Hip-hop dance

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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip-hop_dance

 

Hip-hop dance
A b-boy performing in Turkey surrounded by a group of spectators.
Main Styles
Breaking – Locking – Popping
Derivative Styles
Street	Memphis Jookin' – Turfing – Jerkin' – Krumping
Studio	Commercial/New Style – Jazz-funk – Lyrical hip-hop
Cultural Markers
Influences	Uprock – Roboting – Boogaloo
Attributes	Crews – Freestyle – Battles- Cyphers-
Cultural Origins
Turntables – Funk – African Americans – Puerto Rican Americans – Hhhhhhdyla N dancing/Party dancing

Hip-hop dance refers to street dance styles primarily performed to hip-hop music or that have evolved as part of hip-hop culture. It includes a wide range of styles primarily breaking which was created in the 1970s and made popular by dance crews in the United States. The television show Soul Train and the 1980s films Breakin', Beat Street, and Wild Style showcased these crews and dance styles in their early stages; therefore, giving hip-hop mainstream exposure. The dance industry responded with a commercial, studio-based version of hip-hop—sometimes called "new style"—and a hip-hop influenced style of jazz dance called "jazz-funk". Classically trained dancers developed these studio styles in order to create choreography from the hip-hop dances that were performed on the street. Because of this development, hip-hop dance is practiced in both dance studios and outdoor spaces.

The commercialization of hip-hop dance continued into the 1990s and 2000s with the production of several television shows and movies such as The Grind, Planet B-Boy, Rize, StreetDance 3D, America's Best Dance Crew, Saigon Electric, the Step Up film series, and The LXD, a web series. Though the dance is established in entertainment, including mild representation in theater, it maintains a strong presence in urban neighborhoods which has led to the creation of street dance derivatives Memphis jookin, turfing, jerkin', and krump.

1980s films, television shows, and the Internet have contributed to introducing hip-hop dance outside the United States. Since being exposed, educational opportunities and dance competitions have helped maintain its presence worldwide. Europe hosts several international hip-hop dance competitions such as the UK B-Boy Championships, Juste Debout, and EuroBattle. Australia hosts a team-based competition called World Supremacy Battlegrounds and Japan hosts a two-on-two competition called World Dance Colosseum.

What distinguishes hip-hop from other forms of dance is that it is often "freestyle" (improvisational) in nature and hip-hop dance crews often engage in freestyle dance competitions—colloquially referred to as "battles". Crews, freestyling, and battles are identifiers of this style. Hip-hop dance can be a form of entertainment or a hobby. It can also be a way to stay active in competitive dance and a way to make a living by dancing professionally.

History

Hip-hop dance is a broad category that includes a variety of styles. The older dance styles that were created in the 1970s include uprock, breaking, and the funk styles. Breaking was created in The Bronx, New York in the early 1970s. In its earliest form, it began as elaborations on James Brown's "Good Foot" dance which debuted in 1972. Breaking at this period was not primarily floor-oriented as seen today; it started out as toprock which dancers perform while standing up. An influence on toprock was uprock which was created in Brooklyn, New York. Uprock looks similar to toprock, but it is more aggressive and looks like a fight. Uprock is also performed with partners, but in toprock—and in breaking in general—each person takes turns dancing. In 1973, DJ Kool Herc invented the break beat. A break beat is a rhythmic, musical interlude of a song that has been looped over and over again to extend that instrumental solo. Kool Herc did this to provide a means for dancers who attended his parties to demonstrate their skills. B-boy and b-girl stands for "break-boy" and "break-girl"; b-boys and b-girls dance to the break of a record. Further influenced by martial arts and gymnastics, breaking went from being a purely upright dance style—toprock only—to becoming more floor-oriented.

At the same time that breaking was developing in New York, other styles were being created in California. The funk styles refer to several street dance styles created in California in the 1970s such as roboting, bopping, hitting, locking, bustin', popping, boogaloo, strutting, sac-ing, and dime-stopping. Out of all of these dances, Boogaloo is one of the oldest. It started out as a 1960s fad dance and was the subject of several songs released during that time such as "Do the Boogaloo" and "My Baby Likes to Boogaloo". From being a fad, it developed into a street dance style called Boogaloo in Oakland, CA, as well as a separate music genre called Latin boogaloo. The most popular and widely practiced of the funk styles are Locking and popping. The television show Soul Train played a large role in giving these styles commercial exposure. Both The Lockers and The Electric Boogaloos—dance crews responsible for the spread of locking and popping—performed on this show.

It is historically inaccurate to say that the funk styles were always considered hip-hop. In an interview with Racked, Moncell Durden, assistant dance professor at the University of Southern California, is quoted as saying "Hip-hop dance involves two dances: breaking and social dances. That's it. Nothing else is hip-hop." The funk styles were adopted into hip-hop in large part due to the media. The media identified these styles as "breakdance" which caused confusion about their origin. They were created on the west coast independent from breaking and were originally danced to funk music, rather than hip-hop music.

As breaking, locking, and popping gained popularity in the 1980s, hip-hop social dancing (party dancing) started to develop. Novelty and fad dances such as the Roger Rabbit, the Cabbage Patch, and the Worm appeared in the 1980s followed by the Humpty dance and the Running Man in the 1990s. The music of the day was the driving force in the development of these dances. For example, the 1980s rap group Gucci Crew II had a song called "The Cabbage Patch" that the dance of the same name was based on. 2000s era social dances include the Cha Cha Slide, the Cat Daddy, and the Dougie. The previously mentioned dances are a sample of the many that have appeared since hip-hop developed into a distinct dance style. Like hip-hop music, hip-hop social dancing continues to change as new songs are released and new dances are created to accompany them.

Main styles

Breaking

A b-boy in an airchair freeze at Street Summit 2006 in Moscow.

Breaking was created in the South Bronx, New York City during the early 1970s. It is the first hip-hop dance style. At the time of its creation, it was the only hip-hop dance style because Afrika Bambaataa classified it as one of the five pillars of hip-hop culture along with MCing (rapping), DJing (turntablism), graffiti writing (bombing), and knowledge. Though African Americans created breaking, Puerto Ricans maintained its growth and development when it was considered a fad in the late 1970s. In a 2001 interview Richard "Crazy Legs" Colón, the president of Rock Steady Crew, commented on how Puerto Ricans contributed to breaking: "I think the difference is when the brothas first started doing [it] and it was at its infancy they weren't doing acrobatic moves. That didn't come into play until more Puerto Ricans got involved in the mid 70s. We then took the dance, evolved it and kept it alive. In '79 I was getting dissed. I would go into a dance and I would get dissed by a lot of brothas who would ask 'Why y'all still doing that dance? That's played out'. By 79, there were very few African American brothas that was doing this... We always maintained the flava. It was like a changing of the guard and all we did was add more flava to something that already existed." Breaking includes four foundational dances: toprock, footwork-oriented steps performed while standing up; downrock, footwork performed with both hands and feet on the floor; freezes, stylish poses done on your hands; and power moves, complex and impressive acrobatic moves. Transitions from toprock to downrock are called "drops."

