Re: Ogrish Global Pidgin (3)

From: "Emily Zilch" <emily0@...>

> I'm unclear why this would make me disapprove. I disapprove of the
> rampantly racist Star Wars racialisation of alien species and then the
> use of R/L languages and cultural references to reinforce said
> racialisations. The use of a creole language by genetically engineered
> Ogres is not an issue. I'm talking about the use of an black-spoken
> Caribbean language which is a creolised form of English - basically,
> Jar-Jar Binks speaks the Caribbean version of Gullah in a register that
> converges on standard English. You can see examples of the exact speech
> forms he uses in "Gender Across Languages: Linguistic Representation of
> Women & Men, Vol. 1" (Hellinger, Marlis & Bußmann, Hadumod 2001: John
> Benjamins Publishing Co.).
Hiring a Jamaican pop star (Ahmed Best) to do the voice of Jar-Jar didn't
help much. He is considered to have ruined the movie not only because of the
racist overtones, but because of the crass gimmickry Lucas resorted to in
the name of comic relief.

(The Wikipedia article on Jar-Jar Binks can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jar-Jar_Binks. He didn't speak a conlang, but
maybe a concreole, more like Jamaican than Sea Islands or 'Gullah'. I just
don't remember either Star Wars I very well and I've never seen Star Wars
II.)

> Incidentally, I'm interested in your Ogrish Pidgin - is there a reason
> it wasn't spontaneously generated by lab-bred generations whose
> abilities to speak were ignored? A natural effect would be the children
> learning their owner-breeders' language (say, English or T'eq'/Tech)
> but in a strained manner (vocabulary items would be limited to what
> they heard), leading to a natural creolised form spoken among growing
> ogres and a very limited higher-style register used to answer routine
> commands from the owner-breeders.
The Ogres could've been spontaneously generated; I know way too little about
neogenetics in the 21st century (wait, aren't we there already?). Probably
what happens is that some unscrupulous geneticists decide on using living
species to revive long-extinct ones out of pure ego, and accidentally
produce these Incredible Hulks (which actually do have a greenish tint to
their skin, not to mention a good bit of body hair and distorted facial
features), who spoke English in the stereotypical 'me want food' manner.
Another possibility is mutation resulting from multi-generational exposure
to pollutants, especially radioactive ones (X-Men anyone?). Whatever the
case, the Ogres end up being a race of comic-book superheros who are really
more like super anti-heroes.