The naming of books is a tricky business, and it has consequences. In the case of this book – a comparison of five languages with a surprising commonality in structure and social history, and an account of the linguistic processes that formed them – the first thing that may strike anyone who knows my work is not so much the title, as what the title is not.

Since the late 1980s, I have used the term “semi-creolization” for the process I discuss here. This book, however, is not called “semi-creolization”. The change is in part strategic: I wish to make an argument which is, I think, original about the nature of these language varieties, which all raise current and important issues of politics and culture. I am not interested in exercising an imperial right to label, especially if it obscures discussion about the issues raised by this book. Creole language studies was one of the first post-colonial disciplines: Reinecke was surely far ahead of his times in seeing creoles from the perspective of their speakers rather than those who sought to be their speakers' imperial masters.

I am very aware that the social sciences' long demand to label at will is always problematical. I also know that the use of a new or unfamiliar term in an established field is an irritant to others who, perhaps, have a word they like better or even a certain resistance to thinking again about issues of taxonomy.