European Genetics/IE

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/14/01 12:57:15 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
rmccalli at sunmuw1.MUW.Edu writes:

> Wouldn't it be possible that some languages or dialects may have
> started out as creoles and then have become standardized through increased
> contact with the parent language.

-- yes, this is a common phenomenon.

> and it seems plausible that (some) early regional forms of Romance may have
> initially been more like Latinate creoles than daughter languages.

-- no, because the special conditions which are required for the creation of
a creole language weren't present.

Creoles are pidgins which have become 'naturalized' and spoken as a first
language.

To have a creole, you first need a pidgin -- and pidgins are the result of
incomplete language acquisition in situations where multiple languages are
spoken and a trade jargon is needed, but acquisition of the standard form is
not possible.

None of the Romance languages was a pidgin to begin with; they all started
off as fairly standard versions of Late Latin -- regional dialects of Late
Latin, to be precise.

There may well have been forms of pidgin Latin spoken in the course of Roman
expansion, and among the masses of slaves from varoius areas in Italy and
adjacent parts of the Roman domains.  In fact, there probably would have
been.

But they never became creolized, as far as I know.