A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain the genesis of a creole. Among them is the Substrate Influence Hypothesis. It explains creole genesis as being largely influenced by the substratum language, emphasizing the contribution of the native languages to the emerging creole. Supporters of the Substrate Influence Hypothesis believe that the structures of creole languages strongly reflect the structure of its originator’s native language and that creoles consist of a superstrate lexicon superimposed upon the native language’s grammar. They cite various correspondences between features of the native languages and their equivalents in creole languages.
According to McWhorter, the originators of the creole transferred these features into the emerging creole as a response to a need to construct a full grammar to complement the lexical items acquired from the superstrate language. Such features include elements such as a multipartite copula system, ‘adjectival’ verbs, and predicate clefting (McWhorter 1997: 5).
Bickerton, who developed the Bioprogram Hypothesis, criticized the validity of the substrate hypothesis. His early thoughts pointed out that “the attribution of a feature to an individual language leaves open the question as to why that particular language was chosen”. This was something that Substratists had not answered.
Alleyne has done extensive research corresponding Atlantic Creole to West African languages on various levels of linguistic structure. Their studies show that West African languages are most likely to have been predominant among the origin of the Atlantic creoles because they display extensive and deeply rooted typology and similarities in structure which would be expected of genetically related languages (McWhorter 1997: 6).
It was determined that Caribbean creoles are not structural replicas of any one African language and in no sense can all of their features be drawn from substrate influence (McWhorter 1997: 7). Other critics assert that when attributing features to substrate languages, substratists have not shown that speakers of the language in question were a significant factor in creolization (McWhorter 1997: 69).
Muysken and Smith claim that the Universal and Substrata Hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, they claim that creole genesis results from the confrontation of two systems: the native language of a colonized groups and the dominant colonial language, and that the native language leaves strong traces (Muysken and Smith 1986: 1).
A way that one could support the hypothesis is by looking for ‘marked’ structures appearing in both languages, finding structured/formal parallelism. For example, the position of the negative particle /ka(nɛ)/ in Berbice Dutch is parallel to Eastern Ijo dialects where there is the negative particle /ka/.
Yu [nimi dida kane]
You know that not
‘You don’t know that”
(Muysken and Smith 1986: 1-4)
Another case of substrate influence is the suffix -im in Oceanic Creoles to mark transitive verbs or causative derivatives. This use of a suffix for this purpose is a morphosyntactic feature in most Melanesian languages. Bickerton claims that the transitive and intransitives are never overtly marked in creoles. However, Mufwene insists that this could not have been predicted using the Universalist’s blueprint and is a construction based on the communicative needs of a population that “generally marks transitive verbs morphologically in their native languages” (Mufwene 1986: 143).
Bickerton also points out that even though origin languages have a variety of dialects, we do not see varieties in creoles, but McWhorter explains that differences between dialects would be minimal because of their close genetic relationship (McWhorter 1997: 70). Originators simplify their own language and superstrate, stripping related, mutually unintelligible languages down to core features in common (McWhorter 1997: 72).
Muhlhausler postulates that similarities in the grammar of a creole and its alleged substratum language could have arisen at a time when there no longer was linguistic contact and that present-day dissimilarities may be recent developments (Muhlhausler 1986: 41). He also asserts that the adjective order in Tok Spin could reflect substrate influence in that some cases of N-Adv order have been found in “Bush varieties” in indigenous languages.
In conclusion, there are quite a few linguists who support this theory. Though those who critique it do have their points, there is no denying that the substratum language of a creole does have some effect on the creole’s final form. There are still some questions that are yet to be answered through studying substrate influence, but it may be accurate to say that the substrate hypothesis cannot stand alone.
References
Alleyne, Mervyn C., Pieter Muysken, Norval Smith, Peter Muhlhausler, Salikoko S.
Arends, Jacques, Silvia Kouwenberg, and Norval Smith. 1995. Pidgins and Creoles. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.
Masuna, Hirokuni. 2000. The Genesis of Discourse Gramma: Universals and Substrata in Guyanese, Hawaii Creole, and Japanese. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
McWhorter, John H. 1997. Towards a New Model of Creole Genesis. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.
Mufwene, Philip Baker, Chris Corne, and John Holm. 1986. Substrata Versus Universals in Creole Genesis. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.
Smith, Norval. 2001. Creolization and Contact. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co.
Winford, Donald. 2003. An Introduction to Contact Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
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