From the point of view of a global approach to processes of creolization, the preceding chapters have had little to say about strictly linguistic facts. My discussions of the languages spoken in the societies I have been dealing with have referred almost exclusively to sociolinguistic aspects, but this strategy in no way implies that my hypothesis lacks a solid foundation in language structure. This book aims at a general explanation of the creolization of language and culture, so it was necessary to start by grounding it in the sociohistorical context: an obvious prerequisite for all research in this field.