Are pidgins natlangs? (was Re: Telona Grammar, part 2)
| From: | Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> |
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| Date: | Wednesday, February 13, 2002, 7:03 |
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On 12 Feb 02, at 8:14, Jim Grossmann wrote:
> One nitpick: techically, are pidgins natlangs? I've heard that
> they're contrived by definition, although they take their lexicons
> from natlangs, and often serve as the ancestors of natlangs (namely
> creoles) in the space of a generation.
I suppose I would consider them auxlangs -- initially, they're an
auxiliary language, aiding comprehension between speakers of different
languages, and initially they're no-one's first language. And they
become natlangs when someone speaks them natively (as a creole), I
guess.
Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>