[tied] Re: Creole Romance?

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

>>>>> As time goes, creoles are superseded by still more credible
>>>>> imitations of the donor.
>> [...]
>>>> Oh, yes. But that's a different story. Proper English or French
>>>> impose themselves not as "imitations" but as normal languages
>>>> [...]
>>>
>>> And it's 'different' by your fiat.
>>
>> No. English and French are living languages. There is no
>> `imitation` of some dead language: it's just English or French.
>> When I speak French I don't imitate French language, I just
>> speak French.
>
> I don't see the difference. We all imitate whoever we learned
> whatever language from.

Any speaker imitates other speakers. According to your terminology,
nobody really speaks English or French, we all use imitations of
them. So in which conditions can one say "I speak English (French)"
in opposition to "I speak an imitation of English (French)"? Just
to clarify this point.

> Thank you for part two of your lecture on continuity.

You welcome. In addition to that continuity issue, you may also
read something about neuron models, Heaviside function implementation
in CS and geysers: they all have in common rendering of a continuous
function with something discontinuous.

> Question: When will the Anglophonians make the observation they no
> longer speak English and take appropriate action?

Because nobody really uses Old English for writing texts, there is
no need to call nowdays English with another name. As for the case
of Classical Greek which differs from Neo Greek, the existing labels
are just enough. For Romance languages, there were two important
distinctions to be made:
1. between Romance and Latin
2. between two different Romances
If 2 would't have existed, a label as "rustica romana lingua" or
"Neo-Latin" would have been enough, just as for Greek.

> (Answer: if and when someone or something forces them to do so
> politically. The establishment of Tok Pisin as a state language
> is a political act. Left alone, Papua would eventually speak
> English.)

Nope, since spoken English (defining _what_ is to be called English)
is still accessible, alive & kickin'.

>> No. There was no continuous range of sociolects. There were two
>> idioms, say A and B, in evolution. During Classical Latin stage,
>> A is the "good" Latin usage and B is the vernacular Latin. Both
>> A and B belong to what is called "Latin" (system). [...]
>> That is: B is the living language in continuous evolution having
>> given birth to Romance languages and the only interesting object
>> in diachrony.

[...]

>
> That is the classical position, yes. I know that. You seem to
> think I haven't understood what you are saying.

Your words prove you didn't really:

> I repeat, if it were so uniform, why all the hassles over
> incomprehensible patois' later?

That's about diatopics not diachrony, as Brian already pointed out.
Variation in space, not in time, as I already hinted. I discussed
above the diachronical evolution of A and B because we were talking
about (d/dt). You still confuse that with (d/dx). The geographical
variation, due to different convergence areas (but also to other
historical factors), is responsible for nowdays Romances: we do not
have one Neo-Latin but a number of different diasystems: French,
Occitan, Catalan, Castilian (Spanish), Portuguese, Sardinian,
Italian, Romanian, etc. Politics made that France be the state
including not only native French speakers but also most of Occitan
speaking populations (some Occitan dialects are spoken in Northern
Spain - Vall d'Aran and in North-Western Italy). Politics made that
French language had to fight with all means against local Occitan
dialects in France, and that included also labeling Occitan as
"patois", "degenerated French", "low-class language" and so on.
Just imgine your country annexed by Germany and your national
language labeled as "degenerated German". That would be a rough
equivalent of that "incomprehensible patois" issue which has really
nothing to do with creoles.

>> What "creole-like" features are you speaking of? Those like
>> partial conservation of verbal and nominal systems?! :-)
>
> Yes.

Those are *not* "creole-like" features, I thought my smiley was
clear enough. In fact, they show we can't speak about creolization.

>> The language was chosen because was the only living one. The fact
>> that choice was made at a definite moment has nothing to do with
>> language's continuity over the time and does not imply any fracture
>> point in its' evolution.
>
> More credo's.

No, these are facts. Not even arguments. Your judgement follows
the pattern:
1. {at some moment t0, A & B are (in some sense) the same}
2. {at some moment t1, some authority decides B =/= A}
=> [your contribution]
3. {there is discontinuity in B (with respect to A) at t1]
That's simply bad reasoning. You force out a non-necessary
conclusion.

Cheers,
Marius Iacomi