(off-list) Re: Creole languages (was Who is Eddy Peters?)

[Alice Faber]

Bethany K. Dumas said:
>Jm Landau:
>
>>I have long had the idea that English is the way it is because it's a creole,
>>but I've never been able to get anyone to examine the idea seriously.
>
>Almost every linguist I know who does research on English <knows> or <asumes>
>that English is a creole. I am mystified by your comment.

Actually, Thomason and Kaufman, in Language Contact, Creolization, and
Genetic Linguistics, argue *against* this on the basis that if you compare
the rate of change that English underwent during the era when the
creolization is alleged to have occurred, with the rate (and types) of
changes in other eras, there's no difference.
--
Alice Faber                                       tel. (203) 865-6163
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