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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Further to the discussion on cognates generated by
Adrian Clynes, I would be interested to know if anyone has stats on a cognate
'triangle' that interests me presently: Tok Pisin-Bislama-English. If, as I
imagine, the percentage is reasonably high, what does this say about the
relationships of these three entities?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>You may ignore the item below and just stick to the
request above, but what I say below will certainly tell you where i am
heading!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Julian Fox</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<H3 style="MARGIN: 12pt 0in 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align=center><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><FONT face=Arial>TWO ROADS DIVERGED…AND
THAT’S WHAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE</FONT></SPAN></H3>
<H3 style="MARGIN: 12pt 0in 3pt; TEXT-ALIGN: center" align=center><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><FONT face=Arial>Or Throwing the cat in
amongst the pidgins!<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></H3>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><FONT size=2>Fasten seatbelts!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>What follows is likely to be a fast ride
and for some, a rough one.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><FONT size=2>If it could be said that one
photograph changed human beings’ perceptions of their environment, then it might
be the one that astronaut Bill Anders snapped through the window of Apollo 8’s
cramped cabin on Christmas Eve 1968.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>What he saw on that occasion was what no human being had seen previously
– Earthrise! And what we saw, thanks to Anders, was something that rendered the
old classroom globes with their multi-coloured patches immediately
superfluous.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Even the Green
Movement had to realize that from that point on there was moral ‘ground’ still
higher than anything yet discovered, courtesy of the grey lunar landscape;<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>from that Christmas Eve, we knew
ourselves to be denizens of the Blue Planet.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=2><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">It is not the first time in history, nor will
it be the last, that the simple process of turning things upside down has
resulted in a fresh perspective, indeed a stunningly new one.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is in such a context that I dare to
suggest something hitherto unpublished about much of the English spoken in
</SPAN><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags"
/><st1:country-region><st1:place><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Fiji</SPAN></st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">. I hope it is not a case of
Pope’s ‘fools rush in….’<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In 1977 Paul Geraghty, who then declared
himself to be ‘a linguist studying Fijian and living among Fijians in Suva’
prefaced his comments on Fiji English in the March Fiji English Teacher’s
Journal of that year by ‘announcing that the colloquial English which Sr.
Francis Kelly describes is a pidgin language.’ (1977).<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Linguists who announce what
they believe to be good news with such outrageous candour have to be prepared to
handle the onslaught of friend and foe alike.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(There was a precedent for that, of
course – ‘In the beginning was the Word…’).<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Geraghty was prepared, and while not
ready to be crucified over a term that remains less than precisely defined
(‘pidgin’, and for that matter ‘creole’, is a slippery entity even in the hands
of skilled linguists), continues to claim to this day that what he knows of Fiji
English through his experience coincides to a large degree with what he also
knows about pidgins and creoles.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=2><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Twenty five years later I too am a student of
Fijian living amongst Fijians in </SPAN><st1:City><st1:place><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Suva</SPAN></st1:place></st1:City><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Presently though and more to the point,
I am living amongst Samoans who are living in </SPAN><st1:City><st1:place><SPAN
lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Suva</SPAN></st1:place></st1:City><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And amongst them are some who are
picking up an English that is different from the English they arrived in this
country with, as it is also different from the English I speak.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>No great surprises there, but it has set
me thinking, along with other evidence, to the point where I too wish to
announce something:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Fiji English,
or at least that variety which some linguists since Francis Kelly (1975) <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>have begun to describe as Basilectal Fiji
English (Siegel:1987), is not a version of English, but a language in its own
right whose more likely parent is Fijian, and whose differences and similarities
may also lie in the productive processes that belong to acquiring another
language.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>To declare my bias in
this latter possibility, I intend to draw from the thinking of linguists like
Lightfoot (1991,1999) who entertains the possibility of some grand surprises in
language development.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Lightfoot
maintains a close connection between the notion of child language acquisition
and that of language change.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That
too seems to coincide with my own experience as a teacher and now also as a
close observer of child speakers of Fiji English.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><FONT size=2>Like the view from Apollo 8 such
claims, if provable, are not just different by degrees from views previously
propounded.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They are radically
different.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is a case of
declaring a different linguistic space within which to site Fiji English, one
which is as different as is blue from green and, especially for educators, must
challenge the approach we take to the language that most urban (at least) Fijian
children use as a lingua franca in the school compound and in many domains now
of daily life beyond the school.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 6pt"><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><FONT size=2>CLEARING SOME
GROUND<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=2><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">In the course of a number of discussions with
