[tied] Re: Creole Romance?

>
> > BTW the languages of the records of the North German
> > cities switch from Low German to High German within the
> > scope of twenty years in the 16th century. At the same
> > time as the Hanse finally declines. Don't tell me there's
> > no connection here.
>
> Of course there's a connection, though that's obviously not
> the only reason.

And the other ones are?

>
> >>> 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
>
> >> This is a considerable misrepresentation of the passage.
> >> The difference between <egges> and <eyren> goes far
> >> beyond the nature of the plural inflexion. We are not
> >> told that the wife was indignant at all; the merchant was
> >> angry because his perfectly good English (from his point
> >> of view) had been dismissed as incomprehensible French.
>
> > Right, I should have re-read the story. But obviously, the
> > merchant's English is only perfectly good in hindsight;

...

>
> > given alternative political developments, -eren might have
> > survived in English, and the merchant would now stand
> > condemned (and also by you) as the speaker of a corrupt,
> > French-influenced substandard dialect that didn't make it.
>
> Not by anyone who knew anything about the history of the
> language. Both plurals are native to OE, and the fact that
> we have <egg> instead of *<ay> or the like is due to Norse
> influence, not French.
>

I said _alternative_. Contrafactual history.

> >>> 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.
>
> >> Whether any of them did or not, there's nothing in
> >> Caxton's story that suggests such an interpretation.
>
> > And there's nothing to contradict it.
>
> There's nothing in the story to contradict the notion that
> the moon is made of green cheese; would you care to draw
> that inference as well?

Cheap shot. You can't infer anything from a non-contradiction, and we
both know that. I'm saying this story doesn't disprove my theory.

> To the minimal extent that the story says anything about the
> matter, it points in the opposite direction. Clearly
> neither the merchant nor the wife was acquainted with both
> forms of the 'egg' word.
>
> >>> I know that traditionally -s plural is considered a
> >>> Northern thing,
>
> >> Naturally: it is. And since the Northern dialects of Old
> >> English lost word-final /n/, generalizing the <-es>
> >> plural made good sense, especially after word-final schwa
> >> also dropped.
>

Or it's a conscious thing. In the Dutch 'Gouden Eeuw' (Golden
Century) there was similarly a tendency towards plural -s
(eg. 'arms') over -en ('armen'). The latter is now the standard,
after Dutch trade collapsed when France finally conquered Alsace
which gave them a stranglehold on the Rhine. As it seemed to have
been in NIMBY Kent then.

> > The problem with your analysis is that you see language
> > development as something autonomous, while I see it as
> > driven by other factors.
>
> I see both, of course. This is not a problem. That you see
> only the other factors *is* a problem.

That I don't see the 'autonomous factor' is a problem? I don't get it.

> > Thus in a total description of the historical situation
> > (not just linguistic), Occam would be in my favor.
>
> Ockham has nothing to say on the subject.

Obviously we disagree (look, I can use 'obviously' too!).

> > But the Northern markets is where the Hanse traders went
> > to buy wool.
>
> Not really. The wool ports were Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Hull,
> Boston, Lynn, Yarmouth, Ipswich, London, Sandwich,
> Winchelsea, Chichester, Southampton,
> Melcombe/Poole/Weymouth, Bridgwater, Exeter, Plymouth, and
> Bristol, of which only the first two are really northern.
> In the early days of the Hanse Boston and Lynn were
> extremely important; by ~1400. See
> <http://www.le.ac.uk/hi/bon/ESFDB/wool.html>. And of course
> the Steelyard in London was one of the four chief foreign
> trading centres of the Hanse.

The information I have from a long time back, the source of which I
forgot, is that the North of England was the only place the Hanse
sent out its own agents to markets to buy stuff; every other region
they stuck to the harbors.

> > Thus you would have more linguistic diversity on the
> > market, and more motivation to use a 'least common
> > denominator' language to communicate (as Scandinavians
> > do).
>
> The timing doesn't work: the Hanse are too late.
>

I know they were present during the Peasant's revolt, my brother did
a paper on a report ot it back to the HQ at Marienburg (Malbork(?)).
Otherwise I'd have to go for Flemish traders then.

Torsten