Why Haitian is a creole, Michif an intertwiner, and Irish English neither: a reply to Mufwene.

The article discusses the debate on the ontological status of creoles and mixed languages by analyzing the Berbice Dutch language formation underlying assumptions of the two-stage genesis scenario proposed by the authors. Topics include differences between traditional languages and contact languages, including pidgins, creoles, and intertwined languages; and consequence of prior pidginhood resulting in a relative lack of grammatical complexity compared to traditional languages.