Re: [tied] Re: Japanese as a creole language?

At 4:21:56 AM on Saturday, March 29, 2003, tgpedersen wrote:

>> > In the books I read, the hallmark of a creole is the loss
>> > of grammatical categories. Check up on Afrikaans.

>> Traditionally a creole arises from a pidgin when it
>> becomes a birth tongue. This rules out English, French,
>> and Afrikaans.

> Because they are not birth tongues?

Obviously they are. No, it rules out these three languages
because they were never pidgins.

> Please don't use such fuzzy definitions.

It isn't fuzzy. Do you need a paraphrase again? Try
'native tongue', 'first language', or 'L1'.

>> Some writers have attempted to extend the term to cover
>> all languages with features similar to those generalized
>> from creoles; this, in my opinion, robs the term of its
>> primary and most useful meaning.

> Which is?

The original definition, which I already gave above.

>> For those of us who retain the traditional meaning,
>> 'creole' describes the genesis of the language, not its
>> structure.

> The genesis of Modern English (sociological circumstances
> etc) is similar to that of other creoles. It is a
> partially Norman French relexified, Anglo-Saxon and Old
> Norse based creole, its genesis probably mediated by Hanse
> wool traders in the North of England.

You're wrong. Most tellingly, there is no break in
transmission of the language and therefore no pidgin stage.

Read Thomason & Kaufman, Section 9.8.

Brian