Manx language

[Max Wheeler]

-- Begin original message --

> From: "Frank Rossi" <iglesias at axia.it>
> Date: Sat, 02 Oct 99 13:35:32 PDT

> As I remember, the gist was that the originally "normal" Q Celtic language
> (a form of Gaelic) was drastically simplified as a result of contact with
> Germanic languages, first the Old Norse of the Danes and later English,
> which also provided the spelling system. The process was described by
> someone as a form of "creolisation". The process was compared to the effect
> that the Norman conquest had on English.

> Does anyone remember in what context this question was raised or are there
> any other comments on Manx?

-- End original message --

I can't tell you the original context of the discussion, but the situation
you describe doesn't seem applicable to Manx, which was not 'drastically
simplified' except possibly, by some speakers, in the last stages (20th
century) of language death. The toponymy of the Isle of Man has a very large
Norse element, but the general vocabulary of Manx may not have a lot more
Norse in it than entered other Goidelic varieties. It has a considerable
amount of Norman French, and, of course, Early Modern and Modern English, but
there again not in proportions vastly different from those in, say, Welsh.

Some loss/regularization of grammatical irregularities (e.g. weakening of the
mutation system, gender marking) is characteristic of late (i.e.
19th-20th-century spoken Manx) but this could be taken to be characteristic
of language death rather than creolization (which implies a stage of
'inadequate learning' by non-native speakers).

Max
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Max W. Wheeler
School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Falmer
BRIGHTON BN1 9QH, G.B.

Tel: +44 (0)1273 678975 Fax: +44 (0)1273 671320 Email: maxw at cogs.susx.ac.uk
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