--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" wrote:
>>> As time goes, creoles are superseded by still more credible
>>> imitations of the donor.
>>
>> Who says so?
>
> Watch your TV. Creoles are being replaced with 'proper' English
> or French.
Oh, yes. But that's a different story. Proper English or French
impose themselves not as "imitations" but as normal languages of
culture in their usual correct form. Speakers of creoles know that
their tongue has no clear regime and no prestige.
>>> "The opposite view" of those who disagreed with me was
>>>
>>> 1) There is no variation by region in the type of vulgar Latin
>>> that is found in the Roman provinces.
>>
>> Up to some historical moment. When central power collapsed,
>> several
>> different convergence areas arose naturally.
>
> Much earlier than the Strasbourg oaths.
Here you've got the point.
>>> 2) We can follow step by step the progression from Latin to the
>>> modern Romance languages.
>>>
>>> I find it difficult to reconcile the two statements.
>>
>> So you find difficult to accept that people speaking initially
>> the same language can split into several different populations,
>> ending up by speaking different tongues?!
>
> No, I find it difficult to reconcile it with the traditional view
> of the Latin to Romance transition as a smooth continuous process.
So you cannot accept that such a transition can spring from a
smooth continous process?!
>>> Any encyclopedia article on a Romance language will tell you:
>>> "the first text in Romance language X is ... in the year ...".
>>> It seems to me there is assumed to be a break here.
>>
>> There is really a break, but not in the language which evolves
>> continuously. The break is in attestation and recognizing the
>> evolution has gone far enough.
>
> In other words, we can't follow in detail the development in stages
> from Latin to the Romance language, but we strongly believe that's
> what happened.
As Piotr pointed out, "strongly believe" is based on linguistical
facts we are aware of, which make the point tremendously clear. We
have even prior tries, as Jerome's Vulgata. Of course, that's still
Latin, but marks acknowledgement of continuous evolution.
>>> To give an example: French is supposed to have begun with the
>>> Strasbourg oaths.
>>
>> No. Strasbourg Oaths mark the first clear Romance text, recognized
>> as such (in opposition with Latin). French starts conventionally
>> with Strasbourg Oaths, but the day before Ludwig pronouncing the
>> canonical text "Pro Deo amur [...]", people in Gaul were still
>> speaking the same vernacular.
>
> If people in Gaul were all speaking the same vernacular, why the
> anti-patois excesses of the Revolutionary French government?
The word "same" refers to the timeline, not to diatopical variation,
as we discussed about (d/dt). That is: the new rustical language was
not invented in a sleeplessness night before the great meeting.
> And the Strasbourg oath don't passively register or 'mark' anything,
In linguistics, yes. It is the first attested document written in a
Romance language. And it marks also recognition of the new language
as something different from Latin (though it was recognized before at
Tours that "rustica romana lingua" is something different which should
have been preferentially used by priests speaking to people, now we
have a clear text in that vernacular language).
> they were created by a political act [...]
That's about political importance. On cybalist, linguistics should
have a place of honour, though.
>>> It is interesting to learn from one of the latest postings that
>>> Charlemagne insisted on a "correct" pronunciation of Latin.
>>
>> No, this is a different story. I think you should read first that
>> chapter from Dag Norberg's book reccomended by Piotr some time ago,
>> which is called "A brief history of Medieval Latin". You find the
>> pdf in the "Files" section of cybalist.
>
> But I was not interested in Medieval Latin in isolation, but in how
> a gap appeared between Medieval Latin and Old French.
That's explained too. But let me put it in another form. It's about
the "sand pile paradox", already debated by ancient Greeks:
1. a grain of sand is not a sand pile;
2. a big number of sand grains (say N=100000) certainly form a sand
pile;
Question: how many sand grains are needed to form a sand pile?
The question hasn't a precise answer. A pile definition as "quantity
of sand which remains essentially unchanged if a grain is removed"
(which fits more or less the intuitive picture of "big amount") can
not be valid since one can remove progressively all grains, the
result being the empty set, not a pile.
One can try the constructive method, starting with one grain and
progressively adding other grains in a quasi-continuous process: at
some moment, one will definitely recognize a pile of sand.
Before definitely having a pile of sand and after one can definitely
label the amount as "a few grains" there is a transition stage. The
solution to "sand pile paradox" proposed by Greeks was to abstain
from any labeling during the transition since the amount doesn't suit
clearly any of the labels "pile" or "a few grains". This is realized
in practice by fixing conventionally N1 (a number of grains which can
still be definitely seen as "a few") and N2 (a number of grains which
definitely look like a pile): if the number of grains is less than N1
then we say we have "a few", if the number of grains is more than N2
then we say we have "a pile" and if the number of grains is somewhere
between N1 and N2 we put no label. Note that N1 and N2 are not given
by any mathematical arguments, they are chosen intuitively by looking
at the sand grains and fitting the result with our perception.
Now, we make the same reasoning for languages. Instead of "grains"
we put "specific Romance features" (in opposition with Latin), instead
of "a few" we say "Latin language" and instead of "a pile" we put
"Romance language". We start up with no "specific Romance features"
and we add in a quasi-continuous mode feature after feature. At the
beginning, one or two Romance features do not change the character
of the system which remains "Latin language". At some moment, after
having added a lot of "specifical Romance features", the language
obtained is definitely something different from Latin. We call that
new system "Romance language". As in the case of the sand pile, there
is no precise moment characterized by a given number of features, in
which one would recognize a "step" transition from Latin to Romance.
We have some historical moment t1 in which the language has acquired
a few Romance features leaving it still Latin and an historical moment
t2 after which the language (having acquired a lot of Romance
features)
can be definitely considered Romance. Between t1 and t2 there is a
transition period.
The Concile of Tours and the Strasbourg Oaths mark somehow t2 because
people definitely realized that spoken vernacular no longer could be
called "Latin language" but somehow else, that is "Romance language".
Of course, acknowledgement of that has nothing to do with an alleged
discontinuity of the transition as a whole. At no intermediate moment
one can infer a _sudden_ occurence of a lot of Romance features in
that
vernacular, changing its' character from "definitely Latin" to
"definitely Romance".
On the contrary, for pidgins this is definitory.
>>> but why don't we have a word for that phenomenon?
>>
>> We do have. "Continuous evolution" fits well.
>
> It doesn't fit what I describe.
"Continuous evolution by progressive accumulation of Romance
features"
would finally please you?!
>>> As for the fact that no pidgin or creole Latin has been found:
what
>>> about those semi-intelligible inscriptions that make experts give
>>> up?
>>
>> What are you talking about? Graffiti?! Just look on your walls
>> and try to understand what's written there.
>
> That'll be difficult. Most of them are in languages I don't speak.
You made my point.
Cheers,
Marius Iacomi