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At 11:18 PM 2/25/2001 -0600, Mark Odegard wrote:<br>
<br>
B. Dumas: >><Almost every linguist I know who does research on
English <knows> or<br>
>><asumes><br>
>>>that English is a creole. I am mystified by your
comment.<br>
>><br>
S. Mufwene: >>Not this one., and I can think of quite a few who
would side with me.<br>
><br>
>We are partly arguing about the definition of a creole. The
Britannica's is<br>
>a good start:<br>
<br>
SM: <font size=4>Not just the definition. What whatever definitions have
been applied to has been inadequately defines.<br>
<br>
</font><font size=3>>A creole is not a 'daughter language' in the
sense Modern English is the<br>
>daughter of Middle English. <br>
<br>
</font><font size=4>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?<br>
<br>
</font><font size=3>>A creole is an example of language
replacement,<br>
>in this case, a hybrid based on a dominant language, plus elements
from at<br>
>least one other language to create a new language, one that is more
of a<br>
>step-daughter than a daughter of the dominant language.<br>
<br>
</font><font size=4>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.<br>
<br>
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.)<br>
<br>
</font><font size=3>> This does not<br>
>describe what French did to English post 1066.<br>
><br>
</font><font size=4> 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.<br>
<br>
</font><font size=3>>Yes, all languages are 'new', just as all newborn
babies are new, but all<br>
>babies have mothers.<br>
><br>
</font><font size=4> 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.<br>
<br>
</font><font size=3>>And, yes. While every languages has its internal
changes, most language<br>
>changes seem to be driven by stressful contact with another
language.<br>
><br>
</font><font size=4>So?<br>
</font><font size=3>><br>
</font><font size=4>Sali.<br>
<br>
</font><br>
<font color="#800000">**********************************************************<br>
Salikoko S.
Mufwene
</font><font color="#800080">s-mufwene@uchicago.edu<br>
</font><font color="#800000">University of
Chicago
</font><font color="#800080">773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924<br>
</font><font color="#800000">Department of Linguistics<br>
1010 East 59th Street<br>
Chicago, IL 60637<br>
</font><font color="#000000"><a href="http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html" eudora="autourl">http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html</a><br>
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