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Is English a “creole Language”?

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu

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Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#61

Post by 3np »

Xophmeister wrote: post #8
throwup238 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we won’t even claim to tell you what the definition of “word” is! What's your best attempt? :-)

It's a bit like the old saying, "All models are wrong, some models are useful." The concept of a "word" is useful in everyday language, particularly in English -- it's host language, unsurprisingly enough -- and (probably) other Indo-European languages. However, in a more precise context, it breaks down because of edge cases. For example, "words" in agglutinative languages[1] (e.g., Turkish) act very differently from…

(IANALinguist).

I think it's obvious that there might not be one unifying definition that spans all human languages. "Word" is an English word refering to a specific of the English language. A class in JS is not the same as class in C++, big deal? ;)

As for English, I'm happy defining it through written language and spacing. "Can't", "unmarried", and "walkie-talkie" all one word each.

We might as well think of "word" in foreign enough languages as separate concepts. Doesn't seem meaningful to try to fit fundamentally different structures into the same conceptual molds. Which I guess ties back to your original point regarding if it's a useful excercise taxonimizing English as creole.

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#62

Post by Liquid_Fire »

nine_k wrote: post #37
koito17 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

cljs.user> (re-seq #"\s\w+\s" "やり直して") nil Joking aside, is it common to use regular expressions? Seems like the method only works for languages with spaces. I think a more sophisticated lexer may be necessary, but are there are non-regex, "fast approximations" that work across most languages? This is a problem that I have not tried solving before.

すみません! It's because you have no space around. A more correct regexp would be \b\w+\b, with zero-width "word boundary" psttetbs instead of spaces.

That's just passing the problem onto how you define \b. Since Japanese uses no spaces, it would match entire phrases or sentences as "words", treating only punctuation as word boundaries.

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#64

Post by pessimizer »

39896880 wrote: post #2

Creole is both a sociohistoric and linguistic term. The fact that the linguistic attributes are difficult to put boundaries on is extremely common for linguists: we won’t even claim to tell you what the definition of “word” is! As for whether English is a Creole, it’s important to understand the motivation for Creolistics at its origin. It started, and continues, as an effort to legitimize a set of languages that bef…

I don't understand this comment. It makes absolutely no claims about the definition of a creole, and it makes no claims about how English doesn't conform to that definition. It just talks about "squinting" at languages, mentions black Americans for no particular reason, and accuses anyone who would argue that English is a creole of being "disingenuous" for trying to reverse the "legitimazation."

It's like the perfect troll comment. Makes no argument, implies anyone who would disagree is probably racist, and uses black Americans as a comparison for no particular reason.*

Here's my opinion: English is the result of a simplification of grammar caused by Old Norse and Old English crashing into each other with the same words but different grammar; then the French forced French usage in commerce, so most people started using a ton of French words with this English grammar. That last part sounds exactly like a creole.

Is your argument that considering English a creole lets English people off the hook for something? Are things that happen to non-white people somehow delegitimized when they are also noted in white people? Are white people so special and unique that everything else has to be defined by it's non-whiteness? If I'm missing your point, what was it?

[*] As a black American, I'm starting to recognize this as a long-standing feature of western rhetoric. A lot of modern argument seems to boil down to which side is more like black Americans. Humorously, actual black Americans are never considered to be like metaphorical black Americans; we're actually spoiled whiners with a sense of entitlement.

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#66

Post by cml123 »

mise_en_place wrote: post #63

It's closer to Dutch or German. I had no issue understanding transit signage in Amsterdam. The difficult words are calques and idioms that don't directly translate, i.e. opponthoud . Exit is uitgang , literally an "outgoing". Entrance is ingang , ingoing.

incidentally, outgang is technically a modern English word, but I've never heard it spoken in real life. You can see literary uses of its precessor "utgang" in Old English here [0]

[0]https://bosworthtoller.com/search?q=utgang

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#67

Post by BurningFrog »

39896880 wrote: post #2

Creole is both a sociohistoric and linguistic term. The fact that the linguistic attributes are difficult to put boundaries on is extremely common for linguists: we won’t even claim to tell you what the definition of “word” is! As for whether English is a Creole, it’s important to understand the motivation for Creolistics at its origin. It started, and continues, as an effort to legitimize a set of languages that bef…

> It started, and continues, as an effort to legitimize a set of languages

OK, but this is not a scientific definition.

Nothing wrong with such words, but trying to logically reason about them is not going to be fruitful.

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#68

Post by BtM909 »

mise_en_place wrote: post #63

It's closer to Dutch or German. I had no issue understanding transit signage in Amsterdam. The difficult words are calques and idioms that don't directly translate, i.e. opponthoud . Exit is uitgang , literally an "outgoing". Entrance is ingang , ingoing.

opponthoud -> oponthoud

Although, because I'm looking at it, I get semantic satiation.

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#69

Post by imbnwa »

pessimizer wrote: post #64
39896880 wrote: post #2

Creole is both a sociohistoric and linguistic term. The fact that the linguistic attributes are difficult to put boundaries on is extremely common for linguists: we won’t even claim to tell you what the definition of “word” is! As for whether English is a Creole, it’s important to understand the motivation for Creolistics at its origin. It started, and continues, as an effort to legitimize a set of languages that bef…

I don't understand this comment. It makes absolutely no claims about the definition of a creole, and it makes no claims about how English doesn't conform to that definition. It just talks about "squinting" at languages, mentions black Americans for no particular reason, and accuses anyone who would argue that English is a creole of being "disingenuous" for trying to reverse the "legitimazation." It's like the perfect…

>Here's my opinion: English is the result of a simplification of grammar caused by Old Norse and Old English crashing into each other with the same words but different grammar; then the French forced French usage in commerce, so most people started using a ton of French words with this English grammar. That last part sounds exactly like a creole.

Grandparent's point is that you're stretching the meaning of the term to a level of generality that applies to everything, therefore meaning nothing in particular.

Your point applies to French just as much as English: Gaulic Celtic speakers poorly adopt Latin after getting bull rushed by Romans, then mix in Frankish terms when the Romans' former allies take over; or how about Sicilian: a mash-up of Latin, Greek, Germanic, Arabic conquerors.

You have to go pretty far to find a language which isn't a fusion of other languages that results from different peoples entering into extended contact.

'Creole' is a word that only appears with its current meaning and history in the last 100 or so years, grandparent is simply preserving that particularity. Nothing more.

No one in 1200s Europe thought English or Sicilian were languages not worth engaging with as actual languages owing to modern racial connotations.

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