Creole languages (May I question the authority?)

[Salikoko Mufwene]

At 11:18 PM 2/25/2001 -0600, Mark Odegard wrote:

B. Dumas: >><Almost every linguist I know who does research on English <knows>
or
>><asumes>
>>>that English is a creole. I am mystified by your comment.
>>
S. Mufwene: >>Not this one., and I can think of quite a few who would side
with
me.
>
>We are partly arguing about the definition of a creole. The Britannica's is
>a good start:

 SM: Not just the definition. What whatever definitions have been applied
to has
been inadequately defines.

>A creole is not a 'daughter language' in the sense Modern English is the
>daughter of Middle English.

What's wrong with arguing that Gullah is one of the many daughters of colonial
English? Has there been more language contact leading to formation of Gullah
than to the formation of other American English dialects? What's the null
hypothesis that the socioeconomic history of North America suggest? Or should
we just call every North American English variety a creole?

>A creole is an example of language replacement,
>in this case, a hybrid based on a dominant language, plus elements from at
>least one other language to create a new language, one that is more of a
>step-daughter than a daughter of the dominant language.

      A step-daughter is not related by blood to the step-parent. However,
Gullah and the like have inherited some blood from one of the parents, indeed
from its lexifier. And then this awful parent-to-offspring metaphor breaks
down
miserably, because it is ill-conceived on the animal reproduction model and
this model is also ill-suited for what genetic linguistics has had in mind
regarding speciation.

      I am afraid you must be more explicit about the language that a creole
replaced. And I also fear there is too much ideology in the use of "replace,"
if we agree that every current language variety is new. (Oh! you just must
ignore the fact that I am professing an ideology of my own as being a more
sensible one.)

> This does not
>describe what French did to English post 1066.
>
     It would be bizarre to speak of Middle English creolizing under the
influence of French, because the English did not give up English in the first
place. If they had, then we would be speaking of the English creolizing Norman
French. Somebody did not get their history right. It would have made more
sense
to speak of the creolization of Germanic languages of the 5th-7th centuries
(rough dates for the those vernaculars spoken by the Jutes, Angles, Saxons,
and
Frisians) creolizing, or just koineizing, into Old English, instead of
producing Old English from some magician's hat.

>Yes, all languages are 'new', just as all newborn babies are new, but all
>babies have mothers.
>
     And all new babies have fathers too, except in genetic linguistics,
contrary to what the history of population movements and language contacts
throughout the history of mankind has suggested.

>And, yes. While every languages has its internal changes, most language
>changes seem to be driven by stressful contact with another language.
>
     So?
>
Sali.


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Salikoko S. Mufwene                        s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
University of Chicago                      773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924
Department of Linguistics
1010 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html
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