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A French Creole, or French-based Creole language, is a creole language based on the French language, more specifically on a 17th century koiné French extant in Paris, the French Atlantic harbors, and the nascent French colonies. French-based creole languages are spoken by millions of people worldwide, primarily in the Americas and in the Indian Ocean.

Descendants of the non-creole colonial koiné are still spoken in Canada (mostly in Quebec), the Prairies, Louisiana, Saint-Barthélemy (leeward portion of the island) and as isolates in other parts of the Americas.^[1]

Classification[link]

Americas[link]

• Varieties with progressive aspect marker ape^[2]
  • Balboa Creole is spoken on Balboa Island in the city of Newport Beach, California. It originated from a blending of French spoken by French families on the island with English, Spanish, and German.
  • Haitian Creole or Kreyòl ayisyen, is a language spoken primarily in Haiti. It is the largest French-derived language in the world, with a total of 12 million fluent speakers. It is also the most-spoken creole language in the world. French is its superstrate language,some indigenous Amerindian languages providing substrate input. Some words are also derived from English, and Spanish.
  • Louisiana Creole (Kréyol la Lwizyàn, locally called Kourí-Viní and Pale-Nég), the Louisiana creole language.
• Varieties with progressive aspect marker ka^[3]
  • Antillean Creole is a language spoken primarily in the French (and some of the English) Lesser Antilles, such as Martinique, Guadeloupe, Îles des Saintes, Dominica, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago and many other smaller islands. Although all of the creoles spoken on these islands are considered to be the same language, there are noticeable differences between the dialects of each island. Notably, the Creole spoken in the Eastern (windward) part of the island Saint-Barthélemy is a Creole spoken exclusively by a white population of European descent, imported into the island from Saint-Christophe in 1648.
    • Grenadian Creole French
    • Saint Lucian Creole French
  • French Guiana Creole or French Guianese Creole is a language spoken in French Guiana, and to a lesser degree in Suriname and Guyana. It is closely related to Antillean Creole, but there are some noteworthy differences between the two.
  • Karipúna, spoken in Brazil, mostly in Uaçá, the state of Amapá. It was developed by Amerindians in the Uaçá, with possible influences from immigrants from neighboring French Guiana and French territories of the Caribbean and with a recent lexical adstratum from Portuguese.
  • Lanc-Patuá, spoken more widely in the state of Amapá, is a variety of the former, possibly the same language.

Indian Ocean[link]

• Varieties with progressive aspect marker ape^[2] - subsumed under a common classification as Bourbonnais Creoles
  • Mauritian Creole, spoken as the lingua franca (locally Kreol)
  • Agalega Creole, spoken in Agalega
  • Chagossian Creole, spoken by the former population of the islands
  • Réunion Creole, spoken in Réunion
  • Rodriguan Creole, spoken on the island of Rodrigues
  • Seychellois Creole, also known as Seselwa, it is an official language as well as the lingua franca

Pacific[link]

• Tayo, spoken in New Caledonia

Africa[link]

• Petit Mauresque or Little Moorish was spoken in North Africa
• Petit-Nègre was spoken in West Africa, especially in Côte d'Ivoire

Asia[link]

• Tây Bồi, spoken in Vietnam

Notes[link]

French language and French-speaking world portal

A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins (which are believed by scholars to be necessary precedents of creoles) in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, with the result that they have features of natural languages that are normally missing from pidgins.

Road sign in Guadeloupe Creole meaning Slow down. Children are playing here. The literal translation is "Lift your foot. There are small people playing here".

The vocabulary of a creole language consists of cognates from the parent languages, though there are often clear phonetic and semantic shifts. On the other hand, the grammar often has original features but may differ substantially from those of the parent languages. Most often, the vocabulary comes from the dominant group and the grammar from the subordinate group, where such stratification exists.

Overview[link]

A creole is believed to arise when a pidgin, developed by adults for use as a second language, becomes the native and primary language of their children — a process known as nativization.^[1] The pidgin-creole life cycle was studied by Hall in the 1960s.^[2]

Creoles share more grammatical similarities with each other than with the languages from which they are phylogenetically derived.^[3] However, there is no widely accepted theory that would account for those perceived similarities.^[4] Moreover, no grammatical feature has been shown to be specific to creoles.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10]}

Many of the creoles known today arose in the last 500 years, as a result of the worldwide expansion in European maritime power and trade in the Age of Discovery, which led to extensive European colonial empires and an intense slave trade. Like most non-official and minority languages, creoles have generally been regarded as degenerate variants or dialects of their parent languages. Because of that prejudice, many of the creoles that arose in the European colonies have become extinct. However, political and academic changes in recent decades have improved the status of creoles, both as living languages and as object of linguistic study.^[11][12] Some creoles have even been granted the status of official or semi-official language.

Linguists now recognize that creole formation is a universal phenomenon, not limited to the European colonial period, and an important aspect of language evolution (see Vennemann (2003)). For example, in 1933 Sigmund Feist postulated a creole origin for the Germanic languages.

Other scholars, such as Salikoko Mufwene, argue that pidgins and creoles arise independently under different circumstances, and that a pidgin need not always precede a creole nor a creole evolve from a pidgin. Pidgins, according to Mufwene, emerged among trade colonies among "users who preserved their native vernaculars for their day-to-day interactions". Creoles, meanwhile, developed in settlement colonies in which speakers of a European language, often indentured servants whose language would be far from the standard in the first place, interacted extensively with non-European slaves, absorbing certain words and features from the slaves' non-European native languages, resulting in a heavily basilectalized version of the original language. These servants and slaves would come to use the creole as an everyday vernacular, rather than merely in situations in which contact with a speaker of the superstrate was necessary.^[13]

History[link]

Origin[link]

The English term creole comes from French créole, which is cognate with the Spanish term criollo and Portuguese crioulo, all descending from the verb criar ("to breed" or "to raise"), ultimately from Latin creare ("to produce, create").^[14] The specific sense of the term was coined in the 16th and 17th century, during the great expansion in European maritime power and trade that led to the establishment of European colonies in other continents.

The terms criollo and crioulo were originally qualifiers used throughout the Spanish and Portuguese colonies to distinguish the members of an ethnic group that were born and raised locally from those who immigrated as adults. They were most commonly applied to nationals of the colonial power, e.g. to distinguish españoles criollos (people born in the colonies from Spanish ancestors) from españoles peninsulares (those born in the Iberian Peninsula, i.e. Spain). However in Brazil the term was also used to distinguish between negros crioulos (blacks born in Brazil from African slave ancestors) and negros africanos (born in Africa). Over time, the term and its derivatives (Creole, Kreyol, Kriol, Krio, etc.) lost the generic meaning and became the proper name of many distinct ethnic groups that developed locally from immigrant communities. Originally, therefore, the term "creole language" meant the speech of any of those creole peoples.

Geographic distribution[link]

As a consequence of colonial European trade patterns, most of the known European-based creole languages arose in the equatorial belt around the world and in areas with access to the oceans, including the coastal regions of the Americas, western Africa, Goa and along the west coast of India, and along the coast of Southeast Asia up to Indonesia, Macau, the Philippines, Malaysia, Seychelles and Oceania.

Many of those creoles are now extinct, but others still survive in the Caribbean, the north and east coasts of South America (The Guyanas), western Africa, Australia (see Australian Kriol language), and in the Indian Ocean.

Atlantic Creole languages are based on European languages with elements from African and possibly Amerind languages. Indian Ocean Creole languages are based on European languages with elements from Malagasy and possibly other Asian languages. There are, however, creoles like Nubi and Sango that are derived solely from non-European languages.

Social and political status[link]

Because of the generally low status of the Creole peoples in the eyes of prior European colonial powers, creole languages have generally been regarded as "degenerate" languages, or at best as rudimentary "dialects" of the politically dominant parent languages. Because of this prejudice, the word "creole" was generally used by linguists in opposition to "language", rather than as a qualifier for it.^[15] This prejudice was compounded by the inherent instability of the colonial system, leading to the disappearance of creole languages, mainly due to dispersion or assimilation of their speech communities.^[16]

Another factor that may have contributed to the relative neglect of creole languages in linguistics is that they do not fit the 19th century neogrammarian "tree model" for the evolution of languages, and its postulated regularity of sound changes (such as the earliest advocates of the wave model, Johannes Schmidt and Hugo Schuchardt, the forerunners of modern sociolinguistics). This controversy of the late 19th century profoundly shaped modern approaches to the comparative method in historical linguistics and in creolistics.^[17][18][19]

Because of social, political, and academic changes brought on by decolonization in the second half of the 20th century, creole languages have experienced revivals in the past few decades. They are increasingly being used in print and film, and in many cases, their community prestige has improved dramatically. In fact, some have been standardized, and are used in local schools and universities around the world.^[20][21][22] At the same time, linguists have began to come to the realization that creole languages are in no way inferior to other languages. They now use the term "creole" or "creole language" for any language suspected to have undergone creolization, terms that now imply no geographic restrictions nor ethnic prejudices.

