Re: Volcae and Volsci

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Brian M. Scott" <BMScott@...> wrote:

>
> 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.

Another Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch-based_creole_languages

> > 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)

This is the first time you actually see an Afrikaans grammar, right?

> a rather interesting, somewhat complicated,
> and I think rather unusual double negative construction.

Yes, why would anybody suffer their official language to have a double
negative, when it's frowned upon in English? Arabic and Russian have
double negatives, if my first textbook on linguistics (Lyons) didn't
lie to me.

> > 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.

You think a language must be SVO to be a creole? Jeez.


Torsten