Traditionally, breakers dance within a cypher or an Apache Line. A cypher is a circular shaped dance space formed by spectators that breakers use to perform or battle in. Cyphers work well for one-on-one b-boy or b-girl (break-boy/break-girl) battles; however, Apache Lines are more appropriate when the battle is between two crews—teams of street dancers. In contrast to the circular shape of a cypher, competing crews face each other in an Apache Line, challenge each other, and execute their burns (a move intended to humiliate the opponent, i.e. crotch grabbing).

Locking

Locking, originally called Campbellocking, was created in 1969 in Los Angeles, California by Don "Campbellock" Campbell and popularized by his crew The Lockers. In addition to Campbell, the original members of The Lockers were Fred "Mr. Penguin" Berry, Leo "Fluky Luke" Williamson, Adolfo "Shabba-Doo" Quiñones, Bill "Slim the Robot" Williams, Greg "Campbellock Jr" Pope, and Toni Basil, who also served as the group's manager. At the 2009 World Hip Hop Dance Championships, Basil became the first female recipient of the Living Legend Award in honor of her role in giving locking commercial exposure.

Locking looks similar to popping, and the two are frequently confused by the casual observer. In locking, dancers hold their positions longer. The lock is the primary move used in locking. It is "similar to a freeze or a sudden pause." A locker's dancing is characterized by frequently locking in place and after a brief freeze moving again. According to Dance Spirit magazine, a dancer cannot perform both locking and popping simultaneously; thus, it is incorrect to call locking "pop-locking". While both styles are from Los Angeles, locking and popping are two distinct funk styles with their own histories, their own set of dance moves, their own pioneers, and their own competition categories. Locking is more playful and character-driven, whereas popping is more illusory. In popping, dancers push the boundaries of what they can do with their bodies. Locking has specific dance moves that distinguish it from popping and other funk styles. In the 2006 book Total Chaos, hip-hop historian Jorge "Popmaster Fabel" Pabon lists some of these moves which include "the lock, points, skeeter [rabbits], scooby doos, stop 'n go, which-away, and the fancies." In addition, Lockers commonly use a distinctive dress style characterized by colorful clothing with stripes and suspenders.

Popping

External video

Watch: "The Black Messengers as Mechanical Device performing Boogaloo techniques Posing Hard and popping on the Gong Show, aired on national tv in 1977 (4-min mark)" on YouTube

Popping was derived from the earlier Boogaloo street dance movement taking place in Oakland, California during the late 1960s, the Boogaloo dance form incorporated techniques of soulful footwork steps, arm movements, stop-motion animation, the robot, & posing hard - which contracted muscles during robotic poses to the music of Funk. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s - Boogaloo groups in Oakland, CA such as One Plus One, the Black Resurgents and the Black Messengers would help popularize the dance. Early Boogaloo movements would inspire groups throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and eventually spread to Fresno, California in the 1970s and popularized by Samuel "Boogaloo Sam" Solomon and his crew the Electric Boogaloos. It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in a dancer's body, referred to as a pop or a hit. It is also known as Posing Hard from the Boogaloo tradition, this technique was innovated by the Boogaloo group, the Black Messengers from Oakland. When performed correctly, each hit is synchronized to the rhythm and beats of the music. Popping is also used as an umbrella term to refer to a wide range of closely related illusionary dance styles such as strobing, liquid, animation, twisto-flex, and waving. Dancers often integrate these styles with standard popping to create a more varied performance. In all of these subgenres it appears to the spectator that the body is popping. The difference between each subgenre is how exaggerated the popping is. In liquid, the body movements look like water. The popping is so smooth that the movements do not look like popping at all; they look fluid. The opposite of this is strobing (also called ticking) in which the movements are staccato and jerky.

Popping as an umbrella term also includes gliding. Gliding is a lower body dance performed with little to no movements in the chest or arms. In gliding a dancer appears as if they are drifting across the floor on ice. Opposite from gliding is tutting, an upper body dance that uses the arms, hands, and wrists to form right angles and create geometric box-like shapes. Tutting can be done primarily with the fingers rather than the arms. This method is called finger tutting. In both variations the movements are intricate, linear, and form 90° or 45° angles. In practice, tutting looks like the characters on the art of ancient Egypt, hence the name—a reference to King Tut.

While popping as an umbrella term is widely used by hip-hop dancers and in competitive hip-hop dancing, Timothy "Popin' Pete" Solomon of the Electric Boogaloos disagrees with the use of the word "popping" in this way. Many of these related styles (animation, liquid, tutting, etc.) can not be traced to one person or group. Solomon states "There are people who wave and there are people who tut. They're not popping. I say this to give the people who created other styles their just dues and their props."

Derivative street styles

Decades after breaking, locking, and popping became established, four new dance styles appeared. Three of them come from California and one comes from Tennessee. Memphis Jookin' was created in the 1980s in Memphis, Tennessee. It is an evolution of an older Memphis line dance called The Gangsta' Walk. According to Dance magazine, jookin is characterized by dancers "gliding footwork... popping and waving... [and] using the tips of their sneakers to balance on pointe." Gliding on tiptoes is fundamental to this dance. While watching a jookin' battle in Jackson, Tennessee, dance critic Alastair Macaulay observed that "the most evidently sensational feature of jookin is the extensive use of what a ballet observer is bound to call pointwork: the men, in sneakers, go onto tiptoe... many of the men not only rose onto point but also hopped, turned, ran and balanced on point." Jookers have traditionally practiced their moves at the Crystal Palace skating rink in Memphis, which is akin to how milongueros practice their moves in public spaces in Buenos Aires.

Turfing, an acronym for Taking Up Room on the Floor, was created in 2002 by Jeriel Bey in Oakland, California. Turfing is a fusion of miming and gliding that places heavy emphasis on storytelling (through movement) and illusion. Other than San Francisco Bay Area pride, turfing avoided becoming a fad due to local turf dance competitions and local youth programs that promote turfing as a form of physical activity.

