Historical neglect

Because of the generally low status of the Creole people in the eyes of European colonial powers, creole languages have generally been regarded as "degenerate", or at best as rudimentary "dialects" of one of its parent languages. This view, incidentally, is the reason why "creole" has come to be used in opposition to "language", rather than a qualifier for it; so that one would say "a French creole" (rather than "a French-based creole language"), or "the Papiamentu creole" (rather than "the Papiamentu creole language").

This prejudice was compounded by the inherent instability of the colonial system, which led to the disappearance of many creole languages due to dispersion or assimilation of their speech communities. Another factor that may have contributed to the longtime neglect of creole languages is that they do not fit the "tree model" for the evolution of languages, which was adopted by linguists in the 19th century In this model languages may evolve, split, or die out — but cannot ever merge.

Recognition and renaissance

Since the middle of the 20th century, however, linguists have promulgated the idea that creole languages are in no way inferior to other languages. Linguists now use the term "creole language" for any language that is formed from multiple languages by the same mechanism, without geographic restrictions or ethnic implications. As a consequence of these social, political, and academic changes, creole languages have experienced a revival in recent decades. They are increasingly and more openly being used in literature and in media, and many of their speakers are quite fond and proud of them. They are now studied by linguists as languages on their own; many have been standardized, and are now taught in local schools and universities abroad.

Development of a creole language

All creoles start as pidgins, rudimentary second languages improvised for use between speakers of two or more non-intelligible native languages. If a pidgin manages to be learned by the children of a community as a native language, it usually becomes fixed and acquires a more complex grammar, with fixed phonology, syntax, morphology, and syntactic embedding. The syntax and morphology of such languages may often have local innovations not obviously derived from any of the parent languages.