Re[4]: [tied] Re: Volcae and Volsci

At 8:11:09 PM on Sunday, April 6, 2008, Rick McCallister
wrote:

> I've seen descriptions of [Afrikaans] as a creole
> language. [...]

Whatever may be meant by 'creolized', it quite clearly isn't
a creole.

> It supposedly has a simplified grammar

In some ways; it certainly has a simpler morphology than
Dutch. On the other hand, it has (if Wikip. is to be
trusted here) a rather interesting, somewhat complicated,
and I think rather unusual double negative construction.

> and has influence from german, French, English and various
> autochthonous African languages.

It probably has; none of that makes it a creole, or even
'creolized'. Just the fact that it largely preserves Dutch
word order (V2 main clauses, predominantly SOV subordinate
clauses) instead of being SVO is a significant pointer.

Brian