The dance style Jerkin' was popularized in 2009 by the New Boyz's rap song "You're a Jerk". This song went viral via their MySpace page before they had a manager or were signed to a record label. After hearing about the song, Los Angeles radio station Power 106 hired the New Boyz to perform at local high schools. These shows led to "You're a Jerk" entering the radio's playlist. Later the same year, rap duo Audio Push released the song and video "Teach Me How to Jerk" which showcased the different dance moves within jerkin' including the Reject—the Running Man done in reverse. Dancers who perform jerkin' typically wear bright colors, skinny jeans, Mohawks, and Vans sneakers. This trend echos locking dancers in the 1970s who traditionally wore suspenders and black and white striped socks. Of the dance, journalist Jeff Weiss from LA Weekly stated "For a youth culture weaned on the cult of individualism, jerkin' is its apotheosis." Similar to breaking, locking, and popping, jerkin's popularity spread through dance crews. For example, The Rej3ctz (crew) created both the Cat Daddy and the Reject dance moves.

Although jookin', turfing, and jerkin' generated regional support and media attention, none have reached the same zenith as krumping. Ceasare "Tight Eyez" Willis and Jo'Artis "Big Mijo" Ratti created krumping in the early 2000s in South Central, Los Angeles. It was only practiced in Los Angeles until it gained mainstream exposure after being featured in several music videos and showcased in the krumping documentary Rize. Rize was screened at several film festivals before it was commercially released in the summer of 2005. Clowning, the less aggressive predecessor to krumping, was created in 1992 by Thomas "Tommy the Clown" Johnson. Johnson and his dancers would paint their faces and perform clowning for children at birthday parties or for the general public at other functions as a form of entertainment. In contrast, krumping focuses on highly energetic battles and movements which Johnson describes as intense, fast-paced, and sharp. Of the dance, journalist Taisha Paggett from Dance magazine stated "If movement were words, [krumping] would be a poetry slam." Compared to breaking and the funk styles, jookin', turfing, jerkin', and krumping are relatively new. The music driving the dances and the cultural similarities between these street dance styles, the funk styles, and breaking have brought them together under the same subculture of hip-hop.

Dance industry

Commercial/New Style

The dance industry responded to hip-hop dance by creating a commercial version of it. This urban choreography or studio hip-hop, sometimes called "new style", is the kind of hip-hop dance seen in rap, R&B, and pop music videos and concerts. From the point of view of someone deeply immersed in hip-hop culture, anything that looks like hip-hop dance that did not come from the streets and is not improvisational in nature is not a true hip-hop dance form. In an interview with Dance magazine, choreographer and hip-hop dance teacher Emilio "Buddha Stretch" Austin, Jr. described his point-of-view:

“

There are a lot of jazz dancers out there doing pseudo hip hop. A lot of teachers don't know the history, they're just teaching the steps. They're learning from videos, but they don't know the culture. If all you see is Britney Spears, you think that's hip hop, but that's never been hip hop. It's completely watered down. And studios could [sic] care less, because hip hop is one of their biggest moneymakers.

”

Stage performance can suppress improvisation which defined hip-hop dance early in its development. Furthermore, meshing different dance styles together dissolves their structures and identities. In an interview with The Bronx Journal, choreographer and artistic director Safi Thomas expressed a similar qualm as Austin concerning hip-hop instruction within the studio:

“

In a lot of studios what you find is people just doing movement to hip-hop music. So if there's hip-hop music in the background, and they're moving, they're calling it a hip-hop class. The problem with that is let's say I wanted to teach a ballet class and I just come in, and I throw on Mozart, and I just start moving—and I'm not doing any of the foundational elements. I am not doing any of the movement vocabulary of ballet. I can not call that a ballet class and that's what happens in relation to hip-hop... within the studio realm there is no standard for the art form, and [the teachers] don't know what the foundational elements of the art are. They know nothing about popping, nothing about locking, nothing about boogaloo, breaking, or the hip-hop dance—the social dances—or any of that. They know none of the history which spans over 30–35 years, and so they pretty much cut off any type of edification that a dancer can have.

”

Hip-hop dancer Joseph Coine performing in 2011 in Wallace Theater at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

 

The term "new style" was created by dancers outside the United States. According to Moncell Durden, adjunct professor at Drexel University and director of the film History and Concept of Hip-Hop Dance, the 1992 dance documentary Wreckin' Shop From Brooklyn was very influential to hip-hop dancers in France and Japan. These dancers wanted to move like the New York hip-hop dancers who were profiled in the documentary. They called the social dancing (party dancing) they saw "new style" which was short for "New York Style".

In the context of the commercial dance industry, hip hop (or new style hip-hop for dancers in France and Japan) is choreographed urban party dancing with studio technique added to it. From a technical aspect, it is characterized as hard-hitting involving flexibility and isolations—moving a specific body part independently from others.

"I would say that Toni Basil was sort of our Abe Saperstein in terms of how she was able to organize us into a professional dance troupe. I remember her teaching us how to count music. She was like, okay, we were like, count music? How do you count soul? It was crazy, you know?... all of our cues kind of went something like this, boom, pop, do boom, pada da boom, pada like that. And she was like, how do you guys get in sync like that? I said it's a feeling, you know?"

Adolfo "Shabba-Doo" Quiñones;
The Lockers

A significant juncture in the development of hip-hop was the addition of eight-counts, a method of counting dance steps to stay in sync with the music. Toni Basil introduced this studio technique into locking in the 1970s. Basil was trained in ballet before being introduced to street dance by Don Campbell, the creator of locking and founding member of The Lockers dance crew. She is responsible for teaching the rest of The Lockers how to dance to counts. Traditionally hip-hop dance, or any form of street dance, is not performed to counts as these styles were created on the street rather than in a studio setting. Therefore, the introduction of counts was a pivotal move into bringing hip-hop dance from the street into the studio. Even with this addition, it would be years before commercial hip-hop developed into its current form.

A second important event in the development of hip-hop was the start of hip-hop dance instruction. Buddha Stretch was a pioneer in this field. He started teaching formal hip-hop dance classes in 1989 at Broadway Dance Center in New York City where he continues to teach today. Around the same time, hip-hop party dancing started to appear in music videos and on television—this was another important point in the development and commercialization of hip-hop. An early example of this is when Janet Jackson performed the Running Man in her 1989 music video for the song "Rhythm Nation" which was choreographed by street dancer Anthony Thomas. The dance was so popular during this time it was also performed by 1990s rappers MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice in their choreographed routines. Michael Jackson also used hip-hop in his 1992 music video "Remember The Time" which was choreographed by a then 21-year-old Fatima Robinson. At the time, Robinson was a street dancer with no formal training and "Remember the Time" was her first music video job. According to MTV.com, "Dances have always been a part of hip-hop culture — from the running man to the Soulja Boy dance..." and this era was the start of commercial hip-hop choreography as it looks today: dance routines are not specific to one genre (strictly popping, strictly locking, or strictly breaking) but rather an amalgamation of urban party dancing with studio technique added to it.

