Creole Exam Language History 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which colonial power's language most heavily influenced Louisiana Creole?
- Spanish
- French (Correct answer)
- Portuguese
- Dutch
Correct answer: French
Louisiana Creole developed primarily from French, the dominant colonial language in Louisiana from the early 18th century.
Question 2: What term describes the process by which a pidgin language becomes the native tongue of a community?
- Creolization (Correct answer)
- Diglossia
- Code-switching
- Lexification
Correct answer: Creolization
Creolization is the process by which a pidgin acquires native speakers and expands its grammar and vocabulary.
Question 3: Haitian Creole's development was primarily driven by contact between French colonizers and enslaved Africans from which region?
- East Africa
- North Africa
- West and Central Africa (Correct answer)
- South Africa
Correct answer: West and Central Africa
The enslaved Africans brought to Haiti came predominantly from West and Central Africa, contributing the substrate languages to Haitian Creole.
Question 4: Which theory argues that creole languages share universal grammatical features because of innate human language capacity?
- Substratum theory
- Superstrate theory
- Language bioprogram hypothesis (Correct answer)
- Polygenesis theory
Correct answer: Language bioprogram hypothesis
Derek Bickerton's language bioprogram hypothesis proposes that creoles tap into a universal grammar template hardwired in the human brain.
Question 5: What is the superstrate language in a creole?
- The language with the fewest speakers
- The socially dominant language that provides most vocabulary (Correct answer)
- The oldest language in the region
- The language spoken by the enslaved population
Correct answer: The socially dominant language that provides most vocabulary
The superstrate is the socially and politically dominant language, typically the colonial language, which contributes the bulk of vocabulary to a creole.
Question 6: Gullah, a creole spoken along the coastal US South, developed from contact between English speakers and enslaved Africans speaking languages from which language family?
- Afro-Asiatic
- Nilo-Saharan
- Niger-Congo (Correct answer)
- Khoisan
Correct answer: Niger-Congo
Gullah's African substrate derives largely from Niger-Congo languages, particularly those from Sierra Leone and Senegambia.
Question 7: Which historical event dramatically accelerated the spread and development of Caribbean creole languages in the 17th–18th centuries?
- The Protestant Reformation
- The transatlantic slave trade (Correct answer)
- The Napoleonic Wars
- The Spanish Inquisition
Correct answer: The transatlantic slave trade
The transatlantic slave trade forcibly mixed speakers of many African languages with European colonizers, creating the conditions for rapid creole formation.
Creole Exam Language History 2
Which colonial power's language most heavily influenced Louisiana Creole?