**** Creole language -- Bickerton's definition

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In _Roots of Language_, Bickerton defines creoles in the following way:

"In general, the term _creole_ is used to refer to any language which was once a pidgin and which subsequently became a native language. . . .Since my aim here is not to account for the origins of all languages known as creoles . . . but rather to search for certain fundamental properties of human language in general, my interests lie, not in creoles per se, but in situations where the normal continuity of language transmission is most severerly disrupted...."

"Accordingly, in the text that follows, I shall use the word creole to refer to languages which:

1) Arose out of a prior pidgin which had not existed for more than a generation.

2) Arose in a population where not more than 20 percent were native speakers of the dominant language and where the remaining 80 percent was composed of diverse language groups." (_Roots of Language_ 2-4)

-- Bickerton's project ........................... <[LINK]>