Classification of creoles[link]

Historic classification[link]

According to their external history, four types of creoles have been distinguished: plantation creoles, fort creoles, maroon creoles, and creolized pidgins.^[23] By the very nature of a creole language, the phylogenetic classification of a particular creole usually is a matter of dispute; especially when the pidgin precursor and its parent tongues (which may have been other creoles or pidgins) have disappeared before they could be documented.

Phylogenetic classification traditionally relies on inheritance of the lexicon, especially of "core" terms, and of the grammar structure. However, in creoles, the core lexicon often has mixed origin, and the grammar is largely original. For these reasons, the issue of which language is the parent of a creole — that is, whether a language should be classified as a "Portuguese creole" or "English creole", etc. — often has no definitive answer, and can become the topic of long-lasting controversies, where social prejudices and political considerations may interfere with scientific discussion.^[24][25][26]

Substrate and superstrate[link]

The terms substrate and superstrate are often used when two languages interact. However, the meaning of these terms is reasonably well-defined only in second language acquisition or language replacement events, when the native speakers of a certain source language (the substrate) are somehow compelled to abandon it for another target language (the superstrate).^[27] The outcome of such an event is that erstwhile speakers of the substrate will use some version of the superstrate, at least in more formal contexts. The substrate may survive as a second language for informal conversation. As demonstrated by the fate of many replaced European languages (such as Etruscan, Breton, and Venetian), the influence of the substrate on the official speech is often limited to pronunciation and a modest number of loanwords. The substrate might even disappear altogether without leaving any trace.^[28]

However, there is dispute over the extent to which the terms "substrate" and "superstrate" are applicable to the genesis or the description of creole languages.^[29] The language replacement model may not be appropriate in creole formation contexts, where the emerging language is derived from multiple languages without any one of them being imposed as a replacement for any other.^[30][31] The substratum-superstratum distinction becomes awkward when multiple superstrata must be assumed (such as in Papiamentu), when the substratum cannot be identified, or when the presence or the survival of substratal evidence is inferred from mere typological analogies.^[32] On the other hand, the distinction may be meaningful when the contributions of each parent language to the resulting creole can be shown to be very unequal, in a scientifically meaningful way.^[33] In the literature on Atlantic Creoles, "superstrate" usually means European and "substrate" non-European or African.^[34]

Decreolization[link]

Since creole languages rarely attain official status, the speakers of a fully formed creole may eventually feel compelled to conform their speech to one of the parent languages. This decreolization process typically brings about a post-creole speech continuum characterized by large scale variation and hypercorrection in the language.^[35]

Shared features[link]

It is commonly assumed that, compared to other languages, creoles have a simpler grammar and more internal variability. However, these notions may be little more than prejudices.^[36] (See also language complexity.)

Phylogenetic or typological comparisons of creole languages have led to divergent conclusions. Similarities are usually higher among creoles derived from related languages, such as the languages of Europe, than among broader groups that include also creoles based on non-Indo-European languages (like Nubi or Sango). French-based creoles in turn are more similar to each other (and to varieties of French) than to other European-based creoles. It was observed, in particular, that definite articles are mostly prenominal in English-based creole languages and English whereas they are generally postnominal in French creoles and in the variety of French that was exported to the colonies in the 17th and 18th century.^[37] Moreover the European languages which gave rise to the creole languages of European colonies all belong to the same subgroup of Western Indo-European and have highly convergent grammars; to the point that Whorf joined them into a single Standard Average European language group.^[38] French and English are particularly close, since English, through extensive borrowing, is typologically closer to French than to other Germanic languages.^[39] Thus the claimed similarities between creoles may be mere consequences of similar parentage, rather than characteristic features of all creoles.

Creole genesis[link]

There are a variety of theories on the origin of creole languages, all of which attempt to explain the similarities among them. Arends, Muysken & Smith (1995) outline a fourfold classification of explanations regarding creole genesis:

• Theories focusing on European input
• Theories focusing on non-European input
• Gradualist and developmental hypotheses
• Universalist approaches

Theories focusing on European input[link]

The monogenetic theory of pidgins and creoles[link]

The monogenetic theory of pidgins and creoles hypothesizes that they are all derived from a single Mediterranean Lingua Franca, via a West African Pidgin Portuguese of the 17th century, relexified in the so-called "slave factories" of Western Africa that were the source of the Atlantic slave trade. This theory was originally formulated by Hugo Schuchardt in the late 19th century and popularized in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Taylor,^[40] Whinnom,^[41] Thompson,^[42] and Stewart.^[43] However, this hypothesis is no longer actively investigated.

The domestic origin hypothesis[link]

Proposed by Hancock (1985) for the origin of English-based creoles of the West Indies, the Domestic Origin Hypothesis argues that, towards the end of the 16th century, English-speaking traders began to settle in the Gambia and Sierra Leone rivers as well as in neighboring areas such as the Bullom and Sherbro coasts. These settlers intermarried with the local population leading to mixed populations, and, as a result of this intermarriage, an English pidgin was created. This pidgin was learned by slaves in slave depots, who later on took it to the West Indies and formed one component of the emerging English creoles.

The European dialect origin hypothesis[link]

The French creoles are the foremost candidates to being the outcome of "normal" linguistic change and their creoleness to be sociohistoric in nature and relative to their colonial origin.^[44] Within this theoretical framework, a French creole is a language phylogenetically based on the French language, more specifically on a 17th century koiné French extant in Paris, the French Atlantic harbours, and the nascent French colonies. Two descendants of the non-creole colonial koiné are still spoken in Canada (mostly in Québec and among the Acadian people of the Eastern Maritime provinces), the Prairies, Louisiana, Saint-Barthélemy (leeward portion of the island) and as isolates in other parts of the Americas.^[45] Approaches under this hypothesis are compatible with gradualism in change and models of imperfect language transmission in koiné genesis.

Foreigner talk and baby talk[link]

The Foreigner Talk (FT) hypothesis argues that a pidgin or creole language forms when native speakers attempt to simplify their language in order to address speakers who do not know their language at all. Because of the similarities found in this type of speech and speech directed to a small child, it is also sometimes called baby talk.^[46]

Arends, Muysken & Smith (1995) suggest that four different processes are involved in creating Foreigner Talk:

• Accommodation
• Imitation
• Telegraphic condensation
• Conventions

This could explain why creole languages have much in common, while avoiding a monogenetic model. However, Hinnenkamp (1984), in analyzing German Foreigner Talk, claims that it is too inconsistent and unpredictable to provide any model for language learning.

While the simplification of input was supposed to account for creoles' simple grammar, there are a number of problems with this explanation:^[47]

1. There are too many grammatical similarities amongst pidgins and creoles despite having very different lexifier languages.
2. Grammatical simplification can be explained by other processes, i.e. the innate grammar of Bickerton's language bioprogram theory.
3. Speakers of a creole's lexifier language often fail to understand, without learning the language, the grammar of a pidgin or creole.
4. Pidgins are more often used amongst speakers of different substrate languages than between such speakers and those of the lexifier language.

Another problem with the FT explanation is its potential circularity. Bloomfield (1933) points out that FT is often based on the imitation of the incorrect speech of the non-natives, that is the pidgin. Therefore one may be mistaken in assuming that the former gave rise to the latter.

Imperfect L2 learning[link]

The imperfect L2 (second language) learning hypothesis claims that pidgins are primarily the result of the imperfect L2 learning of the dominant lexifier language by the slaves. Research on naturalistic L2 processes has revealed a number of features of "interlanguage systems" that are also seen in pidgins and creoles:

• invariant verb forms derived from the infinitive or the least marked finite verb form;
• loss of determiners or use as determiners of demonstrative pronouns, adjectives or adverbs;
• placement of a negative particle in preverbal position;
• use of adverbs to express modality;
• fixed single word order with no inversion in questions;
• reduced or absent nominal plural marking.

Imperfect L2 learning is compatible with other approaches, notably the European dialect origin hypothesis and the universalist models of language transmission.^[48]

Theories focusing on non-European input[link]

Theories focusing on the substrate, or non-European, languages attribute similarities amongst creoles to the similarities of African substrate languages. These features are often assumed to be transferred from the substrate language to the creole or to be preserved invariant from the substrate language in the creole through a process of relexification: the substrate language replaces the native lexical items with lexical material from the superstrate language while retaining the native grammatical categories.^[49] The problem with this explanation is that the postulated substrate languages differ amongst themselves and with creoles in meaningful ways. Bickerton (1981) argues that the number and diversity of African languages and the paucity of a historical record on creole genesis makes determining lexical correspondences a matter of chance. Dillard (1970) coined the term "cafeteria principle" to refer to the practice of arbitrarily attributing features of creoles to the influence of substrate African languages or assorted substandard dialects of European languages.

