Unserdeutsch is typical of creole languages in that it reflects the lexicon of one language overlaid upon a substrate grammar – in this case German and Tok Pisin, respectively. Grammatically, Unserdeutsch bears many similarities to L2 varieties of German, suggesting incomplete language acquisition on the part of students in the German-speaking colony. Grammatically, Unserdeutsch morphology adheres to "average" creole characteristics, but because Unserdeutsch was never formally standardized, being used only informally as an in-group
register, there is an unusually high degree of grammatical variation among speakers of Unserdeutsch, both between familial groups and
individual speakers. More recently,
Australian English has also influenced the language in several ways. Certain syntactic constructions appear to have been borrowed directly from English, including an English-like
passive voice construction utilizing a copula. Both of these features are generally rare in creole languages, which indicates an early, pervasive English influence that might have included conscious modeling of English sentence structure. This tendency extends even to imperative sentences and yes/no questions, which demonstrates a strong substrate influence from Tok Pisin. However, some speakers prefer to use a German-modeled sentence pattern in which the interrogative is in head position. :: ::Where would you go? :: ::Why do you have to die? The use of either construction appears variable among speakers of Unserdeutsch. but noun morphology is much less
synthetic than Standard German. Thus, most nouns in Unserdeutsch are pluralized as in the following example: :: ::He drew the blueprints for the construction of the houses. There are few frequently used nouns which retain Standard German plural forms and are thus double-marked for plural.
Articles Like German but unlike its substrate language, Tok Pisin, Unserdeutsch uses
definite and indefinite articles. However, unlike German, these articles are not inflected for gender or case, and in fact the Standard German articles are merged into a single article ; this is possibly due to influence from English. Articles are normally only used with singular nouns, with the generalized plural marker functioning as a definite plural article.
Verbs Nearly all Unserdeutsch verbs are lexically derived from Standard German, but the Unserdeutsch
inflectional system exhibits strong influence from English and Tok Pisin, and is considerably more
isolating than Standard German. Many of the distinguishing characteristics of Standard German verbs, such as
separable prefixes, second- and third-person stem change and the
strong/weak distinction, are not present in Unserdeutsch. Thus, the present tense form of most Unserdeutsch verbs is identical to the Standard German
infinitive, which is not conjugated. There are few high frequency verbs that exhibit past tense forms closer to their Standard German counterparts, although these forms are lexicalized and non-productive. in the following way: :: ::You will see Freddy tomorrow.
Copula Unusually for a creole language, The copular forms are very similar to their Standard German counterparts. In past tense, the copula is simply ; it is not conjugated at all. Notably, whether inflected or not, the copula is
frequently deleted in spoken Unserdeutsch.
Progressive or habitual aspect is expressed using the so-called construction, formed using the particle and the infinitive verb. Command statements are formed identically to declarative clauses, and unlike English or German (but similar to Tok Pisin) these constructions retain SVO word order. :: ::Don't think I wasn't afraid.
Negation Verb phrases are
negated by the particle ('not,' from German
nicht), which is usually placed at the beginning of the phrase. In a few
idiomatic expressions, the negator is post-verbal, more closely mirroring German negation syntax. :: :: I don't eat red meat.
Pronouns Unserdeutsch uses a hybrid system of
personal pronouns, demonstrating heavy influence from both the substrate and lexifier languages. :: Two pronouns, first-person plural and third-person singular masculine , have distinct object forms ( and , respectively), reflecting Standard German pronominal case marking. It has been suggested by Volker (1982) Volker (1982) also identifies an object form of first-person singular, , which is not attested elsewhere.
Usage Use of the second-person plural is rare, and is sometimes substituted. The second-person singular can be used in place of the Standard German impersonal pronoun , mirroring English usage.
Adjectives With very few exceptions, Unserdeutsch adjectives are lexically identical to their German counterparts. into a uniform and invariant -, which is suffixed to an adjective that precedes a verb.
Comparison The
comparative forms of most Unserdeutsch adjectives are marked analytically using the particle ('more'). Thus, the comparative and superlative constructions are formed as follows: :: ::Maria is smaller than Des. :: ::This is the biggest. The second form simply juxtaposes the possessor immediately before the item possessed, as is found is many dialects of German. :: ::This car's tire is flat. The last form is modeled after English, wherein the possessor takes an overt -
genitive suffix. :: ::Papa's washing This English-modeled form is less common than the other two. ==References==