[tied] Re: Creole Romance?

Perhaps this example can shed some on what I mean.


This is from a preface Caxton wrote to a book he printed:

/ For we englysshe men / ben borne vnder the domynacyon of the mone,
whiche is neuer stedfaste / but euer wauerynge / wexynge one season /
and waneth & dyscreaseth another season / And that comyn englysshe
that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from a nother. In so moche that
in my dayes happened that certayn marchauntes were in a shippe in
tamyse for to haue sayled ouer the see into zelande / and for lacke
of wynde, thei taryed atte forlond, and wente to lande for to
refreshe them: And one of theym named sheffelde, a mercer, cam in to
an hows and axed for mete: and specyally he axyd after eggys: And the
goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no frenshe. And the
marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no frenshe, but wolde
haue hadde egges / and she vnderstode hym not / And thenne at laste a
nother sayd that he wolde haue eyren / then the good wyf sayd that
she vnderstod hym wel / Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now
wryte, egges or eyren / certaynly it is harde to playse euery man /
by cause of dyuersite & chaunge of langage.

(See BTW message 6317).

Caxton is obviously worrying about what is the right form of English.
Note some of my favorite hobby-horses: The mercer, who is used to
trading, uses plural -s, the wyfe is not indifferent but indignant
that someone should speak to her using plural -s (note the similar
reaction in the Rhine-German 'doktors' case), and we know the
outcome, in no small measure due to people like Caxton who eventually
decided that -s was OK, as did the Afrikaaners ('eiers'), but not the
Dutch ('eieren') or Germans ('Eier'). And the result is: when as a
foreigner you learn German, you have to learn a list of about 30
nouns taking Umlaut (when possible) and -er plural (Amt, Bad,
Brett,...), when learn Dutch you must learn about 10 that take -eren
(Dutch hates Umlaut), and when learning English you have to learn
one. Which is one of the reasons English is such a success: people
like Caxton (and all the other speakers) have consistently leaned in
the 'trade language' (as opposed to 'hierarchy language') direction.

You might even interpret the story to mean that as late as in
Caxton's time, people in England used one language at home and
another, more regular one in the market. I know that traditionally -s
plural is considered a Northern thing, but that's also where the
markets (and Norse villages) were.

Torsten