[tied] Re: Creole Romance?

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 As time goes, creoles are superseded by still more credible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

The former is short for the latter.

>
> > 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.

You didn't get my point, which was the discrepancy between the
_present_ written and spoken English.

>
> > (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'.

You missed my point, being that Tok pisin is a case of
politically 'arrested development'.

>
> >> 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.
> [...]

There were, credo again.

>
> > 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).

Yes, but the existence of people who spoke no Latin several hundred
years after Caesar's conquest implies there must have very-bad-Latin-
speakers, bad-Latin-speakers, almost-OK-Latin-speakers too.

>The geographical variation,

At what time after the fall of Rome did that geography begin to vary?

>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.

I think I have that encyclopedia too.

> 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.

I don't need to imagine; I just have to travel south of Kruså. Or
read cybalist.

> >> 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.
>

If I put two smileys, does that mean I'm right instead? I can make
them clear if you want that?

> >> 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.
>

I am sorry to hear that by bad reasoning I have forced out an
unnecessary conclusion.

Torsten