Which language is closer to being a creole?

mim   Wed Aug 19, 2009 2:53 pm GMT
Le français contemporain utilise seulement deux temps du mode subjonctif tandis que le portugais en utilise six et l'espagnol et l'italien en utilisent 4. Cela simplifie beaucoup la syntaxe verbal du français
Leasnam   Wed Aug 19, 2009 3:17 pm GMT
<<Ceux qui déclarent le français comme étant plus créolisé que l'anglais connaissent mal le français. Analysez bien cette dernière et vous allez constater qu'elle est bien comme les autres langues romanes. Elle utilise une syntaxe très semblable au portugais , à l'italien et à l'espagnol. Le vocabulaire est d'origine romane, donc vous vous leurrez tous, alors que l'anglais a beaucoup emprunté aux langues romanes. >>

I would think creole has more to do with simplified structure rather than borrowed lexicon.

Borrowing of lexicon means that a language is literary and sophisticated enough to look outside itself and bring in new terms for certain ere-existing ones, providing new senses.

A creole, in my opinion, is not a language with a mixed *wordhoard*, but a contact language created to facilitate communication between two groups who speak different languages, with a reduced *grammar*.

It has been proposed that English may fit this bill in regards to Old Norse, but only partially. Old Norse caused a shift in English word order, which later brought about a reduction in flexion. Cf:

OE: Ic cann the thaet niwe hors giefan (lit. "I can thee the new horse give")
ON changed the syntax in ME to: Ik can given thee that newe hors

--the placement of the tweth verb 'given' made the final -en become severely understressed, leading to its demise. Also, loss of grammatical gender in Old English took place in the North of Britain, where Norse contact was the heaviest, and was the result of the togetherfalling of the forms for 'the' which were very similar indeed. This process began in Old English, where loss of gender can be seen in the following passage:
"Etath thisnew hlaf (masc), *hit* (=neut) is min lichama" ("Eat this bread/loaf, it is my body")

So many experts no longer believe that Norse was a creolising agent in the simplification of English, which would have occurred anyway, but it did aid in speeding it up.

So a creaole would be something like a language an Englishman and a Chinese person would create to do business:
"Him buy one thousand this-one at gongche today" --something along the lines of this.

Neither French nor English are creoles in this sense.
Woozle   Wed Aug 19, 2009 3:50 pm GMT
"Assuming there existed something like "vulgar Latin".

It's a little bit disturbing that this supposedly so influential language didn't deliver any evidence of its alleged existence. "

The loss of final consonants in Latin was the crucial development that led to the loss of -um/-us distinction (and thus the convergence of masculine and neuter into masculine), and, of course, to the loss of the Latin noun declension (which led to replacement of the case system with prepositions), among other things.

The loss of final consonants in the speech of the Roman 'street' was already noted in Classical Rome and is evident both from the commentaries of educated Romans and from the graffiti of that age (the classic example: the "quisquie ama valia" graffiti in Pompeii, which in correct Latin should have read "quisquis amat valeat").

The phonological changes that led to Vulgar Latin are well understood enough, I believe.
Leasnam   Wed Aug 19, 2009 4:11 pm GMT
<<The loss of final consonants in Latin was the crucial development that led to the loss of -um/-us distinction (and thus the convergence of masculine and neuter into masculine), and, of course, to the loss of the Latin noun declension (which led to replacement of the case system with prepositions), among other things. >>

What's also interesting to note is that Germanic languages, even English, have retained more cases than Romance languages by and large (Rumanian may be an exception).

English has a Nominative-Object and a Genitive/Possessive case, as do most other Germanic tongues, like Swedish, Dutch, Norwegian, etc.

What's funny is that Latin (6) had more cases than Proto-Germanic (4-5)

Woozle, I doubt that the entirety of the Romance situation can be explained by the loss of terminal consonants, although this might have provided some simplification.
PARISIEN   Wed Aug 19, 2009 4:29 pm GMT
<< [le français ] utilise une syntaxe très semblable au portugais , à l'italien et à l'espagnol. >>

- C'est précisément la raison pour laquelle les langues romanes ne peuvent PAS venir du latin, même "vulgaire" !


