> I am looking for materials that either prove or disprove that proto
> romance was a pidgin that was later creolized. My focus is on the
possible creolization of >Vulgar Latin by Celtic
> speaking populations.
(1) By using the word "pidgin" you apparently mean more than substrate
influence. Unless your understanding of "pidgin" is different from mine,
you are asserting that proto-Romance uses Celtic vocabulary in Latin-based
structures, or Latin vocabulary in Celtic-based structures, or some mix.
Either claim is bizarre. Both the structures and vocabulary of
Proto-Romance are thoroughly and clearly Latin. Even the phonology develops
through expected and normal channels.
A pidgin should show (a) lack of surface grammatical complexity (b) lack
of morphological complexity (c) semantic transparency (i.e. words built up
by compounding simpler elements) (d) Vocabulary reduction. None of these
appear in proto-Romance.
(b) Proto-Romance explains the origin of Portuguese, Sicilian, Sardinian etc
across to Romanian. Are you really asserting that a Celtic-Latin pidgin
could replace all other forms of language throughout the entire empire?
That seems unlikely.
So for both linguistic and historic reasons I think you will find your case
hard to prove, unless you soften it and limit it somewhat - perhaps there
was strong Celtic substrate influence in a certain area - like Gaul.
Peter