Creole languages (May I question the authority?)

[lesa.dill]

>===== Original Message From American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
=====
>At 11:18 PM 2/25/2001 -0600, Mark Odegard wrote:
>
>B. Dumas: >><Almost every linguist I know who does research on English
<knows>
>or
>>><asumes>
>>>that English is a creole. I am mystified by your comment.
>>>
>S. Mufwene: >>Not this one., and I can think of quite a few who would side
>with
>me.
>>
>>We are partly arguing about the definition of a creole. The Britannica's is
>>a good start:
>
> SM: Not just the definition. What whatever definitions have been applied
>to has
>been inadequately defines.
>
>>A creole is not a 'daughter language' in the sense Modern English is the
>>daughter of Middle English.
>
>What's wrong with arguing that Gullah is one of the many daughters of
colonial
>English? Has there been more language contact leading to formation of Gullah
>than to the formation of other American English dialects? What's the null
>hypothesis that the socioeconomic history of North America suggest? Or should
>we just call every North American English variety a creole?
>
>>A creole is an example of language replacement,
>>in this case, a hybrid based on a dominant language, plus elements from at
>>least one other language to create a new language, one that is more of a
>>step-daughter than a daughter of the dominant language.
>
>      A step-daughter is not related by blood to the step-parent. However,
>Gullah and the like have inherited some blood from one of the parents, indeed
>from its lexifier. And then this awful parent-to-offspring metaphor breaks
>down
>miserably, because it is ill-conceived on the animal reproduction model and
>this model is also ill-suited for what genetic linguistics has had in mind
>regarding speciation.
>
>      I am afraid you must be more explicit about the language that a creole
>replaced. And I also fear there is too much ideology in the use of "replace,"
>if we agree that every current language variety is new. (Oh! you just must
>ignore the fact that I am professing an ideology of my own as being a more
>sensible one.)
>
>> This does not
>>describe what French did to English post 1066.
>>
>     It would be bizarre to speak of Middle English creolizing under the
>influence of French, because the English did not give up English in the first
>place. If they had, then we would be speaking of the English creolizing
Norman
>French. Somebody did not get their history right. It would have made more
>sense
>to speak of the creolization of Germanic languages of the 5th-7th centuries
>(rough dates for the those vernaculars spoken by the Jutes, Angles, Saxons,
>and
>Frisians) creolizing, or just koineizing, into Old English, instead of
>producing Old English from some magician's hat.
>
>>Yes, all languages are 'new', just as all newborn babies are new, but all
>>babies have mothers.
>>
>     And all new babies have fathers too, except in genetic linguistics,
>contrary to what the history of population movements and language contacts
>throughout the history of mankind has suggested.
>
>>And, yes. While every languages has its internal changes, most language
>>changes seem to be driven by stressful contact with another language.
>>
>     So?
>>
>Sali.
>I'd argue that a language like litters of kittens may have multiple fathers.
The better metaphor is the polyploidy of plants.  They aren't just diploid
with two genetic progenitors.  The genetics metaphor is really a problem!
Language changes seem to be driven by stressful contact?? I'd argue that one.
We are seeing drastic changes going on in many languages right now (driven my
technology and the Internet).  And from what I can see, they are not the least
bit stressful.  The notion of "stress" is also a holdover from biology.  How
does one stress a language?  Maybe a speaker.  I'm not even sure of that.
Language change produces no toll on the "species" because there is no species.
Sali, do you want to comment on how much stress the first generation creole
speakers are under with their great language task?
Lesa
>
>**********************************************************
>Salikoko S. Mufwene                        s-mufwene at uchicago.edu
>University of Chicago                      773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924
>Department of Linguistics
>1010 East 59th Street
>Chicago, IL 60637
>http://humanities.uchicago.edu/humanities/linguistics/faculty/mufwene.html
>**********************************************************