Creoles: the world’s sleekest languages

A. The absence of “understands,” then, is one of many ways in which creoles are less needlessly complex than old languages. We have seen that creoles are by no means “ground zero” in terms of complexity, but they are closer to this than an old language can be.

B. Irregularity. For example, creoles have very few or none of the irregular verbs that bedevil us in learning European languages. In English, we say went rather than goed, was rather than be’d, sent rather than sended. In Sranan, went is ben go, was is ben de, sent is ben seni, and so on.