From: tgpedersen
Message: 23777
Date: 2003-06-24
> At 9:47:40 AM on Monday, June 23, 2003, tgpedersen wrote:Why is that clear?
>
> > In every encounter between Scandinavians you have a pidgin
> > situation: speakers of languages that are not easily
> > mutually comprehensible.
>
> If it were a classic pidgin situation, the languages would
> not be mutually comprehensible, period.
>
> > The result is that each speaker (based on his inclination
> > do so) bends his native language a little towards that of
> > the other speaker;
>
> A perfectly normal contact phenomenon distinct from
> pidginization. Why insist on distorting standard
> terminology?
>
> >>>> No TV, no textbooks, no teachers. A passable colloquial
> >>>> Latin should be poossible, yes. Take the tourist traps
> >>>> today. Do the natives there speak a passable colloquial
> >>>> English? Do they speak pidgin English? Depends on the
> >>>> person. (And the observer).
>
> >> The question is not what might have happened but whether
> >> the Romance languages show traces of passing through a
> >> pidgin/creole phase. They don't.
>
> > No, I was making a historical observation, not a
> > linguistic one, and commenting that the view of those two
> > disciplines don't match.
>
> An inapt modern analogy isn't a historical observation, and
> there is nothing in the historical record that suggests a
> pidgin/creole phase. I certainly wouldn't rule out the
> possibility of transitory local pidgins, but it's clear that
> any such were superseded by Latin.
>