For a representative debate on this issue, see the contributions to Mufwene (1993); for a more recent view, Parkvall (2000).

Because of the sociohistoric similarities amongst many (but by no means all) of the creoles, the Atlantic slave trade and the plantation system of the European colonies have been emphasized as factors by linguists such as McWhorter (1999).

Gradualist and developmental hypotheses[link]

One class of creoles might start as pidgins, rudimentary second languages improvised for use between speakers of two or more non-intelligible native languages. Keith Whinnom (in Hymes (1971)) suggests that pidgins need three languages to form, with one (the superstrate) being clearly dominant over the others. The lexicon of a pidgin is usually small and drawn from the vocabularies of its speakers, in varying proportions. Morphological details like word inflections, which usually take years to learn, are omitted; the syntax is kept very simple, usually based on strict word order. In this initial stage, all aspects of the speech — syntax, lexicon, and pronunciation — tend to be quite variable, especially with regard to the speaker's background.

If a pidgin manages to be learned by the children of a community as a native language, it may become fixed and acquire a more complex grammar, with fixed phonology, syntax, morphology, and syntactic embedding. Pidgins can become full languages in only a single generation. "Creolization" is this second stage where the pidgin language develops into a fully developed native language. The vocabulary, too, will develop to contain more and more items according to a rationale of lexical enrichment.^[50]

Universalist approaches[link]

Universalist models stress the intervention of specific general processes during the transmission of language from generation to generation and from speaker to speaker. The process invoked varies: a general tendency towards semantic transparency, first language learning driven by universal process, or general process of discourse organization. The main universalist theory is still Bickerton's language bioprogram theory, proposed in the 1980s.^[51] Bickerton claims that creoles are inventions of the children growing up on newly founded plantations. Around them, they only heard pidgins spoken, without enough structure to function as natural languages; and the children used their own innate linguistic capacities to transform the pidgin input into a full-fledged language. The alleged common features of all creoles would then be the consequence of those innate abilities being universal.

Recent study[link]

The last decade has seen the emergence of some new questions about the nature of creoles: in particular, the question of how complex creoles are and the question of whether creoles are indeed "exceptional" languages.

The creole prototype[link]

Some features that distinguish creole languages from noncreoles have been proposed (by Bickerton,^[52] for example).

John McWhorter^[53] has proposed the following list of features to indicate a creole prototype:

• a lack of inflectional morphology (other than at most two or three inflectional affixes),
• a lack of tone on monosyllabic words, and
• a lack of semantically opaque word formation.

McWhorter hypothesizes that these three properties exactly characterize a creole. However, the creole prototype hypothesis has been disputed:

• Henri Wittmann (1999) and David Gil (2001) argue that languages such as Manding, Soninke, Magoua French and Riau Indonesian have all these three features but show none of the sociohistoric traits of creole languages.
• Others (see overview in Muysken & Law (2001)) have demonstrated creoles that serve as counterexamples to McWhorter's hypothesis — the existence of inflectional morphology in Berbice Dutch Creole, for example, or tone in Papiamentu.^[54]

Exceptionalism[link]

Building up on this discussion, McWhorter proposed that "the world's simplest grammars are Creole grammars", claiming that every noncreole language's grammar is at least as complex as any creole language's grammar.^[55][56] Gil has replied that Riau Indonesian has a simpler grammar than Saramaccan, the language McWhorter uses as a showcase for his theory.^[57] The same objections were raised by Wittmann in his 1999 debate with McWhorter.^[58]

The lack of progress made in defining creoles in terms of their morphology and syntax has led scholars such as Robert Chaudenson, Salikoko Mufwene and Henri Wittmann to question the value of creole as a typological class; they argue that creoles are structurally no different from any other language, and that creole is a sociohistoric concept — not a linguistic one — encompassing displaced population and slavery.^[59]

Thomason & Kaufman (1988) spell out the idea of creole exceptionalism, claiming that creole languages are an instance of nongenetic language change due to language shift with abnormal transmission. Gradualists^[who?] question the abnormal transmission of languages in a creole setting and argue that the processes which created today's creole languages are no different from universal patterns of language change.

Given these objections to creole as a concept, articles such as Against Creole Exceptionalism^[60] and Deconstructing Creole^[61] have arisen which question the idea that creoles are exceptional in any meaningful way. Additionally, Mufwene (2002) argues that some Romance languages are potential creoles but that they are not considered as such by linguists because of a historical bias against such a view.

See also[link]

Related articles[link]

• Creolistics
• Gradualism
• Language change
• Language contact
• Lingua franca
• Mixed language
• Nicaraguan Sign Language
• Relexification
• Substratum
• Diglossia

Creoles by main parent language[link]

• Arabic-based creole languages
• Assamese based: Nagamese
• Chinese-based: Tangwang
• Dutch-based creole languages
• English-based creole languages
• French-based creole languages
• German-based: Unserdeutsch
• Kongo-based: Kituba
• Malay-based creole languages
• Ngbandi-based: Sango
• Portuguese-based creole languages
• Spanish-based creole languages

References[link]

Publications[link]

