Re: Creole Romance? [was: Thracian , summing up]

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> On Mon, 23 Jun 2003 13:47:40 +0000, tgpedersen <tgpedersen@...>
> wrote:
>
> > In every encounter between Scandinavians you have a pidgin
> >situation: speakers of languages that are not easily mutually
> >comprehensible. The result is that each speaker (based on his
> >inclination do so) bends his native language a little towards that

of

> >the other speaker; but in this case the grammar are so similar

that

> >most of the forms survive this transformation. With progressively
> >dissimilar languages you have to bend your language more. But the
> >situation within the Latin-speaking part of the empire was that

the

> >subdued peoples spoke related IE languages
>
> Not in Mediterranean Spain or North Africa (or Tuscany, for that

matter).
Punic? And no North African Romance survived.

Basically, you have the same situation everywhere in the Roman empire
as in the British or French: after initial confusion the elite learns
proper Latin (English, French), which then percolates down. The
question is when this process was stopped, and from which
sociological layer the "proper" national language is later taken.

>
> >, thus the "loss of grammar" was relatively small.
>
> I don't think the differences between Latin and, say, the various

Celtic

> languages were as small as those between the modern Scandinavian

languages.

> Moreover, the Romans didn't need to nor were they inclined to bend

their

> native language one little bit towards those of the subdued peoples.
>

Here's a more one-sided comparison you'd be more familiar with: Dutch
and German. Yet the Dutch don't speak pidgin, grammar-less from
scratch German to the Germans. One might even argue that Dutch and
German are no more dissimilar than Danish and Swedish,
notwithstanding what your textbook tells you.

Torsten