Re: Easy and Interesting Languages -- Website

Andreas Johansson said:
> Quoting "Mark P. Line" <mark@...>:
>
>> Andreas Johansson said:
>> > Quoting "Mark P. Line" <mark@...>:
>> >
>> >>
>> >> I therefore believe that anybody who wants to claim that Cham has
>> never
>> >> undergone creolization should be prepared to show evidence, and that
>> the
>> >> rest of us have no particular reason to believe it until she does.
>> >
>> > I would agree if I believed that exactly 50% of all languages have
>> > undergone
>> > creolization at some point in their development, and 50% not.
>>
>>
>> So instead, you believe that exactly N% of all languages have undergone
>> creolization at some point in their development, and 100-N% not,
>
>> Where did you come up with the value of N, and what is it?
>
> I never said I knew what it was.
Right. And if you don't know its value, then you have no particular reason
to pre-assume that any given language has or has not experienced
creolization sometime in its history. You simply don't know, so you can
approach each new language with an open mind. There's no sense in
pre-assuming that Cham never creolized from a pidgin, just as there's no
sense in pre-assuming that Cham *did* creolize from a pidgin. If we don't
know, then we don't know. There's basis for assuming one way or the other,
so don't do it. *shrug*

As I mentioned in my last response to John, this is taking us pretty far
off topic, and I suspect that some of us are not on the same page because
I have  a pretty cut-and-dried conception of how I want to conduct
empirical linguistics. If there's any need for further discussion, we
should take it off the list.


-- Mark