EFL is launching Linguodex, a podcast that explores the vocabulary of linguistics one word at a time. Each episode starts from a single term and invites the researcher who knows it best to explain it: where it comes from, what it precisely designates, and the misconceptions it often carries.
The podcast’s name reflects this ambition: building, episode by episode, a genuine index of the field — a notebook that grows richer with each new word.
First word: creole
The first episode is devoted to the word creole, with Nicolas Quint, senior researcher at the CNRS and member of LLACAN (Language, Languages and Cultures of Africa).
A specialist in Cape Verdean Creole, which he has studied since 1995, Nicolas Quint explains what scientifically defines a creole language — one born from the encounter of several languages, which in turn becomes the native language of a community — and traces the origin of the term, which emerged with Portuguese and Spanish maritime expansion in the late 15th century.
The episode also takes on a persistent misconception: that creoles are somehow “incomplete” languages because they carry less morphology than the European languages from which they draw part of their vocabulary. It’s a bias Nicolas Quint still encounters regularly, including in scientific contexts — and one he dismantles from decades of fieldwork.