Jazz-funk

Another style the dance industry created in response to hip-hop was jazz-funk. Jazz-funk (also called street-jazz) is a hybrid of hip-hop and jazz dance. This style was shown in its early form on a sketch comedy series called In Living Color. The resident dance troupe, The Fly Girls, opened and closed every show with a hip-hop and jazz performance choreographed by Rosie Perez. R&B singer Beyoncé uses this style. Korean dance crew Prepix also uses this style. They have choreographed for K-pop singers Jay Park and G.NA as well as for K-pop boy bands 2PM and B2ST. Although jazz-funk borrows from hip-hop dance, it is not considered a style of hip-hop because the foundational movements are jazz. In hip-hop—even in lyrical hip-hop—there are no pirouettes or arabesques and dancers do not perform on relevé (on the balls of the feet). However, these methods are used in jazz-funk and in jazz dance in general.

Business developments

Other developments in the dance industry occurred in response to the growing popularity of hip-hop. On the traveling convention circuit there were tap, ballet, and jazz dance conventions, but there were none specifically for hip-hop. The same void existed in dancewear. There was dancewear for tap, ballet, and jazz dancers but none for hip-hop dancers. Monsters of Hip Hop and Nappytabs dancewear were formed to answer to both needs. Nappytabs is the first line of hip-hop dancewear. Because their clothing is made for hip-hop dancers, they do not sell leotards, unitards, tights, or leg warmers. Their line consists of tank tops, shorts, t-shirts, sweat pants, harem pants, and hoodies. Monsters of Hip Hop (MOHH) was founded in 2003 in Baltimore, Maryland by Andy Funk, Becky Funk, and Angie Servant. The convention is dedicated exclusively to hip-hop instruction. Fatima Robinson, Stefan "Mr. Wiggles" Clemente, and Timothy "Popin' Pete" Solomon have taught classes at MOHH in the past. Every year, the convention brings together its top student dancers for a professionally choreographed showcase in Los Angeles called Monsters of Hip Hop: The Show.

MOHH may have been the first hip-hop dance convention, but it is not the only one that exists. Urban Dance Camp (UDC) is a six-week-long German-based dance convention held every year in Lörrach, a small town on the border of France and Switzerland. In a report on the event by a local paper, Bettina Kraft, the manager of UDC, estimated that 85% of the participants were from outside Germany. In 2009 Kraft created Urban Dance Showcase, a parallel event to UDC reserved only for performances by professional choreographers, dance crews, and UDC teachers. Dancers such as Shaun Evaristo, Les Twins, I.aM.mE, b-boy Lilou, and b-boy Hong 10 have performed at the showcase in the past.

Aside from dancewear and conventions, developments in agency representation occurred as well. Although limited, representation for individual dancers had existed since the 1980s at the beginning of the music video era due to the pioneering work of talent agent Julie McDonald. However, the UK-based dance agencies ProDance and Superbad Talent were created to exclusively represent street dancers.

Entertainment

Movies

The entertainment industry has been largely responsible for introducing hip-hop dance to mainstream audiences around the world. The first hip-hop films Wild Style, Beat Street, and Breakin' were made in the 1980s. When Wild Style opened in Japan, Rock Steady Crew performed breaking in Tokyo's Harajuku shopping district to promote the film. Wild Style was the first movie centered around hip-hop culture; however, Flashdance was the first commercially released film to feature breaking. In 1984, Beat Street was released in West Germany and screened at the Cannes Film Festival which helped to introduce breaking, graffiti writing, and turntablism to this part of Europe. Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo brought the funk styles to the cinema. Breaking, locking, popping, and waacking were performed in these films. At this time in the 1980s, the United States was not the only country producing hip-hop films. In 1985, Yuen Woo-ping directed a hip-hop themed romantic comedy in Hong Kong called Mismatched Couples starring Donnie Yen. Another hip-hop film, Electro Rock, was released the same year in the United Kingdom. This film featured a then 14-year-old Hanifa "Bubbles" McQueen Hudson, the UK's first b-girl.

Several hip-hop dance films were produced after the millennium. The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy, Neukölln Unlimited, B-Girl, Bouncing Cats, Planet B-Boy, and Battle of the Year: The Dream Team all showcase breaking. Films such as Honey, Save the Last Dance, You Got Served, the Step Up film series, StreetDance 3D, Hype Nation, Saigon Electric, Berlin Dance Battle 3D, and ABCD: Any Body Can Dance showcase all forms of hip-hop dance, especially new style hip-hop. Rize, The Heart of Krump, and Shake City 101 are documentaries about krumping. All of these movies and documentaries are examples of films where the plot and theme surround hip-hop dance and how it affects the characters' lives. Bouncing Cats is the story of b-boy Abraham "Abramz" Tekya who uses b-boying to empower youth in Uganda. In 2010, the film won "Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Filmmaking" at Newport Beach Film Festival and "Best Documentary Feature" at Urbanworld Film Festival. Saigon Electric was Vietnam's first hip-hop film. It was written, produced, and directed by Vietnamese-American filmmaker Stephane Gauger. The film is about two female dancers (a ribbon dancer and a hip-hop dancer) and how their respective romances, the threat of their community center being torn down, and the stress of an upcoming dance battle affects their friendship. The film was choreographed by Viet Max and Ricky Cole. In 2012, it won a Golden Kite Prize (the Vietnamese equivalent of The Oscars/BAFTAs) for "Best Film" and "Best Actress".

Television

Before reaching movie audiences, hip-hop dance was already being broadcast on television. Soul Train was a syndicated, music variety show that featured social dancing and performances by African-American soul, funk, and R&B singers. The show was broadcast in South Korea via the US Armed Forces Korea Network. Before officially becoming a crew, The Lockers made several appearances on this show. After becoming a crew, The Electric Boogaloos also appeared on the show. Soul Train premiered in 1970. During its 36 year run, the resident freestyle dancers were referred to as the Soul Train Gang. Auditions were held in 1971 when the show moved from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California. Dancers who wanted to get on Soul Train after this time had to rely on word-of-mouth recommendations from dancers who were already employed by the show. A regular feature during the broadcast was the Soul Train Line. To participate, the dancers formed two lines of equal length facing each other with a large space in between them. Each dancer in line would take their turn dancing down the middle.

