Editor’s Foreword

Unravel was born in a region rich with creole culture, if only it could all be captured and shared with the world. This issue attempts to cover some ground with the vast field of Pidgins & Creoles. Natalie Chang and Natalie Tong speak with Professor Umberto Ansaldo about his take on the controversial categories of pidgins and creoles as well as his experiences working in this field (and alternative ones like Krav Maga), on languages such as Chinese Pidgin English, profiled by me. This issue revisits one of Clara Miller-Broomfield’s posts on Dialogue: The Unravel Blog, profiling Hawaiian and its pidgin and creole offshoots.

Outside of the special feature, we’re lucky to have Janet LoSole provide a personal Canadian perspective to second language learning and relevance and bilingual living. Meanwhile, Zohal Osman presents a moving and passionate linguistic solution to the war in Afghanistan, with a firsthand account of social mores and challenges and how they have shaped her worldview.

Looking back at the last three years, Unravel has been an exciting journey  discovering languages, experimenting with writing styles and fiddling with social media, as well as working towards a more linguistically-aware world with a capable and dedicated team of journalinguists.

As we remain committed to the goals of this independent, accessible, free, web-based effort, Unravel will now experiment with publishing half-yearly instead of quarterly. Details and moments have been captured succinctly by editor Anirudh Krishnan in reflections on Three years of Unravel. Meanwhile, if you (or someone you know) would be interested to contribute to Unravel by writing or joining our designer pool, read this post in preparation of Issue 13!

Happy holidays!

Frances Loke Wei
Editor-in-Chief / Issue 12 Elf
Singapore

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