Re: Was proto-romance a pidgin?

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "P&G" <petegray@...> wrote:

> >>Why would anyone not
> > > "travelling in the trade network" replace their own language

by a

> >> pidgin, and start speaking it in the home?
> > Elite breakdown.
>
> And are you seriously suggesting there was such an "elite

breakdown"

> throughout the Roman Empire? The evidence is that the invaders

learnt the

> elite language, not the other way round.

Of course. Isn't that what Gibbon's work was all about?
The evidence is that the invaders learnt the language in a version
the ex-elite didn't speak.

Torsten