Re: Volcae and Volsci

At 2:17:25 PM on Tuesday, April 8, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

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

>> At 6:16:46 PM on Monday, April 7, 2008, tgpedersen wrote:

>> [...]

>>> Afrikaans is the mother tongue of a large black and
>>> colored population.

>> Obviously.

> Oh, so now it's obvious.

What do you mean 'now'? Of course it's obvious, if one
knows anything about South Africa.

>>> In that population it started as a pidgin.

>> Evidence?

> It started in that population as any other African
> European-language based pidgin. There is a lot of
> literature on the subject. I can't give you any specific
> reference, I forgot myself where I read it years back.

I'm afraid that I'm not willing to accept your
interpretation of a years-old memory strictly at face value:
given your tendency to see creoles under every bed, there's
too much room for selective memory or inadvertent source
bias.

And while I've no doubt that there were Dutch-based pidgins
-- there have, after all, been Afrikaans-based pidgins --
it's by no means clear to me that modern Afrikaans is
descended from any of them (rather than influenced by them
and the other languages involved).

Brian