Re: A perfect day for introducing myself

On Thu, 27 Jan 2000 12:58:08 -0500, John Cowan <jcowan@...>
wrote:

>Vasiliy Chernov wrote:
>
>> All this began when, still a schoolboy, I realized that English has a
>> fixed word order and fails to distinguish verbal aspects. I found this
>> so inconvenient that I immediately reformed it (by introducing
>> declinable articles and profoundly reforming the tense system).
>
>I wonder how many conlangers have discovered the subject by attempting
>to reform another language to bring it closer to their own.
- Much later, after reading something about Creoles, I pondered a bit
on whether a coherent set of rules can be derived from the mistakes that
can be expected from a Russian speaking a foreign language.

One of funny things regarding creolized English: *ze* as the universal
noun marker. From:

A) Indiscriminate use of 'the' before any nominal group (*in ze Moscow*,
*ze my frent*),

B) Contaminated with re-analysed nominal sentences: *khi ze dokta* (no
copula, like in Russian) <- 'He's a doctor', *khi ve ze nice boy*
(with *ve* also <- 'were') <- 'he was a nice boy'.


Basilius