English as a creole

[Eduard Selleslagh]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brent J. Ermlick" <brent at bermls.oau.org>
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2000 12:28 PM

> On Wed, Feb 23, 2000 at 01:07:53PM +0100, Eduard Selleslagh wrote:
> . . .

>> English can be considered a mild case of creolization without an
>> intermediate pidgin (even though the former existence of a pidgin cannot be
>> ruled out entirely, but it would not have been the origin of modern
>> English): not only the vocabulary was altered very seriously (which doesn't
>> mean it's a creole), but syntax was moderately altered as well, e.g. lack
>> word order inversion after an adverbial phrase (a typical error of French
>> speakers who learn Dutch or German) and in some other cases, and the
>> simplifications of the verbal system, including the disappearance of the
>> participial prefix ge- that existed in Old English.

> But the "ge-" shows up until the end of the Middle English period,
> and even appears in Spenser as "yclept". The inversion after an
> initial adverb or phrase still appears in Elizabethan English and
> the King James Bible. One old piece of advice for Americans used to
> be to imitate the syntax of the Pilgrim Fathers when trying to speak
> Dutch.

> Native Norman French speakers in England appear to have died
> out by the early 14th century. It is unlikely that their influence
> would have lain dormant for the next 3 or 4 hundred years.

[Ed]
You're right of course, I should have mentioned Middle English.

About the influence of native Norman French speakers: it is not because there
weren't any left that their influence didn't continue.  You could look at this
as an inoculation or injection with a slow acting poison. Or foundations
attacked by termites. Basically, it's a weakening of the awareness of its roots
and idiosyncrasies, leading to vacilation when applying syntactic rules.

The texts you are referring to are 'high' style, probably voluntarily
archaicizing (Lawyers still do it : 'What say you?').  Do we know how the
ordinary people were (already) speaking in the 16-17th century?

There are lots of monolingual Brussels French speakers who continue to transmit
Flemish-influenced deviations (including pronunciation) to their children and
grandchildren, even though none of them can speak Flemish Dutch. Of course, the
situation is not entirely the same (there are still 10-15% Flemings in
Brussels, but they have little social contact with strictly monolingual French
speakers - who tend to be very defensive/isolationist). In the 19th century,
Victor Hugo noticed similar things in then entirely French (and/or Walloon)
speaking Wallonia where nobody knew any Dutch; he thought it was German
influence.

In short, I am not convinced Norman French wasn't still influencing English
'posthumously'. But I try to keep an open mind on this.

Ed. Selleslagh.