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At 07:24 AM 2/26/2001 -0500, Bethany Dumas wrote:<br>
><br>
>Some definitions of creole depend on the history of the language;
the<br>
>Brittanica suggests that a present creole must have begun as a<br>
>pidgin, and that is what I was taught in graduate scdhool.<br>
><br>
<font size=4>I read that too when I
trained myself about creoles, but the relevant socioeconomic histories of
the territories where creoles developed does not support the above
scenario. Somebody must have confused "interlanguage" with
"pidgin" and many have not bothered to question this
confusion.<br>
<br>
</font><font size=3>>Other definitions apparently depend upon rates of
change in the language<br>
>at certain past times. For creolization to have occurred, there must
have<br>
>been a rate of change markedly greater than at other times.<br>
><br>
</font><font size=4>A couple of
people cited Thomason & Kaufman in earlier postings. One of the
things they highlight is that the extent of restructuring is in part a
function of the structural kinship among the languages in contact. One
thing they omitted to mention is that is very misguided to compare the
structures of creoles with those of the standard varieties of their
lexifiers. History suggests that creoles' structures should be compared
with those of the nonstandard vernaculars/koines of their colonial
lexifiers. Because such analyses are scant, we just do not know much and
should basically suspend most conclusions based on previous
analyses.<br>
<br>
</font><font size=3>>Still others seem to depend upon the extent to
which a wholesale<br>
>replacement has taken place.<br>
><br>
</font><font size=4>I am still curious
what wholesale replacement. Here linguists sound like the average
American who thinks that White Americans have inherited English more or
less intact from the British Isles but African Americans remade it in
their own way.<br>
<br>
</font><font size=3>>So -- if we do not want to talk about the
influence of French on English<br>
>as a creolization process, do we have a terms for the kind of major
impact<br>
>on a language that French seems to have had on English? Or do we just
talk<br>
>about language contact? And degress of it?<br>
><br>
</font><font size=4>Why is having a term so critical, and why wouldn't
one be happy with something like "massive influence" on
English? By the way, is that influence true of all English
dialects?<br>
<br>
Sali.<br>
<br>
</font><br>
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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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