• Anderson, Roger W., ed. (1983), Pidginization and Creolization as Language Acquisition, Rowley, MA: Newbury House 
• Ansaldo, U.; Matthews, S. (2007), "Deconstructing creole: The rationale", Typological Studies in Language 73: 1–20, ISSN 0167-7373 
• Arends, Jacques; Muysken, Pieter; Smith, Norval (1995), Pidgins and creoles: An introduction, Amsterdam: Benjamins, ISBN 90-272-5236-X 
• Arends, Jacques (1989), Syntactic developments in Sranan : creolization as a gradual process, Nijmegen, ISBN 90-900268-3-5 
• Bailey, Charles J; Maroldt, Karl (1977), "The French lineage of English", in Meisel, Jürgen, Langues en contact – Pidgins – Creoles, Tübingen: Narr, pp. 21–53 
• Bickerton, Derek (2009), Bastard Tongues: A Trailblazing Linguist Finds Clues to Our Common Humanity in the World's Lowliest Languages, Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-8090-2816-0, http://books.google.com/?id=7yRB7V1oE4sC 
• Bickerton, Derek (1981), Roots of Language, Karoma Publishers, ISBN 0-89720-044-6 
• Bickerton, Derek (1983), "Creole Languages", Scientific American 249 (8): 116–122, DOI:10.1038/scientificamerican0783-116 
• Bickerton, Derek (1984), "The language bioprogram hypothesis", The Behavioral an Brain Sciences 7: 173–188, DOI:10.1017/S0140525X00044149 
• Bloomfield, L. (1933), Language, New York: Henry Holt 
• DeCamp, David (1977), "The Development of Pidgin and Creole Studies", in Valdman, Albert, Pidgin and creole linguistics, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 3–20 
• DeGraff, Michel (2001), "On the origin of creoles: A Cartesian critique of Neo-Darwinian linguistics", Linguistic Typology 5 (2-3): 213–310, http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/degraff/darwin/anti-simplest.html 
• DeGraff, Michel (2002), "Relexification: A reevaluation", Linguistic Anthropology 44 (4): 321–414, http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/degraff/degraff-anthling-44-04.pdf 
• DeGraff, Michel (2003), "Against Creole Exceptionalism", Language 79 (2): 391–410, DOI:10.1353/lan.2003.0114 
• Dillard, J.L. (1970), "Principles in the history of American English: Paradox, virginity, and cafeteria", Florida Foreign Language Reporter 8: 32–33 
• Eckkrammer, Eva (1994), "How to Pave the Way for the Emancipation of a Creole Language. Papiamentu, or What Can a Literature Do for its Language.", in Hoogbergen, Wim, Born Out of Resistance. On Caribbean Cultural Creativity, Utrecht: Isor-Publications 
• Feist, Sigmund (1932), "The Origin of the Germanic Languages and the Europeanization of North Europe", Language (Language, Vol. 8, No. 4) 8 (4): 245–254, DOI:10.2307/408831, JSTOR 408831 
• Ferguson, C.A. (1971), "Absence of Copula and the Notion of Simplicity: A Study of Normal Speech, Baby Talk, Foreigner Talk and Pidgins.", in Hymes, D., Pidginization and Creolization of Languages, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 
• Fournier, Robert; Wittmann, Henri, eds. (1995), Le français des Amériques, Trois-Rivières: Presses universitaires de Trois-Rivières, ISBN 2-9802307-2-3 
• Fournier, Robert (1998), "Des créolismes dans la distribution des déterminants et des complémenteurs en français québécois basilectal", in Patrice Brasseur, Français d'Amérique: variation, créolisation, normalisation, Université d'Avignon: Centre d'études canadiennes, pp. 217–228 
• Geeslin, Kimberly L. (2002), "Semantic transparency as a predictor of copula choice in second-language acquisition", Linguistics 40 (2): 439–468 
• Gil, David (2001), "Creoles, Complexity and Riau Indonesian", Linguistic Typology 5: 325–371 
• Good, Jeff (2004), "Tone and accent in Saramaccan: Charting a deep split in the phonology of a language", Lingua 114 (5): 575–619, DOI:10.1016/S0024-3841(03)00062-7 
• Hall, Robert A. (1966), Pidgin and creole languages, Ithaca: Cornell University 
• Hall, Robert A., External history of the Romance languages, New York: American Elsevier Publishing Company 
• Hamilton, A. Cris; Coslett, H. Branch (2008), "Role of inflectional regularity and semantic transparency in reading morphologically complex words: Evidence from acquired dyslexia", Neurocase 14 (4): 347–368 
• Hancock, Ian F. (1985), "The domestic hypothesis, diffusion and componentiality: An account of Anglophone creole origins", in Pieter Muysken; Norval Smith, Substrata versus universals in creole genesis, Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 71–102 
• Hinnenkamp, V. (1984), "Eye-witnessing pidginization: Structural and Sociolinguistic Aspects of German and Turkish Foreigner Talk", in Sebba, M.; Todd, L., Papers from the York Creole Conference, September 24–27, 1983, York Papers in Linguistics 
• Holm, John (1988), Pidgins and Creoles, 1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 
• Holm, John (1989), Pidgins and Creoles, 2, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 
• Hunter Smith, Norval Selby (1987), The genesis of the Creole languages of Surinam, Amsterdam 
• Hymes, D. H. (1971), Pidginization and Creolization of Languages, Cambridge University Press 
• Jungemann, Fréderic H. (1955), La teoría del substrato y los dialectos hispano-romances y gascones, Madrid 
• Lefebvre, Claire (2002), "The emergence of productive morphology in creole languages: the case of Haitian Creole", Yearbook of Morphology: 35–80 
• Martinet, André (1955, 1964), Économie des changements phonétiques: traité de phonologie diachronique, Berne: Francke 
• McWhorter, John H. (1998), "Identifying the creole prototype: Vindicating a typological class", Language (Language, Vol. 74, No. 4) 74 (4): 788–818, DOI:10.2307/417003, JSTOR 417003 
• McWhorter, John H. (1999), "The Afrogenesis Hypothesis of Plantation Creole Origin", in Huber, M; Parkvall, M, Spreading the Word: The Issue of Diffusion among the Atlantic Creoles, London: University of Westminster Press 
• McWhorter, John H. (2005), Defining Creole, Oxford: Oxford University Press 
• Meijer, Guus; Muysken, Pieter (1977), "On the beginnings of pidgin and creole studies: Schuchardt and Hesseling", in Valdman, Albert, Pidgin and creole linguistics, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 21–45 
• Meisel, Jürgen (1977), Langues en contact – Pidgins – Creoles, Tübingen: Narr 
• Mufwene, Salikoko, ed. (1993), Africanisms in Afro-American language varieties, Athens: University of Georgia Press 
• Mufwene, Salikoko (2000), "Creolization is a social, not a structural, process", in Neumann-Holzschuh, Ingrid; Schneider, Edgar, Degrees of restructuring in creole languages, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 65–84 
• Mufwene, Salikoko (2002), The ecology of language evolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 
• Muysken, Pieter; Law, Paul (2001), "Creole studies: A theoretical linguist’s field guide", Glot International 5 (2): 47–57 
• Parkvall, Mikael (2000), Out of Africa: African influences in Atlantic Creoles, London: Battlebridge 
• Schumann, John H. (1978), The Pidginization Process: A Model for Second Language Acquisition, Rowley, MA: Newbury House 
• Sebba, Mark (1997), Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles, MacMillan, ISBN 0-333-63024-6 
• Seuren, Pieter A.M.; Wekker, Herman C. (1986), "Semantic transparency as a factor in creole genesis.", in Muysken, Pieter; Smith, Norval, Substrata Versus Universals in Creole Genesis, Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 57–70 
• Singler, John Victor (1983), "The influence of African languages on pidgins and creoles", in Kaye, Jonathan; Koopman, H.; Sportiche, D. et al., Current Approaches to African Linguistics, 2, Dordrecht: Foris, pp. 65–77, ISBN 90-70176-95-5 
• Singler, John Victor (1988), "The homogeneity of the substrate as a factor in pidgin/creole genesis.", Language (Language, Vol. 64, No. 1) 64 (1): 27–51, DOI:10.2307/414784, JSTOR 414784 
• Singler, John Victor (1996), "Theories of creole genesis, sociohistorical considerations, and the evaluation of evidence: The case of Haitian Creole and the Relexification Hypothesis", Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 11: 185–230 
• Stewart, William A. (1962), "Creole languages in the Caribbean", in F.A. Rice, Study of the role of second languages, Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics, pp. 34–53 
• Taylor, Douglas (1977), Languages in the West Indies, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 
• Thomason, Sarah; Kaufman, Terrence (1988), Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics (first ed.), Berkely: University of California Press 
• Thompson, R.W. (1961), "A note on some possible affinities between the creole dialects of the Old World and those of the New", Creole Language Studies 2: 107–113 
• Traugott, Elizabeth Closs (1977), "The Development of Pidgin and Creole Studies", in Valdman, Theo, Pidgin and creole linguistics, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 70–98 
• Vennemann, Theo (2003), "Languages in prehistoric Europe north of the Alps", in Bammesberger, Alfred; Vennemann, Theo, Languages in Prehistoric Europe, Heidelberg: C. Winter, pp. 319–332 
• Wardhaugh, Ronald (2002), "Pidgins and Creoles", An Introduction to Sociolinguistics (fourth ed.), Blackwell Publishing, pp. 57–86 
• Winford, D (1997), "Creole Formation in the Context of Contact Languages", Journal of Pidign and Creole Language 12 (1): 131–151 
• Weinreich, Uriel (1979) [1953], Languages in contact: findings and problems, New York: Mouton Publishers, ISBN 978-90-279-2689-0 
• Whinnom, Keith (1956), Spanish contact vernaculars in the Philippine Islands, Hong Kong 
• Whinnom, Keith (1965), "The origin of the European-based creoles and pidgins", Orbis 14: 509–27 
• Wittmann, Henri (1983), "Les réactions en chaîne en morphologie diachronique", Actes du Colloque de la Société Internationale de Linguistique Fonctionnelle 10: 285–92, http://homepage.mac.com/noula/ling/1983c-morphodia.pdf 
• Wittmann, Henri (1995), "Grammaire comparée des variétés coloniales du français populaire de Paris du 17e siècle et origines du français québécois", in Fournier, Robert; Wittmann, Henri, Le français des Amériques, Trois-Rivières: Presses universitaires de Trois-Rivières, pp. 281–334, http://homepage.mac.com/noula/ling/1995a-fda.pdf 
• Wittmann, Henri (1998), "Le français de Paris dans le français des Amériques", Proceedings of the International Congress of Linguists (Amsterdam: Elsevier) 16, http://homepage.mac.com/noula/ling/1998a-fpparis.pdf 
• Wittmann, Henri (1999). "Prototype as a typological yardstick to creoleness." The Creolist Archives Papers On-line, Stockholms Universitet.[1]
• Wittmann, Henri (2001). "Lexical diffusion and the glottogenetics of creole French." CreoList debate, parts I-VI, appendixes 1-9. The Linguist List, Eastern Michigan University|Wayne State University
• Whorf, Benjamin (1956), John Carroll, ed., Language, Thought, and Reality: Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, Cambirdge: MIT Press 

External links[link]

• Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (SPCL)
• Association for Portuguese and Spanish Lexically Based Creoles (ACBLPE)
• Language Varieties Web Site
• Groupe Européen de Recherches en Langues Créoles
• Groupe d'Etude et de Recherche en Espace Créolophone (GEREC)
• Associação Brasileira de Estudos Crioulos e Similares (ABECS)
• Society for Caribbean Linguistics (SCL)
• The Online Dictionary of Language Terminology
• Answer.com: Definition "Creoles"

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Creole language

Italian French
Italo Francese

64px
Notable Italian French: Napoleon Bonaparte · Catherine de' Medici · Jules Mazarin · Alexandre Henri Gabriel de Cassini · Léon Gambetta · Émile Zola · Yves Montand · Jean-Paul Belmondo · Jean Alesi
Total population
5,000,000 ~9% of France's population going back three generations
Regions with significant populations
France
Languages
French, Italian, Italian dialects.
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic

Italian migration into what is today France has been going on, in different migrating cycles, for centuries, beginning in prehistoric times right to the modern age.^[1][2] In addition, Corsica passed from the Republic of Genoa to France in 1770, and the area around Nice and Savoy from the Kingdom of Sardinia to France in 1860. Today, it is estimated that as many as five million French nationals have Italian ancestry going back three generations.^[1]

History of Italians in France[link]

Middle Ages and Renaissance[link]

There has always been large migration, since ancient times, between what is today Italy and what is today France. This is especially true of the regions of northwestern Italy and southern France. As Italian wealth and influence grew during the Middle Ages, many Florentine, Genoese, Neapolitan, Piedmontese and Venetian traders, bankers and artisans settled, usually through family branches, throughout France, and posts and Italian colonies sprang up as far north as Paris and Flanders.

