What is it about?
Haitian is a French-based creole and its lexicon largely consists of borrowings from 17th-18th French. However, not all words were borrowed faithfully: in particular, words ending with [r] or including an [r] before a consonant were systematically adapted without the [r]. This paper provides experimental support for the hypothesis that perceptual factors explain the loss of [r] in these words, i.e. [r] is less perceptible in French in the positions where it was lost in Haitian.
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Why is it important?
The findings reported in this paper strongly suggest that perception plays an important role in the adaptation of sound patterns in creole languages.
Perspectives
I hope this article will contribute to a better understanding of how creole languages come about and will spark interest in studying creole languages from a phonetic/perceptual perspective.
Benjamin Storme
Universite de Lausanne
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The adaptation of French liquids in Haitian, Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages, October 2018, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/jpcl.00020.sto.
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