Nativization

Nativization is the process whereby a language gains native speakers. This happens necessarily where a second language used by adult parents becomes the native language of their children. Nativization has been of particular interest to linguists, and to creolists more specifically, where the second language concerned is a pidgin.

Several explanations of creole genesis have relied on prior nativization of a pidgin as a stage in achieving creoleness. This is true for Hall's (1966) notion of the pidgin-creole life cycle as well as Bickerton's language bioprogram theory.

Examples of creole genesis that can be attributed undisputedly to the children-nativizing factor are few. The Tok Pisin language reported by Sankoff & Laberge (1972) is one such language where such a conclusion could be reached by scientific observation. Children of Gastarbeiter pidgin German speaking parents acquiring seamlessly German without creolization, another case of observable nativization, is an obvious counterexample. Broad treatments of creolization phenomena such as Arends et al. (1995) acknowledge now as a matter of standard that the pidgin-nativization scheme is only one of many possible explanations with possible theoretical validity...