This Italian trade network continued through the Renaissance, as previous generations became assimilated. Italian artists, writers and architects were called upon by the French monarchy and aristocrats.

Since the 16th C. Florence, in particular, as a state and Florentines as a business community, had long been enjoying a very close relationship with France.^[3] In 1533, at the age of fourteen, Catherine de' Medici married Henry, second son of King Francis I and Queen Claude of France. Under the gallicised version of her name, Catherine de Médicis, she was Queen consort of France as the wife of King Henry II of France from 1547 to 1559. She became regent on behalf of her ten-year-old son King Charles IX and was granted sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III.

Cardinal Mazarin, born in the Kingdom of Naples was a cardinal, diplomat and politician, who served as the chief minister of France from 1642 unil his death in 1661. Mazarin succeeded his mentor, Cardinal Richelieu, and extended France's political ambitions not only within Italy but towards England as well.

Modern Period[link]

It should be noted that Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor and general, was ethnically Italian of Corsican origin, whose family was of Genoese and Tuscan ancestry.^[4]

Initially, Italian immigration to modern France (late 18th to the early 20th C.) came predominantly from northern Italy (Piedmont, Veneto), then from central Italy (Marche, Umbria), mostly to the bordering southeastern region of Provence.^[1] It wasn't until after World War II that large numbers of immigrants from southern Italy immigrated to France, usually settling in industrialised areas of France, such as Lorraine, Paris and Lyon.^[1]

Autochthonous populations[link]

In both the County of Nice, parts of Savoy, "Italian" can refer to autochthonous speakers of Italian dialects (Ligurian and Piedmontese languages), natives in the region since before annexation to France, and also to descendants of Italians that migrated to the areas when they were part of Italian states. The number of inhabitants with Italian ancestry is generally undeterminable, and the use of French language is now ubiquitous. In addition, Corsica was a part of the Republic of Genoa until 1770 and until recently, most Corsicans spoke the Corsican language, considered by most linguists to be a dialect of Italian, related to Tuscan.

See also[link]

• Italian diaspora

References[link]

African American

Frederick Douglass · Barack Obama · Rosa Parks Condoleezza Rice · M. L. King, Jr. · Beyoncé Knowles Malcolm X · Oprah Winfrey · Booker T. Washington Michael Jordan · Harriet Tubman · Muhammad Ali
Total population
African American 42,020,743[1] (13.6% of the US population)
Regions with significant populations
Predominantly in the Southern United States and in urban areas within the country
Languages
American English · African American Vernacular English · Gullah language
Religion
Predominantly Protestant; also Roman Catholic, Muslim and agnostic
Related ethnic groups
Other Afro-American peoples of the Americas (especially Anglophones) Americo-Liberians · Sierra Leone Creole people Black Nova Scotians, Foreign-born Afro-Americans, Afro-Latin American view talk edit

African Americans^[2] (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States that have ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa.^[3]

African Americans make up the single largest racial minority in the United States.^[4] Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States.^[5][6] However, some immigrants from African, Caribbean, Central American or South American nations, or their descendants, may be identified or self-identify with the term.^[3]

African-American history starts in the 16th century with African slaves who quickly rose up against the Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón and progresses to the present day, with Barack Obama as the 44th and current President of the United States. Between those landmarks there have been events and issues, both resolved and ongoing, including slavery, racism, Reconstruction, development of the African-American community, participation in the great military conflicts of the United States, racial segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement.

History[link]

Slavery era[link]

The first African slaves arrived in the present-day United States as part of the San Miguel de Gualdape colony (most likely located in the Winyah Bay area of present-day South Carolina), founded by Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón in 1526. The ill-fated colony was almost immediately disrupted by a fight over leadership, during which the slaves revolted and fled the colony to seek refuge among local Native Americans. De Ayllón and many of the colonists died shortly afterwards of an epidemic and the colony was abandoned, leaving the escaped slaves behind on North American soil.

In 1565, the colony of Saint Augustine in Florida, founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, became the first permanent European settlement in North America. It included an unknown number of free and enslaved Africans that were part of this colonial expedition.

The first recorded Africans in British North America (including most of the future United States) arrived in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia. As English settlers died from harsh conditions, more and more Africans were brought to work as laborers. The Africans were likely treated as indentured servants, similar in legal position to poor English indenturees, who traded several years labor in exchange for passage to America.^[7] Africans could legally raise crops and cattle to purchase their freedom.^[8] They raised families, marrying other Africans and sometimes intermarrying with Native Americans or English settlers.^[9] By the 1640s and 1650s, several African families owned farms around Jamestown and some became wealthy by colonial standards.

An artist's conception of Crispus Attucks (1723–1770), the first "martyr" of the American Revolution.

The popular conception of a race-based slave system did not fully develop until the 18th century. The Dutch West India Company introduced slavery in 1625 with the importation of eleven black slaves into New Amsterdam (present-day New York City). All the colony's slaves, however, were freed upon its surrender to the British.^[10] Massachusetts was the first British colony to legally recognize slavery in 1641. It was not until 1662 that Virginia ruled that a slave mother's children would remain slaves.^[11]

The first black congregations and churches were organized before 1800 in both northern and southern cities following the Great Awakening. By 1775, Africans made up 20% of the population in the American colonies, which made them the second largest ethnic group after the English.^[12] During the 1770s, Africans, both enslaved and free, helped rebellious English colonists secure American Independence by defeating the British in the American Revolution.^[13] Africans and Englishmen fought side by side and were fully integrated.^[14] James Armistead, an African American, played a large part in making possible the 1781 Yorktown victory, which established the United States as an independent nation.^[15] Other prominent African Americans were Prince Whipple and Oliver Cromwell, who are both depicted in the front of the boat in George Washington's famous 1776 Crossing the Delaware portrait.

By 1860, there were 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the United States due to the Atlantic slave trade, and another 500,000 African Americans lived free across the country.^[16] In 1863, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared that all slaves in states which had seceded from the Union were free.^[17] Advancing Union troops enforced the proclamation with Texas being the last state to be emancipated in 1865.^[18]

Reconstruction and Jim Crow[link]

Jesse Owens shook racial stereotypes both with Nazis and segregationists in the USA at the 1936 Berlin olympics.

African Americans quickly set up congregations for themselves, as well as schools, community and civic associations, to have space away from white control or oversight. While the post-war reconstruction era was initially a time of progress for African Americans, in the late 1890s, Southern states enacted Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation and disenfranchisement.^[19] Most African Americans followed the Jim Crow laws, using a mask of compliance to prevent becoming victims of racially motivated violence. To maintain self-esteem and dignity, African Americans such as Anthony Overton and Mary McLeod Bethune continued to build their own schools, churches, banks, social clubs, and other businesses.^[20]

In the last decade of the 19th century, racially discriminatory laws and racial violence aimed at African Americans began to mushroom in the United States. These discriminatory acts included racial segregation—upheld by the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896^[21]—which was legally mandated by southern states and nationwide at the local level of government, voter suppression or disenfranchisement in the southern states, denial of economic opportunity or resources nationwide, and private acts of violence and mass racial violence aimed at African Americans unhindered or encouraged by government authorities.

Great Migration and Civil Rights Movement[link]

The desperate conditions of African Americans in the South that sparked the Great Migration of the early 20th century,^[22] combined with a growing African American community in the Northern United States, led to a movement to fight violence and discrimination against African Americans that, like abolitionism before it, crossed racial lines. The Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968 was directed at abolishing racial discrimination against African Americans, particularly in the Southern United States. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the conditions which brought it into being are credited with putting pressure on President John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

An African American boy outside of Cincinnati, Ohio in the 1940s

March on Washington, August 28, 1963, shows civil rights and union leaders

Johnson put his support behind passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and labor unions, and the Voting Rights Act (1965), which expanded federal authority over states to ensure black political participation through protection of voter registration and elections. By 1966, the emergence of the Black Power movement, which lasted from 1966 to 1975, expanded upon the aims of the Civil Rights Movement to include economic and political self-sufficiency, and freedom from white authority.^[23]

Post-Civil Rights era[link]

Politically and economically, blacks have made substantial strides during the post-civil rights era. In 1989, Douglas Wilder became the first African-American elected governor in U.S. history. There is currently one black governor; governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts. Clarence Thomas became the second African-American Supreme Court Justice. In 1992 Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois became the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate. There were 8,936 black officeholders in the United States in 2000, showing a net increase of 7,467 since 1970. In 2001 there were 484 black mayors.

