Language bioprogram theory

The language bioprogram theory or language bioprogram hypothesis[1] (LBH) is a theory arguing that the structural similarities between different creole languages cannot be solely attributed to their superstrate and substrate languages. As articulated mostly by Derek Bickerton,[2] creolization occurs when the linguistic exposure of children in a community consists solely of a highly unstructured pidgin; these children use their innate language capacity to transform the pidgin, which characteristically has high syntactic variability,[3] into a language with a highly structured grammar. As this capacity is universal, the grammars of these new languages have many similarities.