Editing Creole language (section)

====Foreigner talk and baby talk====
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]].<ref>See, for example, {{Harvcoltxt|Ferguson|1971}}</ref>

{{Harvcoltxt|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, {{Harvcoltxt|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, commentators have raised a number of criticisms of this explanation:<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Wardhaugh|2002|p=73}}</ref>
# There are a great many grammatical similarities amongst pidgins and creoles despite having very different [[lexifier]] languages.<!-- That is actually a fiercely debated point, see elsewhere in the article -->
# Grammatical simplification can be explained by other processes, i.e. the innate grammar of [[Derek Bickerton|Bickerton's]] [[language bioprogram theory]].<!-- This theory is highly controversial and presupposes the acceptance of some form of psychological nativism – which most non-Chomskyan linguists reject -->
# Speakers of a creole's lexifier language often fail to understand, without learning the language, the grammar of a pidgin or creole.
# 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. {{Harvcoltxt|Bloomfield|1933}} points out that FT is often based on the imitation of the incorrect speech of the non-natives, that is the pidgin.<!-- Non-native speech is not necessarily pidgin at all! --> Therefore, one may be mistaken in assuming that the former gave rise to the latter.