Re: Sapir-WhorFreakiness

Mark P. Line wrote:
> I think Piraha might be a creole that didn't evolve much beyond a pidgin
> precursor, for whatever reason. If something caused all the lexifier and
> substrate languages to cease to be spoken in the community, we might be
> left with a pidgin that only had whatever vocabulary it had accrued up to
> a certain point.
>
> For example, there might have been a breakaway community of pidgin
> speakers who became separated from all lexifier speakers and who quickly
> evolved a system of isolationist and anti-substrate taboos.
This is beginning to sound quite plausible.  It occurs to me-- perhaps this
group of P. were expelled from, or even voluntarily departed from, the main
body in disagreement with the assimilationist tendencies of the main group??
Or perhaps they violated some serious taboo, or merely had personality
conflicts.  For whatever reason, they became isolated in the forest and
avoided contact with (or were ostracized by) their old tribe as well as new
neighbors.

The example of the Tasaday comes to mind, except they did not exhibit any
language deficit AFAIK.


Their children
> would learn only the pidgin (then technically a creole) as their L1, with
> no further access to possible lexifier languages nor to their parents'
> substrate.
> ...snip...
> Maybe the elaboration only happens if the community remains in contact
> with at least one lexifier language.
That seems likely.

>
 After a few
> generations, nobody would be alive who knew the substrate language(s),
> much less the oral literature of their forefathers.
>
A sharp break with their tribe-mates?  Something so painful or shameful that
they refused to speak of it?  (Or were unwilling to share it with an
outsider?)

Ah well, speculation is fun.