Introduction

This chapter is a study of some of the phonological features found in a number of Creoles but not their lexical source languages. The theoretical orientation of this study is that discussed in section 1.4: the position that Creole languages resulted from a number of forces and that their features reflect the influence of both superstrate and substrate languages, universals of adult second-language acquisition, borrowing from adstrate languages, creole-internal innovations, and the convergence of all or some of these.

Sorting out which of these influences may have resulted in particular phonological features is by no means an easy task. It is especially difficult to determine the degree of continuity from the superstrate language (‘internal’ phonological development – if this concept is indeed applicable to creolized languages) as opposed to influence of the substrate languages (sound substitution conditioned by systems external to the language creolized). For the Atlantic Creoles, one of the major difficulties is the lack of detailed information about the phonology of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century varieties of the particular superstrate dialects involved, to say nothing of the nearly total lack of documentation of the relevant substrate languages of this period. Still, the challenge of reconstructing the phonological development of Creole languages has led to some fascinating linguistic detective work, e.g. Smith (1987).

Superstrate influence is problematical because there is less continuity between the European languages and their Creoles than there is between them and their overseas regional varieties that have not undergone creolization.