Geraghty about his ‘pidgin’ claim, I have become uncomfortable not so much with
that label but with the whole exploration of Fiji English within the branch of
linguistics known as creolistics.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It is creolistics that has given us the theoretical understandings of
pidgin, creole and acro-meso-basi- lect, via the so-called post-creole
continuum.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If there are good
reasons to state that there was never a true pidgin English in
</SPAN><st1:country-region><st1:place><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Fiji</SPAN></st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">, and there appear to be good
reasons for stating such, then the use of the remainder of the creolists’ labels
is suspect.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>This is never more
obvious than when linguists attempt to describe Fiji English as a creoloid.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>At this point we are in some kind of
linguistic outer space!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>At least
one prominent linguist, <SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>former
devotee of the term, has now recanted and declared that it serves no useful
purpose (Sarah Thomason LINGUIST List 1.1721 Dec. 1996).<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Describing a particular variety of Fiji
English as basilectal is partly helpful, but just as I have often worried about
the bamboo scaffolding I sometimes see around, I worry too about linguistic
scaffolding that was not designed to carry the weight of something that is more
substantial than people might realize.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=2><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Recently, in a rather homely discussion with
a colleague and friend who has worked in
</SPAN><st1:country-region><st1:place><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Swaziland</SPAN></st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">, I became more acutely aware that
what one terms a ‘language’ depends more on political and social factors than on
a particular linguistic system.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>My
friend, who was working amongst street children and generally poor people,<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>noted that in an area where siSwati was
spoken, the local Catholic Church was happy to use hymnbooks printed in siZulu,
since these had been available for some time and funds to produce siSwati books
were unavailable.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But people who
could read the siZulu books without any difficulty would still claim that the
two language were ‘different’.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I
believe this is equally the case with Ndebele.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Three varieties, really, of the same
language but, for the speakers, the conviction that there are three languages.
<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=2><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Conversely, there are areas where languages
that are quite different, by anybody’s standards, are commonly regarded as a
single language.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The most
outstanding case is that of Chinese.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Two varieties amongst many others are mutually unintelligible – Cantonese
and Mandarin.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But why travel to
</SPAN><st1:country-region><st1:place><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">China</SPAN></st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"> for examples when we have one on
our doorstep.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Fijian is a term
commonly used in reference to the entire set of dialects or varieties (for which
Paul Geraghty prefers the term ‘communalects’) sharing enough common features to
distinguish the ‘language’ from others of the ‘family’, e.g. Tongan, Kiribatii,
Samoan.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But linguists and speakers
of said ‘Fijian’ would say that Western languages can be so different from those
of the East as to be mutually unintelligible, especially on first hearing.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is really only by some sleight of
linguistic hand that one can hold both sides of the<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>dialect divide
together.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><FONT size=2>My point?<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>That there is no linguistic reason why
Fiji English could not achieve the status of a language other than English.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There are sociolinguistic reasons, of
course, why many would find this odd if not also confronting.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Not even Fijians (I am thinking of
Fijian parents) would be happy to think that the English they speak amongst
themselves is the English they would like their children to learn at
school.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Why, the very thought that
their children might be formally taught that in ‘Tailevu no leqa, no bus,
paidar’ (in Tailevu, if the bus doesn’t come, no problems, you walk) would
curdle the lovo!<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The generally
accepted view is that Fiji English is English ambushed by Hindi and Fijian<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>or English gone bad or English that
never quite made it.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think this
view is untenable linguistically and that consequently it behoves the
responsible linguist to try to convey that message!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And while the ‘bad English’ view
is the basic reaction to be expected of Fiji English, there is yet another:
surely it is just too similar to English to be though of as different.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>‘There – you will need to be Houdini to
escape that one!’<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><FONT size=2>I have always wanted to be like
Houdini.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Just because two things
look to be similar does not make them so.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>Or better, should we not look closely at what is similar – and at what is
not?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I teach ESL to Tongans,
Fijians, Samoans, I-Kiribati, Tuvaluans – and New Caledonians.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Now the reality is that the latter group
gain control of Standard English much faster, generally speaking, than the
others.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I contend that this is
because of so many similarities between French and English.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Again, nothing remarkable about that
given what we know about the Indo-European language family.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But look at this another way –