Other music variety shows on television at this time were American Bandstand, Solid Gold, and Top of the Pops. Unlike Soul Train which focused on soul and funk, these shows promoted Top 40 music and pop acts. Solid Gold employed a permanent dance troupe called the Solid Gold Dancers who performed choreographed routines to musical performances. Lucinda Dickey, an actress and dancer who played the lead role in the Breakin' films, appeared on the show during the 1982–1983 season as a Solid Gold dancer. In 1983, street dancers Marc "Mr. Freeze" Lemberger from Rock Steady Crew, Timothy "Popin' Pete" Solomon and Dane "Robot Dane" Parker from the Electric Boogaloos, and locking dancers Alpha "Omega" Anderson and Lewis "Deputy" Green also appeared on Solid Gold during a performance to the song "What a Feeling" from the movie Flashdance. In 1982 during a performance in London on Top of the Pops, street dancer Jeffrey Daniel performed popping and the backslide during the song "A Night to Remember". This was the first time popping was shown on British television, thus spreading its popularity in the United Kingdom. A year later, Michael Jackson also performed the backslide during a performance of "Billie Jean" on the Motown 25 TV special. He called it the moonwalk and his performance spread its popularity all over the world to much larger extent than Daniel's performance did. It was Jeffrey Daniel who taught Michael Jackson how to do the backslide/moonwalk.

The JabbaWockeez, winners of the first season of America's Best Dance Crew, performing in 2008 at Vivid Nightclub in San Jose, California.

A few hip-hop dance shows appeared on television in the 1990s such as 1991's The Party Machine with Nia Peeples and 1992's The Grind. Several hip-hop dance shows premiered in the 2000s including (but not limited to) Dance Fever, Dance 360, The Wade Robson Project, MTV Dance Crew, America's Best Dance Crew, Dance on Sunset, and Shake It Up. In 2006, MTV France documented the creation of a dance crew for an original series called MTV Dance Crew. Viewers were able to see the crew from auditions to the selection of the final eight who were subsequently named Original Soul. Original Soul was coached by three professional choreographers who mentored them and helped refine their dancing. Over the course of 32 episodes they routinely participated in professional dance battles including the popping battle at Juste Debout, the Seven 2 Smoke battle at The Notorious IBE, and b-boy battles at Chelles Battle Pro. B-boy Lilou, b-boy crew Phase T, and promoter Bruce Ykanji (the founder of Juste Debout) all made appearances in the show.

The founders of Hip Hop International, Howard and Karen Schwartz, created the reality hip-hop dance competition America's Best Dance Crew (ABDC) in 2008. On the show, different crews competed in dance challenges against each other every week. ABDC contributed to the exposure of several crews such as Jabbawockeez, Quest, Beat Freaks, and Poreotics. These crews now have official websites, work with musical artists, and perform at live events. The JabbaWockeeZ had a show in Las Vegas, Nevada called MÜS.I.C. at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino. MÜS.I.C. was the first hip-hop dance stage show on the Las Vegas Strip. In 2012, the Jabbawockeez performed the show during a five-month residency at the Jupiters Hotel and Casino in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. Both Poreotics and Hokuto "Hok" Konishi from Quest were nominated for a 2011 MTV Video Music Award for Best Choreography. Poreotics was nominated with singer Bruno Mars for his video "The Lazy Song". Hok was nominated for LMFAO's video "Party Rock Anthem"; the rest of Quest crew appeared in the video as featured dancers.

In contrast to ABDC, individual dancers from all backgrounds compete on the reality dance competition So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD) and World of Dance (WOD). It has a similar premise to the Idol series of singing competitions with initial auditions leading to the selection of a winner over the course of several episodes. In 2008, poppers Robert "Mr. Fantastic" Muraine and Phillip "Pacman" Chbeeb auditioned during season four of the US SYTYCD series. Neither made it to the final "Top 20", but the judges were so impressed with their dancing that both were invited back to participate in a popping battle against each other on the show's live finale. According to Muraine, this was the first popping battle that was nationally televised. After the battle, hip-hop dancer Joshua Allen was declared the winner of season four of the competition. The same year Mona-Jeanette Berntsen, a hip-hop dancer from Norway, won the first season of So You Think You Can Dance Scandinavia. In 2017, hip hop duo Les Twins won the inaugural season of World of Dance. Hip hop dance crew The Lab won the following year. 

Hip-hop dance has also been popular among viewers of the Got Talent series. French hip-hop dancer Salah won the first season of Incroyable Talent in 2006. French b-boy Junior won the second season in 2007. In 2008, hip-hop dancer George Sampson won Britain's Got Talent, Danish popping and roboting duo Robot Boys won Talent 2008 (da), and hip-hop dance crew Quick won the Norwegian version of the show. After George Sampson, dance crew Diversity won the next season of Britain's Got Talent in 2009. The same year, Brazilian crew D-Efeitos won Qual é o Seu Talento? (What's Your Talent?). In 2010, Justice Crew won Australia's Got Talent. After signing a recording contract with Sony Music Australia, Justice Crew shot a video for their single "Dance with Me" featuring rapper Flo Rida and America's Best Dance Crew alumni Beat Freaks. In 2015, nine years after he won Incroyable Talent, hip-hop dancer Salah won the fourth season of Arabs Got Talent.

Theater

Choreographer and artistic director Rennie Harris in 2011.

Though hip-hop dancing is established on film and on television, it has not gained the same level of exposure in theater. This may be due to the fact that the dance is performed more in film and in television than it is in a theatrical setting. B-boy and popper Stefan "Mr. Wiggles" Clemente and hip-hop historian Jorge "Popmaster Fabel" Pabon were involved in hip-hop theater at its inception. Their dance company, GhettOriginal, produced the first hip-hop stage shows: 1991's off Broadway musical So! What Happens Now? and 1995's Jam on the Groove. Both shows were performed by the Rock Steady Crew, Magnificent Force, and the Rhythm Technicians. Aside from the pioneers in New York City was Rennie Harris' Puremovement hip-hop theater company. Harris founded Puremovement in 1992 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of Puremovement's theater shows Rome & Jewels won two Black Theater Alliance Awards and three Bessie Awards. In 2012, Harris and his company toured Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian territories as part of Dance Motion USA, a program sponsored by the US State Department to showcase American dance to other countries and promote cultural exchange.

German b-boy pioneer Niels "Storm" Robitzky has his performance roots in hip-hop theater. In 1991, Robitzky—who went by the name "Swipe"—left Germany with his crew Battle Squad for New York City to look for b-boy legends they could study under. When he got to New York, he met b-boy Gabriel "Kwikstep" Dionisio who personally mentored him and introduced him to New York techniques. While in New York, he also learned about the funk styles from Clemente. Clemente and Dionisio knew each other since Dionisio was an original member of both GhettOriginal and the Rhythm Technicians. A year later in 1992, Robitzky performed with GhettOriginal at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and at the Lincoln Center in New York City. It was Dionisio who gave Robitzky a new name, "Storm". In 2000, he wrote a book called Von Swipe zu Storm: Breakdance in Deutschland (From Swipe to Storm: Breakdance in Germany).

Dancers in the United Kingdom have had success in hip-hop theater. In 2006, hip-hop dance company Boy Blue Entertainment won a Laurence Olivier Award for their show Pied Piper. In 2008, Into the Hoods became the first hip-hop theater show to perform in London's West End. It eventually went on to become the West End's longest running dance show ever.

