Re: [tied] Re: Was proto-romance a pidgin?

----- Original Message -----
From: "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, April 28, 2003 9:34 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: Was proto-romance a pidgin?



> Lingua Franca never had any native speakers, right?

Right. That's why it remained a pidgin unto its demise. Perhaps it would have become creolised in Northern Africa if it had been given a chance, but the colonial spread of French did for it in the 19th century.

> Perhaps the whole pidgin -> creole theory needs a revision;

It's being revised all the time, but the revisions are better left to the researchers who study actual pidgins and creoles. At any rate, there doesn't seem to be any need at present to redefine the well-established terminology of creole studies. As used by modern linguists, the term "creolisation" means the conversion of a pidgin (a conventionalised but simple code, used in resticted settings) into a creole (a fully fledged language). It does not mean "changes that could be attributed to imperfect learning in contact conditions". When you speak about the "creolisation of Vulgar Latin", you misuse the term. Vulgar Latin was not a pidgin.

> perhaps the creoles are spoken by those who were participating in, but not actively travelling in the trade network. That would mean that when the trade network breaks down, you have a number of independent but similar creoles in the nodes of the former network; typically coasts, since many early networks were sea-borne (and that ensures that they are afterwards contiguous).

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. But what's that to do with the actual situation of the Romance languages? It has been pointed to you that they lack the diagnostic traits of creole languages. Since it was Peter who had made the points you objected to, I'll leave the refutation of your objections to him, but it won't be a difficult task. Your brief rejoinders miss the point in most cases.

Piotr