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

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

> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "ehlsmith" <ehlsmith@...> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
> wrote:
> > ...[cut]...
> > > Creole grammars don't start from scratch (unless you are a
> > > follower of Chomsky or Psammetik). They start from the grammar
> > >of the native language of the new speaker.
> >
> > Aren't many, if not most, creoles [using the classic definition]
> > the result of a multiplicity of languages being thrown together,
> > not just two? In those cases where does the grammar come from?
> > There is no one "native language".

> The classical "situation" you are thinking of here is perhaps that
> of African slaves learning English in their "new country".

Or French, or Dutch or Portugese, etc. And in addition to slaves we
can include imported contract laborers, such as in Hawaii and other
Pacific locations.

> Or perhaps a language used on markets where several tribes meet
> the new trading partner.

Yes. Those are the cases which examplify the conventional definitions
of pidgin and creole.

> >And in any case, isn't the "native language" of
> > the first generation of creole speakers the preceding pidgin?
> >
> Well, let's rephrase it with 'pidgin' instead of 'creole'

Rephrasing it still doesn't answer the question of from where the
grammar originates in such cases, and it raises the related question
of how the full grammar of a creole arises from the very simplified
grammar of a pidgin in just a single generation.

> > > This
> > > looks like going half the way down the path of creoles, but why
> > > don't we have a word for that phenomenon? Extending the
> > > definition of 'creole' seems the natural way to go.
> >
> > Evidently not to most linguists though.
>
> Most linguists would not like to think of their native language as
> a creole.

Whether that is true or not is beside the point though. If the
purpose of language is to communicate, it is better if one does not
go around using words in ways which counter their conventionally
accepted meanings, regardless of how logically superior one may feel
his own new definiton is. For example, I could argue that the phrase
"put out the light" should mean to turn a lamp on- after all it is
causing the lamps filament to put out light rays. But if I go around
saying "I am going to put out the light" or "he put out the light"
meaning to turn the lamp on, then I am going to be needlessly
misunderstood. Why continue to use a term which will cause you to be
misunderstood?

Regards,
Ned Smith