The sociohistorical matrix of creolization and the role children played in this process

What is it about?

This paper will take as its starting point Singler’s views on the role of children in creole genesis, which include the idea that children are regularizers rather than innovators, that they may have contributed lexifier properties, and that their potential as contributors to creole genesis is greatest at the time of a colony’s transition to sugar monoculture. I will consider the relevance of these ideas for an account of the development of Berbice Dutch (BD), a creole lexified by Dutch and Eastern Ịjọ (EI), now extinct. I briefly survey the history of the Berbice colony, consider the EI-derived substrate component in BD in some detail, arguing that the material would be utterly uninterpretable to EI speakers, and that it is unlikely that EI speakers had agency in the process of creole genesis. Instead, I will argue that children were mainly responsible for its development, that the early introduction of sugar assisted their role, and that children may have innovated mixed structures partially modelled on both the lexifier and the substrate.

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