🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <memo.843625@cix.compulink.co.uk> petex@cix.compulink.co.uk writes:
>In-Reply-To: <gus.teschke-050193133237@no-name-medadmin.med.umich.edu> gus.teschke@med.umich.edu (Gus Teschke)
>
>The short answer to your question is: Modern English comes from Old
>English (5th - 11th Century AD) which comes from Germanic (spoken in
>Northern Germany/Southern Denmark from perhaps 1000 BC? onwards),
>which comes from Indo-European (perhaps 3000 BC).
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>Of course particular *bits* of English come from elsewhere as a
>result of contacts with Vikings, Normans, Christianity etc. But an
>enormous amount of the basic vocabulary can be traced back at least as
>far as Germanic, the same for the basic grammar.
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Every time this issue arises, I argue that this
description inadequately emphasizes the importance
of criollization (mostly with Norman French, but I
know some highlight earlier processes, when differ-
ent Germans and Scandinavians were moving around)
in the genesis of English.  That is, I'm saying
that, *un*like say, French, which picked up bits
of Arabic, German, Italian, and so on, English
differs fundamentally from its Germanic ancestors
in the regular and predictable ways of a creole.

There are some hazards in this position:
1.  I might be wrong, scientifically; I sure
    hope someone will set me straight if this
    be so;
2.  someone will think that, because I'm con-
    trasting English with most of the other
    modern tongues of Western Europe (or Use-
    net, say), I'm claiming special virtue
    for English.  I am not;
3.  perhaps popular audiences are too ready
    to understand language change as "mixing",
    and this just muddies the waters for them.
    Also, USAicans do seem to regard Germany
    as a more distant place and culture than
    the facts warrant.  I suspect Mr. Christian
    has had to correct these misapprehensions
    too often, and so perhaps understated the
    extent to which English diverged from its
    Germanic cousins.
-- 

Cameron Laird
claird@Neosoft.com (claird%Neosoft.com@uunet.uu.net)	+1 713 267 7966
claird@litwin.com (claird%litwin.com@uunet.uu.net)  	+1 713 996 8546