Mindanao Chabacano and other ‘mixed creoles’

Mindanao Chabacano owes many of its features (including over 10% of its basic and more of its non-basic lexicon) to the influence of Philippine languages, and some of its typological features, such as the basic VSO constituent order, typify Philippine languages but atypical of Ibero-Asian creoles as a whole. Its sizeable component of basic Philippine-derived vocabulary and its incorporation of structural features which cannot be traced back simply to Spanish, allow us to classify it as a mixed creole. In this paper I examine the extent to which various structural features of Mindanao Creole Spanish and other mixed and sometimes less mixed creoles (including Saramaccan, Angolar, Korlai Portuguese, and also the recently extinct Berbice Dutch, most with a sizeable Iberoromance lexical component) parallel one another as to the derivation of sets of features from sources other than their chief lexifier language. I also examine the degree to which structural transfers in these creoles coexist with typically ‘creole’ features and with etymologically mixed lexica, and compare some aspects of mixing in mixed or intertwined languages and mixed creoles.