Philippe Maurer has rescued a critically endangered language from oblivion with this volume, turning Principense – one of the least documented varieties of Afro-Portuguese – into one of the best described creoles of any lexical base. The contents reflect his gift for clear organization and lucid explanation of knotty problems ranging from tone to exotic morphosyntactic structures. He has minutely analyzed an extensive corpus, illustrating his points with over 1,270 Principense sentences and providing a word list as well as a rich collection of texts.This book is one of the finest contributions yet to creole linguistics.

John Holm, Coimbra University.

To access audio files of many of the examples in the book, CLICK HERE.

This volume is, in a sense, a response to a recent rather extremist view that “the world’s simplest grammars are creole grammars”. It brings together a series of studies of the core levels of language structure (phonology and morphosyntax).

A major merit is that the studies are data-based, ignore the exotic assumptions of creole linguistics and, by the range of coverage and depth of analysis, provide an exceptionally useful additional support to the view that creoles could and should be situated within a general framework of synchronic and contact linguistics, rather than within the shadow of their “lexifier” languages. It thus goes beyond the narrow confines of creole linguistics and provides linguistics in general with a most valuable resource.

Mervyn Alleyne,
University of the West Indies and University of Puerto Rico

The photograph of the cover of this book is Althea N. Sumpter's Land's End Talking Tree. We would like to apologize to the photographer for having mistitled this World's End Talking Tree in the book.

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 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.

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 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.)

• Volume 1: From Contact to Creole and Beyond. Edited by Philip Baker. 1995. iv + 268 pages, 4 maps, index. ISBN 1 85919 086 3. £17-50p.
• Volume 2: Changing Meanings, Changing Functions. Grammaticalization in contact languages. Edited by Philip Baker & Anand Syea. 1996. iv + 293 pages, 2 maps, index. ISBN 1 85919 047 2. £17-50p.
• Volume 3: Pidgin and Creole Linguistics. Expanded and revised edition. By Peter Mu"hlha"usler. 1997. viii + 390 pages, illustrations, index. ISBN 1 85919 083 9. £20.
• Volume 4: St Kitts and the Atlantic Creoles. The texts of Samuel Augustus Mathews in perspective. Edited by Philip Baker & Adrienne Bruyn. 1999. iv + 444 pages; maps, illustrations, indexes. ISBN 1 85919 088 X. £20.
• Volume 5: From French to Creole. The development of new vernaculars in the French colonial world. By Chris Corne. 1999. x + 263 pages, map, index. ISBN 1 85919 098 7. £20.
• Volume 6: Spreading the Word. The issue of diffusion among the Atlantic Creoles. Edited by Magnus Huber & Mikael Parkvall. 1999. iv + 325 pages, 6 maps, index. ISBN 1 85919 093 6. £20.
• Volume 7: Comparative Creole Syntax. Parallel outlines of 17Creole grammars. Edited by John Holm and Peter Patrick. Ca. 430 pages, maps, index. ISBN 1 903292 01 8. £25. Publication: Sept 2002.
• Volume 8: Twice as meaningful. Reduplication in Pidgins and Creoles. Edited by Silvia Kouwenberg. Ca. 380 pages, map, index. ISBN 1 903292 02 6.£25. 2003.
• Volume 9: The making of Mauritian Creole. edited by Philip Baker & Guillaume Fon Sing. iv + 344 pages, bibliographic references, index, ISBN 978 1 903292 14 3, £24.99, published December 2007.
• Volume 10: Simplicity and Complexity in Creoles and Pidgins Edited by Nicholas Faraclas & Thomas B. Klein, Published July 2009, £24.95, ISBN 978-1-903292-15-0, iv + 220 pages, Introduction, ten chapters (five on phonology, five on morphosyntax), references, index.