Consonant Aspirations - Archive

Today's post is brought to you by "ongoing problems with terminology in linguistics". As my newsfeed this week has filled up with reblogged and retweeted articles about Singlish, often the first thing that gets mentioned is that Singlish is an English-based "creole". But what exactly does the term creole mean? In many introductory linguistics textbooks, dictionaries and the Wikipedia entry (at the time of writing), the term creole (or creole language ) is mostly commonly defined as a stable natural language that has developed from a pidgin, while  pidgin  is typically defined as a simplified contact language developed to enable speakers of different languages to communicate. In other words, a pidgin is said to become a creole when children learn it as their first language and the new language develops its own set of rules and conventions - its own grammar. That means that languages which have "Pidgin" in their names, such as Hawaiian Pidgin,...

The BBC just covered this story:  Singapore terms join Oxford English Dictionary , which is basically about how Singapore English words like wah and shiok get to join their linguistic compatriots lah  and  kiasu  in the OED, the world's "definitive record of the English language". There's even a little quiz at the bottom of article for those of you who want to flaunt your Singlish. However, I was drawn to the opening line of the article, which I think continues to perpetuate the myth of how words end up in the OED (and many dictionaries in general): Several Singaporean and Hong Kong English terms, including "wah", "shiok" and "yum cha", are now officially recognised as acceptable English. By saying that these new words are "now officially recognised as acceptable English " , the BBC article continues to perpetuate the myth that the job of the OED is to be  the  judge of what is acceptable or not acceptable English, and t...