On November 4, 2008, Democratic Senator Barack Obama defeated Republican Senator John McCain to become the first African American to be elected President. At least 95 percent of African-American voters voted for Obama.^[24][25] He also received overwhelming support from young and educated whites, a majority of Asians, Hispanics,^[26] and Native Americans^{[27][not in citation given]} picking up a number of new states in the Democratic electoral column.^[24][25] Obama lost the overall white vote, although he won a larger proportion of white votes than any previous nonincumbent Democratic presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter.^[28] The following year Michael S. Steele was elected the first African-American chairman of the national Republican Party.^[29]

Demographics[link]

African Americans as a percentage of total population, 2000.

In 1790, when the first U.S. Census was taken, Africans (including slaves and free people) numbered about 760,000—about 19.3% of the population. In 1860, at the start of the Civil War, the African American population had increased to 4.4 million, but the percentage rate dropped to 14% of the overall population of the country. The vast majority were slaves, with only 488,000 counted as "freemen". By 1900, the black population had doubled and reached 8.8 million. In 1910, about 90% of African Americans lived in the South, but large numbers began migrating north looking for better job opportunities and living conditions, and to escape Jim Crow laws and racial violence. The Great Migration, as it was called, spanned the 1890s to the 1970s. From 1916 through the 1960s, more than 6 million black people moved north. But in the 1970s and 1980s, that trend reversed, with more African Americans moving south to the Sun Belt than leaving it.

The following table of the African American population in the United States over time shows that the African American population, as a percentage of the total population, declined until 1930 and has been rising since then.

By 1990, the African American population reached about 30 million and represented 12% of the U.S. population, roughly the same proportion as in 1900.^[31] In 2010, 38.9 million Americans identified as "Black or African American," representing 12.6% of the population. Controversy has surrounded the "accurate" population count of African Americans for decades. The NAACP believed it was under counted intentionally to minimize the significance of the black population in order to reduce their political power base^{[citation needed]}.

At the time of the 2000 Census, 54.8% of African Americans lived in the South. In that year, 17.6% of African Americans lived in the Northeast and 18.7% in the Midwest, while only 8.9% lived in the western states. The west does have a sizable black population in certain areas, however. California, the nation's most populous state, has the fifth largest African American population, only behind New York, Texas, Georgia, and Florida. According to the 2000 Census, approximately 2.05% of African Americans identified as Hispanic or Latino in origin,^[4] many of whom may be of Brazilian, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Cuban, Haitian, or other Latin American descent. The only self-reported ancestral groups larger than African Americans are the Irish and Germans.^[32] Because many African Americans trace their ancestry to colonial American origins, some simply self-identify as "American".^{[citation needed]}

U.S. cities[link]

Almost 58% of African Americans lived in metropolitan areas in 2000. With over 2 million black residents, New York City had the largest black urban population in the United States in 2000, overall the city has a 28% black population. Chicago has the second largest black population, with almost 1.6 million African Americans in its metropolitan area, representing about 18 percent of the total metropolitan population.

Among cities of 100,000 or more, Detroit, Michigan had the highest percentage of black residents of any U.S. city in 2010, with 82%. Other large cities with African American majorities include New Orleans, Louisiana (60%), Baltimore, Maryland (63%) Atlanta, Georgia (54%), Memphis, Tennessee (61%), and Washington, D.C. (50.7%).

The nation's most affluent county with an African American majority is Prince George's County, Maryland, with a median income of $62,467. Within that county, among the wealthiest communities are Glenn Dale, Maryland and Fort Washington, Maryland. Other affluent predominantly African American counties include Dekalb County in Georgia, and Charles City County in Virginia. Queens County, New York is the only county with a population of 65,000 or more where African Americans have a higher median household income than White Americans.^[33]

Education[link]

Charles F. Bolden, Jr. is the current Administrator of NASA

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist

By 2000, African Americans had advanced greatly. They still lagged overall in education attainment compared to white or Asian Americans, with 14 percent with four year and 5 percent with advanced degrees, though it was higher than for other minorities.^[34] African Americans attend college at about half the rate of whites, but at a greater rate than Americans of Hispanic origin. More African American women attend and complete college than men. Black schools for kindergarten through twelfth grade students were common throughout the U.S., and a pattern towards re-segregation is currently occurring across the country.^[35]

Historically black colleges and universities remain today which were originally set up when segregated colleges did not admit African Americans. As late as 1947, about one third of African Americans over 65 were considered to lack the literacy to read and write their own names. By 1969, illiteracy as it had been traditionally defined, had been largely eradicated among younger African Americans.^[36]

US Census surveys showed that by 1998, 89 percent of African Americans aged 25 to 29 had completed high school, less than whites or Asians, but more than Hispanics. On many college entrance, standardized tests and grades, African Americans have historically lagged behind whites, but some studies suggest that the achievement gap has been closing. Many policy makers have proposed that this gap can and will be eliminated through policies such as affirmative action, desegregation, and multiculturalism.^[37]

In Chicago, Marva Collins, an African American educator, created a low cost private school specifically for the purpose of teaching low-income African American children whom the public school system had labeled as being "learning disabled".^[38] One article about Marva Collins' school stated,

Working with students having the worst of backgrounds, those who were working far below grade level, and even those who had been labeled as 'unteachable,' Marva was able to overcome the obstacles. News of third grade students reading at ninth grade level, four-year-olds learning to read in only a few months, outstanding test scores, disappearance of behavioral problems, second-graders studying Shakespeare, and other incredible reports, astounded the public.^[39]

During the 2006–2007 school year, Collins' school charged $5,500 for tuition, and parents said that the school did a much better job than the Chicago public school system.^[40] Meanwhile, during the 2007–2008 year, Chicago public school officials claimed that their budget of $11,300 per student was not enough.^[41]

Economic status[link]

Economically, African Americans have benefited from the advances made during the Civil Rights era, particularly among the educated, but not without the lingering effects of historical marginalization when considered as a whole. The racial disparity in poverty rates has narrowed. The black middle class has grown substantially. In 2010, 45% of Africa-Americans owned their homes, compared to 67% of all Americans.^[42] The poverty rate among African Americans has decreased from 26.5% in 1998 to 24.7% in 2004, compared to 12.7% for all Americans.^[43] African Americans have a combined buying power of over $892 billion currently and likely over $1.1 trillion by 2012.^[44][45] In 2002, African American-owned businesses accounted for 1.2 million of the US's 23 million businesses.^[46] As of 2011 African American-owned business account for approximately 2 million US businesses.^[47] Black-owned businesses experienced the largest growth in number of businesses among minorities from 2002 to 2011.^[47]

Oprah Winfrey, the wealthiest African American of the 20th century.^[48][49][50] A pair of economists estimate that Winfrey's endorsement of Barack Obama delivered one million votes for him in the close 2008 Democratic primaries.^[51]

In 2004, African American men had the third-highest earnings of American minority groups after Asian Americans and non-Hispanic whites.^[52]

Twenty-five percent of blacks had white-collar occupations (management, professional, and related fields) in 2000, compared with 33.6% of Americans overall.^[53][54] In 2001, over half of African American households of married couples earned $50,000 or more.^[54] Although in the same year African Americans were over-represented among the nation's poor, this was directly related to the disproportionate percentage of African American families headed by single women; such families are collectively poorer, regardless of ethnicity.^[54]

By 2006, gender continued to be the primary factor in income level, with the median earnings of African American men more than those black and non-black American women overall and in all educational levels.^{[55][56][57][58][59]} At the same time, among American men, income disparities were significant; the median income of African American men was approximately 76 cents for every dollar of their European American counterparts, although the gap narrowed somewhat with a rise in educational level.^[55][60]

Overall, the median earnings of African American men were 72 cents for every dollar earned of their Asian American counterparts, and $1.17 for every dollar earned by Hispanic men.^[55][58][61] On the other hand by 2006, among American women with post-secondary education, African American women have made significant advances; the median income of African American women was more than those of their Asian-, European- and Hispanic American counterparts with at least some college education.^[56][57][62]

African Americans are still underrepresented in government and employment. In 1999, the median income of African American families was $33,255 compared to $53,356 of European Americans. In times of economic hardship for the nation, African Americans suffer disproportionately from job loss and underemployment, with the black underclass being hardest hit. The phrase "last hired and first fired" is reflected in the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment figures. Nationwide, the October 2008 unemployment rate for African Americans was 11.1%,^[63] while the nationwide rate was 6.5%.^[64]