Online content

YAK Films is a three-man team that films urban dance around the world. It was founded in Oakland, California by Yoram Savion and Kash Grimes. Their first videos were of the Turf Feinz dance crew performing turfing—a regional hip-hop dance style from Oakland. After generating significant views on YouTube, they started YAK (Yoram And Kash) Films and added music producer Ben "B'zwax" Tarquin to the team. From shooting videos only in the United States, they were able to easily transition to covering dance events in Europe due to Savion's dual French citizenship. In 2009, they filmed Battle of the Year's first one-on-one b-boy competition, and in 2010 they filmed dance battles at Juste Debout, a French street dance competition. Some of their more popular videos have been featured in Oakland Local and the Huffington Post.

Juba Films was founded in Germany by Julien Bam and Gong Bao. Rather than film freestyle content, Juba ("Ju"lien and "Ba"o) produces short films with a storyline. For their short b-boy film "More Than Bread", they won first place at the 7th International Online Dance Festival in 2011. In 2012, the Daily Mail wrote an article about Juba's short film "With a Piece of Chalk" after the video went viral and started trending on Mashable. Both Juba Films and YAK Films appeared at The Notorious IBE's New Dance Media Conference discussing the relationship between street dance and visual arts. Although Juba Films has won an award and YAK Films has booked high-profile events, they are not the only film production teams distributing hip-hop dance videos on the Internet. House of Crews, Strife TV, Pacific Rim Video Press, ProDance TV, Battle Fest Extreme, Urban Dance Show, Ocke Films, World of Dance Network, and Canal Street TV also produce hundreds of high-quality hip-hop dance content.

The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (The LXD) was a good-versus-evil themed web series about a group of dancers who discover they have super powers through their dance moves. Each character specializes in one dance style. Consequently, a wide range of styles are displayed including krumping, tutting, breaking, locking, boogaloo, and popping. The majority of the dancing shown in the series is hip-hop; however, other styles were also performed including jazz, tap, and ballet. AdvertisingAge.com gave the series a favorable review stating "...each episode of 'LXD' packs a wealth of narrative sophistication into its eight or nine minutes. Combine this with the theater-worthy production values and a cast that exerts itself to an ungodly extent, and the end result is – pun time! – extraordinary." The LXD premiered July 7, 2010 on Hulu. In 2012, Jon Chu, the writer, director, and producer of The LXD, launched a dance channel on YouTube called DS2DIO (pronounced D-Studio). Through this channel, Chu also made The LXD available on YouTube. Before then, it could only be viewed on Hulu. September 2019 Independent Artist E-Styles Dropped a Music Video The Poetic Flow via Youtube featuring one of most popular YouTube dancers today Non Stop Marquese Scott and new up in coming dancer Alian 2 Wavy. The video focus on Hip Hop Dance and Culture. 

International competitions

The 2010 winners of the b-boy crew battle at Freestyle Session Taiwan.

• UK B-Boy Championships was founded by DJ Hooch in 1996 in London. There are four world championship titles: breaking crew champions, solo b-boy champion, solo popping champion, and solo hip-hop champion. The world finals also include the "Fresh Awards" (best dressed) which are hosted and judged every year by Richard "Crazy Legs" Colón—the president of Rock Steady Crew. In 2011, DJ Hooch wrote a book about the competition called B-Boy Championships: From Bronx to Brixton.
• Freestyle Session was founded in 1997 in California by graffiti writer and DJ Chris "Cros1" Wright. It is the largest breaking competition in the United States. The main competitive event is for b-boy crews, but there are also popping and locking competitions for solo competitors. Although the US is the flagship location for Freestyle Session, it is not the only country where it is held. Promoters outside the US pay Cros1 to use Freestyle Session's name and fly him to their location to judge the competition. Using this method, Freestyle Session has been held in 18 other countries including Poland, Russia, Switzerland, and Venezuela.
• Hip Hop International (HHI) was founded in 2002 in the United States by Howard and Karen Schwartz. There are two categories of competitions: World Battles and World Hip Hop Dance Championship. Within the World Battles category, there are four titles including three-on-three breaking champions, one-on-one popping champion, one-on-one locking champion, and one-on-one all styles (freestyle) champion. The World Hip Hop Dance Championship is for hip-hop crews. There are four divisions: junior (ages 8–12), varsity (13–17), adult (18+), and mega crew (all ages). Each crew must have at least five but not more than nine people (mega crew must have 15–40) and must perform a routine that showcases three styles of hip-hop dance. For the 2009 competition, there were 120 crews representing 30 countries. HHI also created the USA Hip Hop Dance Championship and the television show America's Best Dance Crew.
• Juste Debout was founded in 2002 by Bruce Ykanji in Paris. Competition categories include popping, hip-hop, locking, house, toprock, and experimental. Breaking is not included to put more focus on dance styles performed while standing up, hence the name (French for Just Standing). There are not any team trophies at Juste Debout. The experimental and toprock categories are only for solo dancers; popping, new style, locking, and house are for duos. In 2008, Ingrid "Shéyen" Gamboa, the editor-in-chief of Juste Debout magazine, wrote a book called Hip-hop: L'histoire de la danse (Hip Hop: A history of the dance).
• United Dance Organisation (UDO) was founded in 2002 in the United Kingdom. UDO operates the British Street Dance Championships, the European Street Dance Championships, the North American Championships, and the World Street Dance Championships. The European championships are held in Germany rather than in the UK.
• Street Dance Kemp Europe (SDK Europe) is a competition and dance convention founded in 2004 in Jedovnice, Czech Republic. There is a hip-hop crew battle and solo battles for house, krumping, locking, hip-hop male, and hip-hop female dancers. SDK Europe begins every year in the summer and lasts seven days. Daytime hours are reserved primarily for dance workshops and classes taught by an international pool of instructors; competitive events are held at night. All of the classes, workshops, and competitive events are held outside.
• EuroBattle was founded in 2005 in Portugal by Max from Momentum crew. There are five competitive events for solo dancers including b-boying, b-girling, hip-hop, locking, and popping.^[182] The international final is held in Porto but the winner of the Spanish qualifying tournament also gets to compete at the UK B-Boy Championships in London.
• World Supremacy Battlegrounds is a hip-hop dance competition based in Australia. The heritage of World Supremacy Battlegrounds goes back to 2002 when it began as GROOVE, a local hip-hop competition held in Sydney. Over the three years that followed, the competition was renamed Battlegrounds and went national to include dance crews from all over Australia. It became international in 2006 when crews from the Philippines, Japan, and New Zealand entered the competition. There are four dance crew categories: open (all ages), junior (12 and under), varsity (12–18), and monster (all ages, 20–40 members). For the 2011 competition, teams from Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, Guam, New Zealand, Samoa, and South Africa came to compete.
• World of Dance Tour (WOD) was founded in 2008 by Myron Marten and David Gonzales in Pomona, California. It differs from other competitions because there is no final championship. WOD travels to different cities in the United States, Canada, and Europe and holds a competition in each location; therefore, WOD distinguishes itself as a tour. Each tour stop is a stand-alone competition; they are all related to each other in name only. In 2013, WOD traveled to New York City, Vallejo, Seattle, Vancouver, Berlin, Dallas, Toronto, San Diego, Montreal, Eindhoven, Boston, Orlando, Houston, Chicago, Seattle, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Union City, and Antwerp. WOD reached a larger audience in 2017 when NBC started airing a television show based off the competition.
• World Dance Colosseum is a two-on-two dance competition founded in Japan. There are five two-on-two world championship titles: b-boying, locking, popping, hip-hop, and house. Japanese dancers qualify for the international final through preliminary tournaments held in the country but foreign dancers do not qualify through tournaments because 30 of the top-ranked foreign dancers are automatically invited to participate in the final. At the final, the winning duos from the Japanese tournaments compete against the top-ranked foreign duos to determine who is the best.
• Vibe Dance Competition is a choreography competition that was started by Joseph Lising in 1995 as a Greek Talent Show at UC Irvine. It later evolved into one of the biggest competitions for choreography hip hop teams in the world, hosting teams from all over the US, Canada, the Philippines, and Japan.

