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Re: Creole vs. Pidgin

From:R. Nierse <rnierse@...>
Date:Friday, July 23, 1999, 10:12
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> Daniel Andreasson <daniel_noldo@HOTMAIL.COM wrote: > > R Nierse wrote: > > > There are two theories: one says that Creoles look alike because they > > reflect the basic grammar in our heads (Chomsky). The other says that > all > > pidgins/creoles originate from one ancestral pidgin, located > somewhere in > > West Africa or the Mediterranean (Lingua Franca?), that the slaves > brought > > with them when they were shipped to other places. > > How does the second theory explain such creoles as Russenorsk > and Chinook Jargon? There can't possibly have been any African > slaves influencing Russenorsk (Russian/Norwegian). >
That's excatly why I don't really believe in the monogenesis theory. it could be true for Portugese based pidgins (in Africa, Asia and the Caribean).
> > My son (15 months) is suffering from LAAD as well. He is copying > intonation > > patterns right now. > > What's that?
Just forget that. My son is learning to speak and I like it a lot to hear what he is "saying". It looks unintelligeble, but he manages to communicate quite well with us, especially by means of facial expression *and* (at the moment) intonation. Many parents I speak are not aware of how difficult it is for a child to destilate the words out of the gibberish we utter. A computer could never be as smart as a child when learning a language.
> > Ok. Let me ask again: > Does a creole with English as lexifier and a bantulanguage > as grammifier look different from an English/Chinese creole > regarding the grammar? I.e. does the grammar look the same > regardless of what language is the base of the grammar?
I don't know for sure. I have only seen Pidgins that are English or Spanish/Portugese based. The info in Chinook I have is to few to make up what its grammar looks like.
> > Daniel Andreasson