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

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "m_iacomi" <m_iacomi@...> wrote:

> --- 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 As time goes, creoles are superseded by still more credible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.

And it's 'different' by your fiat. You're just restating your point
of view.

>

>
> >>> 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?!
>

No, I can't accept that a discontinuity can 'spring' from a
continuity, this discontinuity being the one we see in the sources.

> >>> 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.
>

Something must be wrong with my head. It is not clear to me at all.

> >>> 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.
>

No, the particular dialect and sociolect chosen was given pretty much
beforehand: the one of the nobility supposed to understand the oath.

> > 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.

Languages are spoken by people. The particular language, sociolect or
register chosen is a function of what you call politics.

> >>> 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.

Thank you for explaining 'continuity' to me. Other than that you are
just restating your position.

>
> >>> 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?!

No.

> >>> 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.
>

Erh? And some are in broken Danish, which I don't understand either.

Let me explain here that I don't have a problem with a continuous
development from Latin to a Romance language. But where you at any
given time see e.g. a uniform, mutually completetly intelligible
language, I see at any given place and time a range of sociolects or
registers, from (passably) perfect Latin in the monasteries down
(sociologically speaking) to creole-like low-register sociolects. And
therefore, when a political decision was made that we need a language
for this particular area that happened to be ruled over by one
monarch, that language was chosen somewhat down the scale, and
therefore contained creole-like features. So there!

Torsten