Education

In 2004, Safi Thomas founded the Hip-Hop Dance Conservatory (HHDC) in New York City. Thomas' goal was to provide a comprehensive education to hip-hop dancers that was comparable to what ballet, modern, and jazz dancers experience at their respective institutions. HHDC provides a formal curriculum with dance classes (breaking, freestyle, locking, etc.) and academic classes (dance theory, physiology, kinesiology, etc.) to people who want to pursue hip-hop dance as a career. It is the only educational institution in the United States that is exclusively dedicated to hip-hop dance instruction. HHDC does not grant degrees. It is a non-profit organization and repertory company that grants certifications to dancers that complete the three-year program.

Three years later in 2007, the University of East London's Center for Performing Arts Development (CPAD) started intake for the only bachelor's degree program in the world specializing in hip-hop, urban, and global dance forms. The CPAD's program also lasts three years, but it is not exclusive to hip-hop. Students also study African dance, kathak, Bollywood, and capoeira.

Creole language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_language

Road sign in Guadeloupe Creole meaning Slow down. Children are playing here. The literal translation is "Lift your foot [from the accelerator]. There are children playing here".

A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. While the concept is similar to that of a mixed or hybrid language, creoles are often characterized by a tendency to systematize their inherited grammar (e.g., by eliminating irregularities or regularizing the conjugation of otherwise irregular verbs). Like any language, creoles are characterized by a consistent system of grammar, possess large stable vocabularies, and are acquired by children as their native language. These three features distinguish a creole language from a pidgin. Creolistics, or creology, is the study of creole languages and, as such, is a subfield of linguistics. Someone who engages in this study is called a creolist.

The precise number of creole languages is not known, particularly as many are poorly attested or documented. About one hundred creole languages have arisen since 1500. These are predominantly based on European languages such as English and French due to the European Age of Discovery and the Atlantic slave trade that arose at that time. With the improvements in ship-building and navigation, traders had to learn to communicate with people around the world, and the quickest way to do this was to develop a pidgin, or simplified language suited to the purpose; in turn, full creole languages developed from these pidgins. In addition to creoles that have European languages as their base, there are, for example, creoles based on Arabic, Chinese, and Malay. The creole with the largest number of speakers is Haitian Creole, with almost ten million native speakers, followed by Tok Pisin with about 4 million, most of whom are second-language speakers. 

The lexicon (or, roughly, the base or essential vocabulary – such as "say" but not "said, tell, told") of a creole language is largely supplied by the parent languages, particularly that of the most dominant group in the social context of the creole's construction. However, there are often clear phonetic and semantic shifts. On the other hand, the grammar that has evolved often has new or unique features that differ substantially from those of the parent languages.

Overview

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. The pidgin-creole life cycle was studied by American linguist Robert Hall in the 1960s.

Some linguists, such as Derek Bickerton, posit that creoles share more grammatical similarities with each other than with the languages from which they are phylogenetically derived. However, there is no widely accepted theory that would account for those perceived similarities. Moreover, no grammatical feature has been shown to be specific to creoles.

Many of the creoles known today arose in the last 500 years, as a result of the worldwide expansion of European maritime power and trade in the Age of Discovery, which led to extensive European colonial empires. Like most non-official and minority languages, creoles have generally been regarded in popular opinion as degenerate variants or dialects of their parent languages. Because of that prejudice, many of the creoles that arose in the European colonies, having been stigmatized, 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. Some creoles have even been granted the status of official or semi-official languages of particular political territories.

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 in 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.

History

Etymology

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'), all coming from Latin creare ('to produce, create'). 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 who 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, Kréol, Kreyol, Kreyòl, 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

As a consequence of colonial European trade patterns, most of the known European-based creole languages arose in coastal areas in the equatorial belt around the world, including the Americas, western Africa, Goa along the west of India, and along Southeast Asia up to Indonesia, Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Malaysia, Mauritius, Reunion, 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, and in the Indian Ocean.

Atlantic Creole languages are based on European languages with elements from African and possibly Amerindian 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

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 qualifier for it.

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, 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.

Haitian Creole in use at car rental counter, USA

 

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. 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. 

Creolization is widely thought to be a leading influence on the evolution of African-American English (AAE). The controversy surrounding African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the American education system, as well as the past use of the word ebonics to refer to it, mirrors the historical negative connotation of the word creole.

Classification

Historic classification

According to their external history, four types of creoles have been distinguished: plantation creoles, fort creoles, maroon creoles, and creolized pidgins. 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 "French creole", "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.

Substrate and superstrate

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). 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.

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. 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. 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. 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. In the literature on Atlantic Creoles, "superstrate" usually means European and "substrate" non-European or African.

Decreolization

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.

It is generally acknowledged that creoles have a simpler grammar and more internal variability than older, more established languages. However, these notions are occasionally challenged.

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 what is now Quebec in the 17th and 18th century. 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. French and English are particularly close, since English, through extensive borrowing, is typologically closer to French than to other Germanic languages. Thus the claimed similarities between creoles may be mere consequences of similar parentage, rather than characteristic features of all creoles.