Scots.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Here is a passage written in
Scots:<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=text style="MARGIN: 5pt 0.3in"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: windowtext; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Scots
texts for thaim that's wantin tae lairn Scots or for thaim that haes it an wants
tae enjye hit.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=text style="MARGIN: 5pt 0.3in"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: windowtext; FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">OR<BR></SPAN><SPAN
class=weetext1><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt"><FONT face=Arial>Scots texts for
those who are interested in learning Scots or for those who already speak it and
wish to enjoy it.</FONT></SPAN></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0.3in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><FONT size=2>(Taken from a Scots language
page on the Web. </FONT><A href="http://www.scots-online.org/"><FONT
size=2>www.scots-online.org</FONT></A><FONT
size=2>)<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=2><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Scots is commonly regarded by many from
outside </SPAN><st1:country-region><st1:place><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Scotland</SPAN></st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"> as a variety of English, a
nonstandard variety of English no less.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>From the above extract it could be claimed to be less than perfect in its
spelling.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But the truth is that
Scots is Germanic and distinct, far more so than English can claim to be.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>300 years of political pressures (I’ll
remain objective in my language) have wrought many changes in Scots in the
direction of English, but that simply and ironically confirms the ‘dooters’ that
Scots is a poor cousin, if not an illegitimate one whereas the truth is that It
looks like a duck, it quacks like<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>duck but it ain’t a duck!<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 6pt"><B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><FONT size=2>FIJI ENGLISH: MORE THAN A NEW
STANDARD - A NEW FRAME<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></B></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=2><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">One of the biggest battles linguists have to
fight is with language. Tautology?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>No – every discipline has to carefully define its terms, but linguists
understandably have to define them more carefully than anybody else!<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There is constant talk about ‘standards’
these days, in education, but especially in language.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The problem is that this is not a
univocal term.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>There are two kinds
of standard – minimal limits and arbitrary agreement.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The Health Department is entitled to set
standards for restaurants.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>If I am
going to order Lamb Vindaloo, then I expect lamb, not mutton nor mongoose.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is not just a question of my tastes,
but of my health.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But who is
entitled to set standards for language?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>I note that when I go to Cost-U-Less in </SPAN><st1:City><st1:place><SPAN
lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Suva</SPAN></st1:place></st1:City><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"> to purchase some stationery
items, I have to contend with American standards in paper size – and that
affects the defaults on my printer, the size of manila folders in my filing
cabinet and so on.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But 250 million
people seem happy enough to adopt a standard amongst themselves, so that’s their
business I guess, which becomes my business if I insist on buying their
goods.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=2><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Languages are more at home in Cost-U-Less
than they are in the Health Department.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>And in the end it is not doing Fiji English a favour to set up a
rearguard action to defend it on the basis that it is a systematic basilectal
form.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In the final analysis it will
still be compared with the acrolect or the ‘standard’ (whatever that is, because
the acrolect may still contain many colloquial features and the standard is by
definition so pure that probably nobody ever speaks it).<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Is Fiji English ‘bad’
English?<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Well yes, and here is a
way you can have your cake and eat it too – It’s bad like French is bad English,
and like English is bad French.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>There’s a logic we keep missing about the label we are using –
</SPAN><st1:country-region><st1:place><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Fiji</SPAN></st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"> is the head of the (Fiji English)
compound, yet in the popular mind the compound is immediately anglicized.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I suggest we argue for a case of good
old equality here and describe the entity for what it is: a genuine contact
between two languages.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"><o:p><FONT
size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=2><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">I realize now that I am out on the proverbial
limb with but one direction to go; I must adequately prove that the
</SPAN><st1:country-region><st1:place><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Fiji</SPAN></st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"> ‘thing’ (just what do we call it
after all, if not </SPAN><st1:country-region><st1:place><SPAN lang=EN-US
style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'">Fiji</SPAN></st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN
lang=EN-US style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Lucida Sans'"> English… <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Fijin?) is able to converse with English
on equal terms, as language to language. No longer can we be content to locate
it in interlanguage space, but in a new frame.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Proving that will provide some serious
fun.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>But here’s the nub of the
argument: ‘the thing’ owes rather more to Fijian than it does to English, and
that’s what makes the
difference.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>