1994 and the most recent workshop took place in Giessen, Germany in April 2006.

The choice of each workshop topic is decided in consultation with international specialists in this field contacted by e-mail. All potential contributions to the collective publication resulting from each workshop are refereed by all other contributors. These procedures ensure both that the workshop topics chosen are those perceived at that time to be the most important then concerning this area of linguistics; and that the published articles are examined carefully by more and better-informed relevant specialists that is often the case with articles submitted to linguistics journals (where they are considered by only one or two anonymous referees). (The final decision regarding the inclusion or rejection of particular articles in volumes of the Creolistics series rests with the volume editor(s) and the series editor, Philip Baker.)