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Re: Creole vs. Pidgin

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Friday, July 23, 1999, 21:50
"R. Nierse" wrote:
> That's excatly why I don't really believe in the monogenesis theory.
The Monogenesis theory is certainly not accurate if you try to say that ALL creoles have the same origin, but most European-based creoles seem to have a common origin, a pidgin spoken by sailors in the Mediterranean, originating from international crews, whenever a ship would dock in a port, they'd pick up a few new sailors to replace ones that died or whose contract was up, or who just didn't return, therefore, all sorts of languages were spoken by the sailors, who crafted together a pidgin based mostly on southern Romance languages. When the makeup of the crews changed, at first becoming mostly Portuguese, and later mostly English, the vocabulary picked up words from those languages. -- "[H]e axed after eggys: And the goode wyf answerde, that she coude not speke no Frenshe ... And then at last a nother sayd that he woulde haue hadde eyren: then the goode wyf sayd that she vnderstood hym wel." -- William Caxton http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html ICQ: 18656696 AIM Screen-Name: NikTailor