Et puis, arrêtons d'employer le mot "créole", qui ne s'applique absolument pas dans les cas anglais et français.

Quand on parle de "créole", on pense à ceux des Antilles d'une part, de la Réunion et de l'Ile Maurice, ces derniers étant situés à l'autre bout de la Terre.

Le fait troublant est que leur grammaire obéit au même minimalisme, mais structuré de la même façon. Ce qui suggère une commune origine. Quelle origine ?

Une hypothèse plausible est que ce serait un vestige d'une lingua franca employée non seulement entre trafiquants européens et roitelets nègres, mais aussi entre tribus africaines, comme c'était le cas plus au Nord entre Turcs, Arabes, Berbères, Touaregs etc. (De fait, le créole présente précisément la syntaxe par juxtaposition de la lingua franca italo-espagnole telle que historiquement attestée).

En ce cas, les Africains exportés aux Amériques parlaient déjà +/- la base de leur futur créole avant même d'être vendus comme esclaves.

Toujours est-il que parler de "créolisation" à propos de l'anglais et du français est hors sujet.
bibi   Wed Aug 19, 2009 5:08 pm GMT
C'est précisément la raison pour laquelle les langues romanes ne peuvent PAS venir du latin, même "vulgaire" !


Quelle idiotie! Le bulgare ou le macédonien qui ont perdu tous les cas ne viennent pas du vieux slave telles que les autres langues slaves (russe, polonais, croate etc.)????!!
En outre, si vous prenez en examen la syntaxe espagnole et française vous pourrez constater qu'il y a des différences remarquables!
PARISIEN   Wed Aug 19, 2009 5:39 pm GMT
<< Le bulgare ou le macédonien qui ont perdu tous les cas ne viennent pas du vieux slave telles que les autres langues slaves (russe, polonais, croate etc.) >>

-- Oui, intéressant.
Quand une langue-mère se disperse entre langues-filles, on constate en effet une dispersion, les langues-filles se différenciant entre elles plus que par rapport à leur langue-mère.

Mais les langues romanes, elles, se ressemblent plus entre elles qu'elles ressemblent au latin. Ce malgré des différences insurmontables dans leurs phonétique respectives !

C'est une évidence qui est là comme un éléphant dans un corridor. Raison pour laquelle on néglige trop souvent de la voir.
Paul   Wed Aug 19, 2009 5:39 pm GMT
<<English or French? >>


First, you have to clearly define the term "creole".
PARISIEN   Wed Aug 19, 2009 6:00 pm GMT
<< First, you have to clearly define the term "creole". >>

- That is the question. "Creole" is fully irrelevant IMHO when it comes to French or English.
Woozle   Wed Aug 19, 2009 6:20 pm GMT
"Woozle, I doubt that the entirety of the Romance situation can be explained by the loss of terminal consonants, although this might have provided some simplification. "

Of course it cannot. This was just an obvious way to start the discussion. Parisien doubted the very existence of Vulgar Latin.
Guest   Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:21 pm GMT
Parisien and other French forumers support the theory of a French linguistc called Yves Cortez who states that Romance languages don't derive from Latin but from another Italic language that is not related to Latin. Of course this crazy theory has not support at all among the international scientist community and in his blog he has been refuted many times by Spanish philologists.
Lausberg   Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:30 pm GMT
Parisien ought to read some good essais of Romance linguistics instead of
wasting his time at antimoon.
Um   Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:31 pm GMT
<<Parisien ought to read some good essais of Romance linguistics instead of
wasting his time at antimoon. >>

PARISIEN is one of the posters on this forum who knows what he's talking about.

I always enjoy reading his posts and hearing what he was to say.

piss off.
blanc   Wed Aug 19, 2009 7:35 pm GMT
you're right Um
you have the same level of linguistic ignorance
Jake   Fri Aug 21, 2009 8:14 pm GMT
<<you're right Um
you have the same level of linguistic ignorance >>

You're right blanc. As usual.
At least PARISIEN is not an asshole.

And by the way, linguistic knowledge means nothing when people won't listen to a word you say because you're an ASSHOLE. (thats not YOU personally of course, that's the indefinite pronoun YOU ;)