[tied] Re: Creole Romance?

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

>>>> 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.
>>
>> If the two formulas are equivalent from your point of view, there
>> is no opposition between them (incidentally, your terminology is
>> confusing). My question contained an essential keyword "opposition

".

>
> My answer didn't.

That is: your answer was not answering my question

> It's your terminology, not mine.

Well, most people in the world still say they're speaking languages,
not imitations of them. What would you call English (French) language
if the main blah-blah of people in UK, USA and other places is to be
called "imitation of English" according to your terminology?

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

[...]

>>> You didn't get my point, which was the discrepancy between the
>>> _present_ written and spoken English.
>>
>> That's still a different point.
>
> I think I should know what my points are.

That's true. You should.

>> Spoken Medieval Latin was still A with slightly local pronunciation
>> idiosyncrasies. By no means could it be confused with spoken B at
>> the same historical time.
>
> Yes since some point in time (when?).

The keyword "Medieval" says all.

> But the situation would be no different from that of diglossia,
> examples being German/Schwyzerdütsch, Classical/Colloquial Arabic.

Not quite. Before dissolution of central power, yes. Afterwards (and
we discuss about Medieval Latin), no. Transition from "yes" to "no" is
of course gradual in time.

>> Written English of nowdays belongs obviously to the same diasystem
>> as spoken English. The discrepancy is _only_ in pronunciation, not
>> in structure. Therefore there is no point in declaring "written
>> English" as "English ((c) - T.G. Pedersen)" in opposition with
>> "spoken English" re-labeled as "Other Language than English". Both
>> written and spoken forms are English.
>
> Exactly my point. Since there's no point in doing it, no one does.
> Except in Papua New Guinea, where there is a political point.

... since Tok Pisin is not spoken English but spoken creole, there is
also some linguistical support.

>> I didn't missed your point. It's just totally irrelevant for the
>> issue we discuss here. I only pointed out _why_ Tok Pisin (or its'
>> further evolutionary stages) could _never_ be labeled as English.
>
> Give it another 50 years without a written language and it would be
> English.

No, since the place is occupied by English.

>> You seem to infer that there were a lot of intermediate speakers
>> from A to B, at a given time during Middle Ages, in a given place.
>> That is not supported by any facts and by any logic.
>
> As for facts: given that surviving sources are so rare, you
> wouldn't get any examples of "bad Romance".

Known sources are still pointing to that A/B story. If you want to
build up a unnecessary and unobservable theory, without any facts in
support of it, feel free to produce it, but be aware of that Occam
guy, frantically shaking a razor.

>>>> The geographical variation,
>>>
>>> At what time after the fall of Rome did that geography begin to
>>> vary?
>>
>> If you'd bothered to read all the phrase, you'd have seen what I
>> mean by "geographical variation" which you seem to confuse with
>> "variation of geography".
>
> ??

Since you wrote "geography begin to vary", I interpreted that in the
normal sense (that is: you asking about "variation of geography"). If
your formula really was to be interpreted in a *very* figurate sense,
then I misunderstood you.

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

>> [...] conservation -- even partial -- of verbal and nominal systems
>> rules out creolization. I have to recognize that I didn't expected
>> you to say "yes" to this argument.
>
> That's not an argument, that's a definition.

Partial conservation is not a definition, is a linguistical fact
which
can be taken into account as argument ruling out creolization.

>>>> 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]

[...]

>> In general, showing some counterexamples (as I did in my previous
>> posts) should have been enough to make you get rid of {{1 & 2} =>

3}

>> judgement.
>
> Examples counter to what?

To the type {{1 & 2} => 3} judgement as exposed above.

Summing up: you note some simplifying features of Romances with
respect to Latin. Some of them can be observed also for creoles
with respect to their creolized source language. You infer: some
similar features could mean similar derivation up to some point.
The inference is not valid since the originating process is
different. The shared simplifying features are absolutely natural:
most simplifying processes affect too complicate morphologies, hard
to remember of when laziness gets into play. In Romanian we have
even today samples of linguistical laziness: "ei avea" instead of
"ei aveau" (confusion of 3rd persons singular and plural into one
and only form) is very common in low level language; idiosyncrasy
of using conjunctive form has the tendency to replace normal future:
"o sa fac" instead of "voi face" (`I'll do`); declined forms have
the tendency to be replaced by prepositional forms: "cartea lui
Maria" (or even "cartea la Maria" in some regions) instead of the
correct literary "cartea Mariei". All these examples are pointing
in the very same direction of progressively eliminating too-hard-
to-remember-in-real-time-conversation-for-lazy-minded-people-type
grammar. And, of course, that is not creolization: it is realized
within the system, by native speakers.
That is: those similarities in some features are expected, not
meaningful. The definition of pidgin/creole relies on the process
of discontinuous creation "over the night". The some shared features
in simplifying are not definitory for creoles. If you want to check
if a language went through a creolization phase, you have to look
for all its' features: if you find features not compatible with
creolization (and this is the case for Romances), or if you don't
find all creole features (and this is still the case for Romances),
you cannot assert a creole phase.
Looking just on some features and inferring a creole phase would
be like looking to French "cent" [sã] and "chien" [Syã] and stating
it is a Satem language. In fact it isn't since the process leading
to "cent" and "chien" is totally different in timing with respect to
Satem shift, hence being something else.
Therefore, the correct question to ask is: was the birth of Romance
languages the result of some abrupt discontinuity point in time, in
which they acquired all creole features?! The answer is no, because:
1. Romances haven't all creole languages features, creoles haven't
all Romance features and those shared are several orders of magnitude
less important in the case of Romances with respect to creoles;
2. there is no discontinuity in time between VL and Romances. Were
it any definitory discontinuity, that should have been since the
very beginning of Roman conquest -- but nobody noticed that for
quite a long time: people were convinced up to Middle Ages that
vernacular speaking was still Latin. The case with pidgins is all on
the opposite: people know from the start they are speaking something
else. Late acknowledgement that "rustica romana lingua" was different
from Latin is the clear indication of a slow process, not of a sudden
discontinuity during Middle Ages: you tried to make a case of it, but
that's useless since {{1 & 2} => 3} judgement as above is not valid.

Cheers,
Marius Iacomi