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Is English a “creole Language”?

languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu

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Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#71

Post by indigo945 »

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.

This is very much debatable. Only around one in four English words is Germanic in origin, whereas half of English words are Latinic or Romanic. [1]

Some properties of English's grammar are also more similar to Romance languages than Germanic ones. For example, whereas Germanic languages only mark tense on verbs, English verbs (like Spanish verbs) are marked with aspect in addition to tense: there is a distinction between "I played tennis"/"I have played tennis"/"I was playing tennis".

I'm not saying English is a Romance language. But it's a much more interesting problem to figure out why it's not considered a Romance language than you imply.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_influence_in_English

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#72

Post by geocar »

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.

Once upon a time I was walking with a friend around Amsterdam and a man walked up to me and asked me where something was (a nearby restaurant), I answered in English with directions and he thanked me, then a moment later this exchange happened:

- Wait! You can speak Netherlands?

- No. Sorry.

- But you can! I am speaking it!

- No you're not! You're speaking English!

He just blinked and walked off, probably assuming I was playing a trick, but my friend asked what that was all about, and had to convince me that she didn't understand anything he was saying, and wouldn't have said anything to me at all about it except that she heard me insist he was speaking English!

She asked me to try and remember what exactly I was hearing, and I realised I couldn't! I could only remember something like "do you know where [placename that sounded familiar] is?" and maybe that there was a heavy accent, but not exactly how it sounded.

Every now and then I think of this and I wonder if I actually understand English at all, or if I'm just so used to saying that I understand it (in response to something that sounds something like a question) that I started to believe it.

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#74

Post by 39896880 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #67
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.

The subject of the quote is Creolistics, not the definition of Creole. If you are looking for scientific definitions of linguistic categories you are going to be very disappointed. Language involves humans. Language is messy.

As well, any question that involves “meaning” must itself answer the question “to whom?” I answered from the perspective of (some) linguists, but as another user pointed out, non-linguists might very well and with no ill intention consider it an appropriate term.

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#75

Post by blueyes »

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.

And it's closer to Frisian than Dutch. If the Battle of Hastings hadn't happened, these languages would be easily and mutually comprehensible. But that just shows that English descends from a branch of West Germanic. It changed gradually over time, kept a core Germanic vocabulary for its basic terms, and borrowed a lot from other languages as it needed more complex concepts, moreso than Modern High German which allows for easy word invention through combination.

Creoles are defined as languages emerging from pidgins, which themselves are often simplified forms of speech that allow linguistically separate groups to communicate. English is not that. It has an unbroken line of native speakers whose usage gradually evolved, while maintaining a system of complex syntactic rules as well as a literature.

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#76

Post by inanutshellus »

geocar wrote: post #72
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.

Once upon a time I was walking with a friend around Amsterdam and a man walked up to me and asked me where something was (a nearby restaurant), I answered in English with directions and he thanked me, then a moment later this exchange happened: - Wait! You can speak Netherlands? - No. Sorry. - But you can! I am speaking it! - No you're not! You're speaking English! He just blinked and walked off, probably assuming I…

Very much reminds me of a Kids in the Hall skit from ages ago. Two guys are at a party, one says "hello", the other says -- in perfect English -- "Sorry I don't understand you, I don't speak English. please don't beat me up." The first guy assumes it's a joke and plays along until he gets annoyed at the perfect accent and responses ("no really, I don't understand what you're saying, nor what I'm saying, I've just practiced this conversation a lot. please don't beat me up.")

Eventually the first guy tires of being mocked by this guy claiming not to speak English and beats the guy up.

Totally hilarious example of what you experienced taken to an extreme.

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#77

Post by cryptonector »

teleforce wrote: post #14

Is English just badly pronounced French [video]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40495393

French is just badly pronounced Latin/Italian.

Seriously, French is just a very crassified Romance language. As a near-native French speaker I was shocked one time in Paris at a restaurant where our server was from Italy and pronounce every letter in every French word and I still understood him.

Dropping 's's (and leaving behind a circumflex to remind one of the dropped 's')? That's a pretty crass evolution (but see the note at the bottom). Dropping trailing letters in words? Same thing. I understand that "oc" is really the Latin "hoc", meaning "this", and that "oui" is just an evolution -a shortening- of "hoc hic" ("this that"). "Oi" (pronounced "wah" in English) is just a vowel shift.

French is often treated as a high-class language, so I say 'crass' mainly to remind people that the evolution of French was really the result of every day people not treating it like a dead language to be preserved.

Re: Is English a “creole Language”?

#80

Post by mauvehaus »

agumonkey wrote: post #51
teleforce wrote: post #14

Is English just badly pronounced French [video]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40495393

The bit about non rhyming poetry forms makes me wonder how brit-pop would have sounded without those "french" structures.

Old English poetry tends to have commonality at the beginnings of words (e.g. alliteration) rather than rhyming at the ends of words. Or so I remember from The History of English Podcast.

It's now 180 episodes in and talking about Shakespeare. Old English was some episodes back, as you might imagine.

As with many others posting here IANALinguist.

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