Editing Creole language (section)

===Social and political status===
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, the word "creole" was generally used by linguists in opposition to "language", rather than as a [[Grammatical modifier|qualifier]] for it.<ref name=Meijer>See {{Harvcoltxt|Meijer|Muysken|1977}}.</ref>

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 (these critics including the earliest advocates of the [[wave model (linguistics)|wave model]], [[Johannes Schmidt (linguist)|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]].<ref name=DeCamp /><ref name=Meijer /><ref name="Traugott 1977">{{Harvcoltxt|Traugott|1977}}</ref>

[[File:Timoun Syèj (Creole).jpg|thumb|[[Haitian Creole]] in use at car rental counter in [[Florida]], U.S. in 2014]]

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.<ref name=DeCamp /><ref name=Sebba /><ref>Holm (1988, 1989) <!-- which one? --></ref> At the same time, linguists have begun 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.

There is controversy about the extent to which creolization influenced the evolution of [[African-American Vernacular English]] (AAVE). In the American education system, as well as in the past, the use of the word [[Ebonics (word)|''ebonics'']] to refer to AAVE mirrors the historical negative connotation of the word ''creole''.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Williams|first=Robert L.|date=2016-07-25|title=The Ebonics Controversy|journal=Journal of Black Psychology|language=en|volume=23|issue=3|pages=208–214|doi=10.1177/00957984970233002|s2cid=145764278}}</ref>