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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Fw: Aramaic to them?

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Karl Randolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Fw: Aramaic to them?
  • Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 15:29:50 -0800

On 09/03/2004 13:59, Karl Randolph wrote:

Peter:

English has a history that makes it difficult to compare with other languages: already the English as used by Chaucer was a pidgin language, a combination of French and Old English. As I understand the process, pidgin languages always involve simplification. And now modern English is becoming the pidgin for the world, combined with the fact that the government schools, particularly here in the U.S.A. are doing a terrible job of teaching English, with the result of a tremendous pressure to simplify the language further.


Karl, I don't want to continue this indefinitely. I just want to point out that here you are using a rather oversimplified definition of a pidgin language. Pidgins are not simplifications, they are separate languages formed by using the vocabulary of one language with the grammar of another. But if a pidgin becomes the mother tongue of a community, it is called instead a creole. Now arguably Middle English started as some kind of pidgin of mostly Old English vocabulary and mostly Norman French grammar. But by Chaucer's time it was certainly not a pidgin, although possibly a creole. As for modern world English, it is certainly not a pidgin, although in some senses it is a simplification. The changes are more akin to those from classical Greek to Koine.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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