🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <C0Hr0w.159@NeoSoft.com> claird@NeoSoft.com (Cameron Laird) writes:
>			.
>>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.
>			.
>			.
>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;

Well, it's maybe not quite as simple as right or wrong; I'd say
you're kind of right, but pretty wrong.
	You're right that in the traditional accounts the importance
of creolization effects in the development of English are
underemphasized.  But "differs fundamentally from its Germanic
ancestors in the regular and predictable ways of a creole" is
way overstating the case.  The most telling example I can think
of is the body of irregular verbs and nouns (come/came, foot/feet)
still in the language today, which are a direct inheritance from 
"Germanic ancestors"--this is the sort of think that gets eliminated
right off the mark in true creolization.  In fact, English still
had some of the Indo-European verb conjugation up to Modern Englihs
times (thou goest, he goeth), well after the end of direct foreign
influence--again, this is the sort of thing that disappears quickly
in creolization.

Scott DeLancey                   delancey@darkwing.uoregon.edu
Department of Linguistics
University of Oregon