The income gap between black and white families is also significant. In 2005, employed blacks earned only 65% of the wages of whites, down from 82% in 1975.^[43] The New York Times reported in 2006 that in Queens, New York, the median income among African American families exceeded that of white families, which the newspaper attributed to the growth in the number of two-parent black families. It noted that Queens was the only county with more than 65,000 residents where that was true.^[33]

In 1999, the rate of births to unwed African American mothers was estimated by economist Walter E. Williams of George Mason University to be 70%.^[65] The poverty rate among single-parent black families was 39.5% in 2005, according to Williams, while it was 9.9% among married-couple black families. Among white families, the comparable rates were 26.4% and 6%.^[66]

According to Forbes magazine's "wealthiest American" lists, a 2000 net worth of $800 million dollars made Oprah Winfrey the richest African American of the 20th century; by contrast, the net worth of the 20th century's richest American, Bill Gates, who is of European descent, briefly hit $100 billion in 1999. In Forbes' 2007 list, Gates' net worth decreased to $59 billion while Winfrey's increased to $2.5 billion,^[67] making her the world's richest black person.^[49][68] Winfrey is also the first African American to make Business Week's annual list of America's 50 greatest philanthropists.^[69] BET founder Bob Johnson was also listed as a billionaire prior to an expensive divorce and as of 2009, had an estimated net worth of $550 million.^[70] Winfrey remains the only African American wealthy enough to rank among the country's 400 richest people.^[67] Some black entrepreneurs use their wealth to create new avenues for both African Americans and new opportunities for American business in general. Examples such as Tyler Perry who created new filming studios in Atlanta, Georgia which makes it possible to film movies and television shows outside of California.^[71]

Religion[link]

Religious affiliation of African Americans

Mount Zion United Methodist Church is the oldest African American congregation in Washington, D.C.

Malcolm Shabazz Mosque in Harlem, New York City

The majority of African Americans are Protestant of whom many follow the historically black churches.^[72] Black church refers to churches which minister predominantly African American congregations. Black congregations were first established by freed slaves at the end of the 17th century, and later when slavery was abolished more African Americans were allowed to create a unique form of Christianity that was culturally influenced by African spiritual traditions.^[73]

According to a 2007 survey, more than half of the African American population are part of the historically black churches.^[74] The largest Protestant denomination among African Americans are the Baptists,^[75] distributed mainly in four denominations, the largest being the National Baptist Convention, USA and the National Baptist Convention of America.^[76] The second largest are the Methodists,^[77] the largest sects are the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.^[76][78] Pentecostals are distributed among several different religious bodies with the Church of God in Christ as the largest among them by far.^[76] About 16% of African American Christians are members of white Protestant communions,^[77] these denominations (which include the United Church of Christ) mostly have a 2 to 3% African American membership.^[79] There are also large numbers of Roman Catholics, constituting 5% of the African American population.^[74] Of the total number of Jehovah's Witnesses, 22% are black.^[72]

Some African Americans follow Islam. Historically, between 15 to 30% of enslaved Africans brought to the Americas were Muslims, but most of these Africans were converted to Christianity during the era of American slavery.^[80] However during the 20th century, some African Americans converted to Islam, mainly through the influence of black nationalist groups that preached with distinctive Islamic practices; these include the Moorish Science Temple of America, though the largest organization was the Nation of Islam, founded during the 1930s, which attracted at least 20,000 people as of 1963,^[81][82] prominent members included activist Malcolm X and boxer Muhammad Ali.^[83]

Malcolm X is considered the first person to start the movement among African Americans towards mainstream Islam, after he left the Nation and made the pilgrimage to Mecca.^[84] In 1975, Warith Deen Mohammed, the son of Elijah Muhammad who took control of the Nation after his death, guided majority of its members to orthodox Islam.^[85] However, few members rejected these changes, in particular Louis Farrakhan, who revived the Nation of Islam in 1978 based on its original teachings.

African American Muslims constitute 20% of the total U.S. Muslim population,^[86] the majority are Sunni or orthodox Muslims, some of these identify under the community of W. Deen Mohammed.^[87][88] The Nation of Islam led by Louis Farrakhan has a membership from 20,000—50,000 members.^[89]

There are relatively few African American Jews; estimates of their number range from 20,000^[90] to 200,000.^[91] Most of these Jews are part of mainstream groups such as the Reform, Conservative, or Orthodox branches of Judaism; although there are significant numbers of people who are part of non-mainstream Jewish groups, largely the Black Hebrew Israelites, whose beliefs include the claim that African Americans are descended from the Biblical Israelites.^[92]

Contemporary issues[link]

African Americans have improved their social and economic standing significantly since the Civil Rights Movement and recent decades have witnessed the expansion of a robust, African American middle class across the United States. Unprecedented access to higher education and employment in addition to representation in the highest levels of American government has been gained by African Americans in the post-civil rights era.

Nevertheless, due in part to the legacy of slavery, racism and discrimination, African Americans as a group remain at a pronounced economic, educational and social disadvantage in many areas relative to European Americans. Persistent social, economic and political issues for many African Americans include inadequate health care access and delivery; institutional racism and discrimination in housing, education, policing, criminal justice and employment; crime, poverty and substance abuse.^{[citation needed]}

One of the most serious and long standing issues within African American communities is poverty. Poverty itself is a hardship as it is related to marital stress and dissolution, health problems, low educational attainment, deficits in psychological functioning, and crime.^[93] In 2004, 24.7% of African American families lived below the poverty level.^[43] In 2007, the average African American income was $33,916, compared with $54,920 for whites.^[94]

Politics and social issues[link]

President Barack Obama at White House Easter Egg Roll.

Collectively, African Americans are more involved in the American political process than other minority groups in the United States, indicated by the highest level of voter registration and participation in elections among these groups in 2004.^[95] African Americans collectively attain higher levels of education than immigrants to the United States.^[95] African Americans also have the highest level of Congressional representation of any minority group in the U.S.^[96]

The large majority of African Americans support the Democratic Party. In the 2004 Presidential Election, Democrat John Kerry received 88% of the African American vote compared to 11% for Republican George W. Bush.^[97] Although there is an African-American lobby in foreign policy, it has not had the impact that African American organizations have had in domestic policy.^[98]

Historically, African Americans were supporters of the Republican Party because it was Republican President Abraham Lincoln who helped in granting freedom to American slaves; at the time, the Republicans and Democrats represented the sectional interests of the North and South, respectively, rather than any specific ideology, and both right and left were represented equally in both parties.

The African American trend of voting for Democrats can be traced back to the 1930s during the Great Depression, when Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program provided economic relief to African Americans; Roosevelt's New Deal coalition turned the Democratic Party into an organization of the working class and their liberal allies, regardless of region. The African American vote became even more solidly Democratic when Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson pushed for civil rights legislation during the 1960s.

After over 50 years, marriage rates for all Americans began to decline while divorce rates and out-of-wedlock births have climbed.^[99] These changes have been greatest among African Americans. After more than 70 years of racial parity black marriage rates began to fall behind whites.^[99] Single-parent households have become common, and according to US census figures released in January 2010, only 38 percent of black children live with both their parents.^[100] Despite that and heavy Democratic leanings, African Americans favor "traditional American values" about family and marriage.

While 52% of Democrats support same-sex marriage, only 30% of black Democrats do. In 2008, though Democrats overwhelmingly voted (64%) against the California ballot proposition banning gay marriage, blacks overwhelmingly approved (70% in favor) it, more than any other racial group.^[101] The high-profile candidacy of Barack Obama is credited with increasing black turnout on the bill which has been seen as the crucial difference in its passing.^[102]

Blacks also hold far more conservative opinions on abortion, extramarital sex, and raising children out of wedlock than Democrats as a whole.^[102] On financial issues, however, African Americans are very much in line with Democrats, generally supporting a more progressive tax structure to provide more services and reduce injustice and as well as more government spending on social services.^[103]

News media and coverage[link]

BET founder Robert L. Johnson with former U.S. President George W. Bush

Some activists and academics contend that news media coverage of African American news concerns or dilemmas is inadequate^{[104][105][106]} or the news media present distorted images of African Americans.^[107] To combat this, Robert L. Johnson founded Black Entertainment Television, a network that targets young African Americans and urban audiences in the United States. Most programming on the network consists of rap and R&B music videos and urban-oriented movies and series. The channel also shows syndicated television series, original programs, and some public affairs programs. On Sunday mornings, BET broadcasts a lineup of network-produced Christian programming; other, non-affiliated Christian programs are also shown during the early morning hours daily. BET is now a global network that reaches 85 million viewers in the Caribbean, Canada, and the United Kingdom.^[108]

In addition to BET there is Centric, which is a spin-off cable television channel of BET, created originally as BET on Jazz to showcase jazz music-related programming, especially that of black jazz musicians. Programming has been expanded to include a block of urban programs as well as some R&B, neo soul, and alternative hip hop, with the focus on jazz reduced to low-profile hours.^[109]

