Inlinguistics,relexification is a mechanism oflanguage change by which onelanguage changes much or all of itslexicon, including basic vocabulary, to the lexicon of another language, without drastically changing the relexified language's grammar. The term is principally used to describepidgins,creoles, andmixed languages.^[1][2][3]

Relexification is not synonymous withlexical borrowing, by which a language merelysupplements its basic vocabulary with loanwords from another language.

Relexification is a form oflanguage interference in which apidgin, acreole or amixed language takes nearly all of its lexicon from asuperstrate or atarget language while its grammar comes from thesubstrate orsource language or, according touniversalist theories, arises from universal principles of simplification andgrammaticalization. The language from which the lexicon is derived is called the "lexifier".^[4]Michif,Media Lengua, andLanc-Patuá creole are mixed languages that arose through relexification.^[5]

A hypothesis thatall creole languages derive their grammar from the medievalMediterranean Lingua Franca was widely held in the late 1950s and the early 1960s, but it fell out of favour. It was later argued, for example, because of underlying similarities betweenHaitian Creole andFon language that the grammar ofHaitian Creole is a substratum that was created when Fon-speaking African slaves relexified their language withFrench vocabulary. However, the role of relexification in creole genesis is disputed by adherents ofgenerative grammar.Wittmann (1994),Wittmann & Fournier (1996),Singler (1996), andDeGraff (2002), for example, have argued that the similarities in syntax reflect a hypotheticalUniversal Grammar, not the workings of relexification processes.

Spontaneous second language acquisition (and the genesis of pidgins) involves the gradual relexification of the native or source language with target-language vocabulary. After relexification is completed, native language structures alternate with structures acquired from the target language.^[6]

In the context ofconstructed languages,jargons, andargots, the term is applied to the process of creating a language by substituting new vocabulary into the grammar of an existing language, often one's native language.^[7]

While the practice is most often associated with novice constructed language designers, it may also be done as an initial stage towards creating a more sophisticated language. A language thus created is known as arelex. For instance,Lojban began as a relex ofLoglan, but the languages' grammars have diverged since then.^[8] The same process is at work in the genesis ofjargons andargots such asCaló, anatural language used byGitanos that mixes aSpanish grammar withRomany vocabulary.^[9]

• Stratum (linguistics)

• Arends, Jacques, Pieter Muysken & Norval Smith. 1995.Pidgins and Creoles: an introduction. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
• Sebba, Mark. 1997.Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and London: Macmillan Press.
• Speer, Rob; Havasi, Catherine (2004),Meeting the Computer Halfway: Language Processing in the Artificial Language Lojban(PDF), Massachusetts Institute of Technology,archived(PDF) from the original on 23 October 2014

• Learning materials related toPsycholinguistics/Pidgins, Creoles, and Home Sign#The Relexification Hypothesis at Wikiversity

• Pidgins and creoles

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