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From: need@bloomfield.uchicago.edu (Barbara Need)
Subject: Re: PBS is at it again---so are the Linguists
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Date: Thu, 2 Mar 1995 19:29:16 GMT
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In article <794098172snz@storcomp.demon.co.uk> philip@storcomp.demon.co.uk  
(Phil Hunt) writes:
> In article <D4q8Jx.E9n@midway.uchicago.edu>
>            need@bloomfield.uchicago.edu "Barbara Need" writes:

[various thigs deleted]

> > There is good evidence that Old English was strongly  
> > Germanic to the end of the period (and you should read Thomason and  
> > Kaufamn (Language Contact, creolization and genetic lingustics) re the  
> > influence of Norse on English--mostly negligible).
> 
> It was strong enough that some function-words in modern English come
> from Norse (eg "they").

I'll grant you that, but this need not be creolization. It may merely be a  
case of borrowing, which is not the same.

> English can be regarded as a creole based on OE and Norman French.

Well, no. There is no evidence that English after the conquest went  
through either pidginization or creolization (at least not as I understand  
these terms). These are distinct processes and the language situation in  
England was not one of these. I admit there may have been a kind of  
diglossia, with the conquerers speaking French and the locals English, and  
there may have been a kind of pidgen English spoken by the French, but  
that is not the source of Modern English, which was well on its way to  
losing case endings (often cited as a result of creolization). Look at  
some English from just before and just after the
conquest. There are no major changes, just continuing development of  
already existing tendancies. (A good source is the Peterborough Chronicle  
which goes until Stephen's death.)

Barbara Need
University of Chicago--Linguistics
