32 Jamaican Creole Proverbs from the Perspective of Contact Linguistics among the members of society as a tool. Wąsik concludes that the ecology of a given language co-defines the people who learn it, use it and transmit it in the process of teaching (ibidem). The notion of ecology was also developed by Mufwene (2006: xi) in the context of expanding colonies to account for language development. He considers the nature and significance of language-contact ecology in determining the structure of creoles. He shows how ecology determines the choice of language which later prevails as a superstrate. Mufwene is also interested “[…] in how the ethnographic environment affects a language […] how it may trigger or influence its restructuring” (2006: 153). According to Mufwene, ecology […] includes, among other things, the structural features of the base and substrate languages, the ethnolinguistic make-ups of the populations that came into contact, how regularly they interacted across class and ethnic boundaries, and the rates and models of population growth. (Mufwene 2006: 317) He evokes yet another term – macroecology – which is borrowed from James Brown (1995: 15). Macroecology is, as Mufwene explains, “a branch of biology in which ecology is treated as a covering term for diverse factors which are both external and internal to a species and bear on its evolution” (2006: 218). These factors are: “population size, habitat requirements, and genetic variation, differences in initial conditions, stochastic events, time lags, processes operating on different time scales, and spatial subdivisions” (Mufwene 2006: 153 after Brown 1995: 15–16). Colonization is a process which induces major changes and creates a favorable ecology for the development of new varieties of language. 2.3.1.2. Matrix of the ecological features of language In order to study and examine any given language and the processes that govern it, one must take into consideration the ten questions formulated by Haugen (1972: 329) which constitute the matrix of language-specific features: 1. What is its classification in relation to other languages? Wąsik (1993: 21) specifies which notions it includes: family, language league, language group, cycle; mixed language, creole; natural language, artificial; developing language, dead, etc. 2. Who are its users? The answer requires the study of linguistic demography. The researcher must try to define the examined social group, religious group, subculture or place where the speech community lives.
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