TV One is another African American-oriented network and a direct competitor to BET, targeting African American adults with a broad range of programming. The network airs original lifestyle and entertainment-oriented shows, movies, fashion and music programming, as well as classic series such as 227, Good Times, Martin, Boston Public and It's Showtime at the Apollo. The network primarily owned by Radio One. Founded and controlled by Catherine Hughes, it is one of the nation's largest radio broadcasting companies and the largest African American-owned radio broadcasting company in the United States.^[110]

Other African American networks scheduled to launch in 2009 are the Black Television News Channel founded by former Congressman J. C. Watts and Better Black Television founded by Percy Miller.^[111][112] In June 2009, NBC News launched a new website named The Grio^[113] in partnership with the production team that created the black documentary film, Meeting David Wilson. It is the first African American video news site which focuses on underrepresented stories in existing national news. The Grio consists of a broad spectrum of original video packages, news articles, and contributor blogs on topics including breaking news, politics, health, business, entertainment and Black History.^[114]

Cultural influence in the United States[link]

The King & Carter Jazzing Orchestra photographed in Houston, Texas, January 1921

From their earliest presence in North America, African Americans have contributed literature, art, agricultural skills, foods, clothing styles, music, language, social and technological innovation to American culture. The cultivation and use of many agricultural products in the U.S., such as yams, peanuts, rice, okra, sorghum, grits, watermelon, indigo dyes, and cotton, can be traced to African and African American influences. Notable examples include George Washington Carver, who created 300 products from peanuts, 118 products from sweet potatoes, and 75 from pecans; and George Crum, who invented the potato chip in 1853.^[115]

African American music is one of the most pervasive African American cultural influences in the United States today and is among the most dominant in mainstream popular music. Hip hop, R&B, funk, rock and roll, soul, blues, and other contemporary American musical forms originated in black communities and evolved from other black forms of music, including blues, doo-wop, barbershop, ragtime, bluegrass, jazz, and gospel music.

African American-derived musical forms have also influenced and been incorporated into virtually every other popular musical genre in the world, including country and techno. African American genres are the most important ethnic vernacular tradition in America, as they have developed independent of African traditions from which they arise more so than any other immigrant groups, including Europeans; make up the broadest and longest lasting range of styles in America; and have, historically, been more influential, interculturally, geographically, and economically, than other American vernacular traditions.^[116]

African Americans have also had an important role in American dance. Bill T. Jones, a prominent modern choreographer and dancer, has included historical African American themes in his work, particularly in the piece "Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land". Likewise, Alvin Ailey's artistic work, including his "Revelations" based on his experience growing up as an African American in the South during the 1930s, has had a significant influence on modern dance. Another form of dance, Stepping, is an African American tradition whose performance and competition has been formalized through the traditionally black fraternities and sororities at universities.^[117]

Many African American authors have written stories, poems, and essays influenced by their experiences as African Americans. African-American literature is a major genre in American literature. Famous examples include Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou.

African American inventors have created many widely used devices in the world and have contributed to international innovation. Norbert Rillieux created the technique for converting sugar cane juice into white sugar crystals. Moreover, Rillieux left Louisiana in 1854 and went to France, where he spent ten years working with the Champollions deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics from the Rosetta Stone.^[118] Most slave inventors were nameless, such as the slave owned by the Confederate President Jefferson Davis who designed the ship propeller used by the Confederate navy.^[119]

Chuck Berry in Örebro, Berry is considered a pioneer of American Rock and roll

B.B. King is a blues guitarist and songwriter acclaimed for his expressive singing and guitar playing

By 1913 over 1,000 inventions were patented by black Americans. Among the most notable inventors were Jan Matzeliger, who developed the first machine to mass-produce shoes,^[120] and Elijah McCoy, who invented automatic lubrication devices for steam engines.^[121] Granville Woods had 35 patents to improve electric railway systems, including the first system to allow moving trains to communicate.^[122] Garrett A. Morgan developed the first automatic traffic signal and gas mask.^[123]

Lewis Howard Latimer invented an improvement for the incandescent light bulb.^[124] More recent inventors include Frederick McKinley Jones, who invented the movable refrigeration unit for food transport in trucks and trains.^[125] Lloyd Quarterman worked with six other black scientists on the creation of the atomic bomb (code named the Manhattan Project.)^[126] Quarterman also helped develop the first nuclear reactor, which was used in the atomically powered submarine called the Nautilus.^[127]

A few other notable examples include the first successful open heart surgery, performed by Dr. Daniel Hale Williams,^[128] and the air conditioner, patented by Frederick McKinley Jones.^[125] Dr. Mark Dean holds three of the original nine patents on the computer on which all PCs are based.^[129] More current contributors include Otis Boykin, whose inventions included several novel methods for manufacturing electrical components that found use in applications such as guided missile systems and computers,^[130] and Colonel Frederick Gregory, who was not only the first black astronaut pilot but the person who redesigned the cockpits for the last three space shuttles. Gregory was also on the team that pioneered the microwave instrumentation landing system.^[131]

Political legacy[link]

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. remains the most prominent political leader in the American civil rights movement and perhaps the most influential African American political figure in general.

African Americans have fought in every war in the history of the United States.^[132]

The gains made by African Americans in the Civil Rights and Black Power movements not only obtained certain rights for African Americans, but changed American society in far-reaching and fundamentally important ways. Prior to the 1950s, Black Americans in the South were subject to de jure discrimination, or Jim Crow. They would often be the victims of extreme cruelty and violence, sometimes resulting in deaths: by the post WWII era, African Americans became increasingly discontented with their long-standing inequality. In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., African Americans and their supporters challenged the nation to "rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed that all men are created equal ..."^[133]

The Civil Rights Movement marked a sea-change in American social, political, economic and civic life. It brought with it boycotts, sit-ins, demonstrations, court battles, bombings and other violence; prompted worldwide media coverage and intense public debate; forged enduring civic, economic and religious alliances; and disrupted and realigned the nation's two major political parties.

Over time, it has changed in fundamental ways the manner in which blacks and whites interact with and relate to one another. The movement resulted in the removal of codified, de jure racial segregation and discrimination from American life and law, and heavily influenced other groups and movements in struggles for civil rights and social equality within American society, including the Free Speech Movement, the disabled, women, Native Americans, and migrant workers.

The term "African American"[link]

Political overtones[link]

Michelle Robinson Obama is the First Lady of the United States, the first African American to hold the position

The term African American carries important political overtones. Earlier terms used to identify Americans of African ancestry were conferred upon the group by colonists and Americans of European ancestry. The terms were included in the wording of various laws and legal decisions which some thought were being used as tools of white supremacy and oppression.^[134] There developed among blacks in America a growing desire for a term of self-identification of their own choosing.

With the political consciousness that emerged from the political and social ferment of the late 1960s and early 1970s, blacks no longer approved of the term Negro. They believed it had suggestions of a moderate, accommodationist, even "Uncle Tom" connotation. In this period, a growing number of blacks in the United States, particularly African American youth, celebrated their blackness and their historical and cultural ties with the African continent. The Black Power movement defiantly embraced Black as a group identifier. It was a term social leaders themselves had repudiated only two decades earlier, but they proclaimed, "Black is beautiful".

In this same period, a smaller number of people favored Afro-American, a common shortening (as is 'Anglo-American'). However, after the decline in popularity of the 'Afro' hairstyle in the late 1970s, the term fell out of use.^{[citation needed]}

In the 1980s the term African American was advanced on the model of, for example, German-American or Irish-American to give descendents of American slaves and other American blacks who lived through the slavery-era a heritage and a cultural base.^[134] The term was popularized in black communities around the country via word of mouth and ultimately received mainstream use after Jesse Jackson publicly used the term in front of a national audience. Subsequently, major media outlets adopted its use.^[134]

Some such as Maulana Karenga and Owen Alik Shahadah argue African-American is more appropriate because it accurately articulates geography and historical origin. Thus linking a people to a continent as oppose to an abstract color.^[135] Others believe the term black is inaccurate because African Americans have a variety of skin tones.^{[citation needed]} Surveys show that the majority of Black Americans have no preference for "African American" or "Black,"^[136] although they have a slight preference for "Black" in personal settings and "African American" in more formal settings.^[137] Many African-Americans expressed a preference for the term, as it was formed in the same way as names for others of the many ethnic groups in the nation. Some argued further that, because of the historical circumstances surrounding the capture, enslavement and systematic attempts to de-Africanize blacks in the United States under chattel slavery, most African Americans are unable to trace their ancestry to a specific African nation; hence, the entire continent serves as a geographic marker.

For many, African American is more than a name expressive of cultural and historical roots. The term expresses pride in Africa and a sense of kinship and solidarity with others of the African diaspora—an embrace of pan-Africanism as earlier enunciated by prominent African thinkers such as Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois and George Padmore.

Who is African American?[link]