Creole genesis

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

In addition to the precise mechanism of creole genesis, a more general debate has developed whether creole languages are characterized by different mechanisms in opposition to traditional languages (which is McWhorter's 2018 main point) or whether in that regard creole languages develop by the same mechanisms as any other languages (e.g. DeGraff 2001).

Theories focusing on European input

Monogenetic theory of pidgins and creoles

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 seventeenth 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 nineteenth century and popularized in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Taylor, Whinnom, Thompson, and Stewart. However, this hypothesis is no longer actively investigated, as there are examples of creoles, such as Hezhou, which evidently have nothing to do with the Lingua Franca.

Domestic origin hypothesis

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.

European dialect origin hypothesis

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. Within this theoretical framework, a French creole is a language phylogenetically based on French, more specifically on a 17th-century koiné French extant in Paris, the French Atlantic harbours, and the nascent French colonies. Supporters of this hypothesis suggest that the non-Creole French dialects still spoken in many parts of the Americas share mutual descent from this single koiné. These dialects are found in Canada (mostly in Québec and in Acadian communities), Louisiana, Saint-Barthélemy and as isolates in other parts of the Americas. Approaches under this hypothesis are compatible with gradualism in change and models of imperfect language transmission in koiné genesis.

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.

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, commentators have raised a number of criticisms of this explanation:

1. There are a great 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

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.

Theories focusing on non-European input

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. 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

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.

Universalist approaches

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 a general process of discourse organization. Bickerton's language bioprogram theory, proposed in the 1980s, remains the main universalist theory. 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 stem from those innate abilities being universal.

Recent studies

The last decades have 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.

Creole prototype

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

John McWhorter 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.

Exceptionalism

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. Gil has replied that Riau Indonesian has a simpler grammar than Saramaccan, the language McWhorter uses as a showcase for his theory. The same objections were raised by Wittmann in his 1999 debate with McWhorter.

The lack of progress made in defining creoles in terms of their morphology and syntax has led scholars such as Robert Chaudenson, Salikoko Mufwene, Michel DeGraff, 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 populations and slavery.

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 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, DeGraff and others 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.

Controversy

Creolistics investigates the relative creoleness of languages suspected to be creoles, what Schneider (1990) calls "the cline of creoleness." No consensus exists among creolists as to whether the nature of creoleness is prototypical or merely evidence indicative of a set of recognizable phenomena seen in association with little inherent unity and no underlying single cause.

"Creole", a sociohistoric concept

Creoleness is at the heart of the controversy with John McWhorter and Mikael Parkvall opposing Henri Wittmann (1999) and Michel DeGraff. In McWhorter's definition, creoleness is a matter of degree, in that prototypical creoles exhibit all of the three traits he proposes to diagnose creoleness: little or no inflection, little or no tone, transparent derivation; In McWhorter's view, less prototypical creoles depart somewhat from this prototype. Along these lines, McWhorter defines Haitian Creole, exhibiting all three traits, as "the most creole of creoles." A creole like Palenquero, on the other hand, would be less prototypical, given the presence of inflection to mark plural, past, gerund, and participle forms. Objections to the McWhorter-Parkvall hypotheses point out that these typological parameters of creoleness can be found in languages such as Manding, Sooninke, and Magoua French which are not considered creoles. Wittmann and DeGraff come to the conclusion that efforts to conceive a yardstick for measuring creoleness in any scientifically meaningful way have failed so far. Gil (2001) comes to the same conclusion for Riau Indonesian. Muysken & Law (2001) have adduced evidence as to creole languages which respond unexpectedly to one of McWhorter's three features (for example, inflectional morphology in Berbice Dutch Creole, tone in Papiamentu). Mufwene (2000) and Wittmann (2001) have argued further that Creole languages are structurally no different from any other language, and that Creole is in fact a sociohistoric concept (and not a linguistic one), encompassing displaced population and slavery. DeGraff & Walicek (2005) discuss creolistics in relation to colonialist ideologies, rejecting the notion that Creoles can be responsibly defined in terms of specific grammatical characteristics. They discuss the history of linguistics and nineteenth-century work that argues for the consideration of the sociohistorical contexts in which Creole languages emerged.

"Creole", a genuine linguistic concept

On the other hand, McWhorter points out that in languages such as Bambara, essentially a dialect of Manding, there is ample non-transparent derivation, and that there is no reason to suppose that this would be absent in close relatives such as Mandinka itself. Moreover, he also observes that Soninke has what all linguists would analyze as inflections, and that current lexicography of Soninke is too elementary for it to be stated with authority that it does not have non-transparent derivation. Meanwhile, Magoua French, as described by Henri Wittmann, retains some indication of grammatical gender, which qualifies as inflection, and it also retains non-transparent derivation. Michel DeGraff's argument has been that Haitian Creole retains non-transparent derivation from French. 

To the defense of DeGraff and Wittmann it must be said that McWhorter's 2005 book is a collection of previously published papers and that it contains nothing on "defining creole", Manding, Sooninke or Magoua that wasn't already known when DeGraff and Wittmann published their critiques as can be seen from their published debate. As it is, McWhorter's book does not offer anything new by the way of analysis of Manding, Soninke, or Magoua that wasn't already debated on in his exchange with Wittmann on Creolist. The issues in question are, at this point, unresolved as to sustaining McWhorter's hypotheses in any significant way though DeGraff's 2005 contribution addresses their weaknesses as far as Haitian Creole is concerned adding new evidence against. The only conclusion possibly so far as the typological differences between Manding, Soninke, Magoua and Haitian are concerned is that their comparative data do not confirm McWhorter's yardstick approach to defining creole.

Proposed synthesis

The answer might be that creoleness is better described and referred to as a syndrome. In some cases, the modified source language might be the substrate language when warranted by a homogeneous substrate. In other cases, the modified source language clearly is what creolists identify as the superstrate language' and in still other cases, no single source language might be identifiable. The same approach must be applied to identifying individual features as inherited or non-inherited and to distilling the defining grounds which separate creole languages from mixed languages such as Michif, especially when relexification is somehow claimed to be a moving factor.

The answer might also be, however, that creole languages (i.e. like Haitian Creole) are indeed a unique in terms of the perspective that they offer on the human language competence in terms of the nature of their grammars though there have been no new responses to the counter-claims of DeGraff and Wittmann that would warrant the reopening of the debate as for now. However, Ansaldo, Matthews & Lim (2007) critically assesses the proposal that creole languages exist as a homogeneous structural type with shared and/ or peculiar origins.

Though the call for a sane approach to creolistics goes back to Givón (1979), the first unbiased overview of the scientifically meaningful characteristics of creole languages must go to the credit of Arends, Muysken & Smith (1995) . In their account of approaches to creole genesis, they group theories into four categories:

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

The authors also confine Pidgins and mixed languages into separate chapters outside this scheme whether or not relexification come into the picture.