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 | | From: | Raymond S. Wise | | Subject: | Re: Not John Lawler [was; Re: "English English" vs "Angloid" [was: Re: Most Contributors [was Re: ScotsGate Scots Language Portal]]] | | Date: | Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:13:10 -0600 |
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 | jwlawler@yahoo.com wrote:
> In the context, a pseudonym for the groups, the accents in my name are
> not very important. I retain them for the perverse reason that they
> make the name even more exotic.
>
> I am reasonably used to French without accents. I sometimes e-mail a
> French friend in French and it is not easy to type the accents so I
> just omit them. Usually she replies in proper French since she is
> normally in France with a French keyboard but she does the same when
> she does not have a French keyboard. If I must type proper French on
> an English keyboard, I use Word and run the French spelling and
> grammar checker which inserts most (but not all) accents correctly.
>
> I am not familiar with Scots Gaelic but I don't find Irish spelling
> easy. Ingenious possibly but not easy.
>
> English is a mess but I don't think that it is as bad as often
> portrayed. There are more spelling rules then most people realise and
> most of the really silly spellings are among common words. How often
> can you not pronounce an unfamiliar English word? If the answer is
> seldom or never, then English must be reasonably phonetic.
>
> I am not an expert but I expect that English could be described as a
> creole (*) since its modern form is a blend of the original
> Anglo-Saxon, French and various other things.
>
> (*) I say creole rather than pidgin since some speakers have grown up
> with it as their native tongue.
>
> Anyway, are creoles and pidgins necessarily bad? The same could be
> said of other languages and some may only escape because records don't
> go far enough back to answer the question. Which languages are pure
> and why does it matter?
Pidgins are bad only in the sense that they are not complete languages, able
to accomplish everything their speakers need to accomplish, as creoles are.
Of course, a pidgin is a better lingua franca than no lingua franca at all.
The idea that English is a creole language is an intriguing one, as is the
idea that modern Hebrew (Ivrit) is a creole. However, from what I have read,
most linguists have concluded that neither is a creole language.
Michilín referred to Chinook as a jargon, but Chinook is an American Indian
language. There is a pidgin based upon it which Ethnologue.com identifies as
"Chinook Wawa," also known as "Chinook Jargon" and "Chinook Pidgin."
See
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=CRW
This use of "jargon" is one which is now almost completely unknown in
English (well, American English, anyway). It's one of the older meanings of
the term. The following is from *The Century Dictionary,* an American
Dictionary of 1895:
[quote]
*1.* Confused, unintelligible talk ;
irregular, formless speech or language ; gabble ;
gibberish ; babble.
[...]
Specifically*--2.* A barbarous mixed speech,
without literary monuments ; a rude language
resulting from the mixture of two or more dis-
cordant languages, especially of a cultivated
language with a barbarous one : as, the Chinook
_jargon ;_ the _jargon_ called Pidgin-English.
[end quote]
I expect that "jargon" was used at the time when speaking of both pidgins
and creoles, the concept that a creole was a fully-formed, grammatical
language, much different from a pidgin, having not yet been understood. As
you indicated, English would be a creole, not a pidgin, if it was considered
to be a mixed language in the same sense that a creole language is. The
"without literary monuments" would not apply to it, of course, but the same
is probably true of some of the languages which we know to be creole
languages, such as the creole version of Tok Pisin (which is said to exist
in both a pidgin and a creole form).
>
> Another language which should have accents but rarely does is Tagalog.
> The official spelling has three accents which look like the French
> acute, grave and circumflex except any of them may appear on any vowel
> and their meanings are quite different. Acute indicates stress (in
> Spanish style, only where it is not standard), grave indicates a
> following glottal stop (if it is not automatic for other reasons), and
> circumflex means both of these. However they are rarely used. There
> are some ambiguities as a result but they don't cause significant
> problems to natives.
>
> Seán O'Leathlóbhair
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
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| | From: | Michilín | | Subject: | Re: Not John Lawler [was; Re: "English English" vs "Angloid" [was: Re: Most Contributors [was Re: ScotsGate Scots Language Portal]]] | | Date: | Fri, 17 Dec 2004 16:34:41 GMT |
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| On Thu, 16 Dec 2004 16:13:10 -0600, "Raymond S. Wise"
wrote:
>jwlawler@yahoo.com wrote:
>> In the context, a pseudonym for the groups, the accents in my name are
>> not very important. I retain them for the perverse reason that they
>> make the name even more exotic.
>>
>> I am reasonably used to French without accents. I sometimes e-mail a
>> French friend in French and it is not easy to type the accents so I
>> just omit them. Usually she replies in proper French since she is
>> normally in France with a French keyboard but she does the same when
>> she does not have a French keyboard. If I must type proper French on
>> an English keyboard, I use Word and run the French spelling and
>> grammar checker which inserts most (but not all) accents correctly.
>>
>> I am not familiar with Scots Gaelic but I don't find Irish spelling
>> easy. Ingenious possibly but not easy.
>>
>> English is a mess but I don't think that it is as bad as often
>> portrayed. There are more spelling rules then most people realise and
>> most of the really silly spellings are among common words. How often
>> can you not pronounce an unfamiliar English word? If the answer is
>> seldom or never, then English must be reasonably phonetic.
>>
>> I am not an expert but I expect that English could be described as a
>> creole (*) since its modern form is a blend of the original
>> Anglo-Saxon, French and various other things.
>>
>> (*) I say creole rather than pidgin since some speakers have grown up
>> with it as their native tongue.
>>
>> Anyway, are creoles and pidgins necessarily bad? The same could be
>> said of other languages and some may only escape because records don't
>> go far enough back to answer the question. Which languages are pure
>> and why does it matter?
>
>
>Pidgins are bad only in the sense that they are not complete languages, able
>to accomplish everything their speakers need to accomplish, as creoles are.
>Of course, a pidgin is a better lingua franca than no lingua franca at all.
>
>The idea that English is a creole language is an intriguing one, as is the
>idea that modern Hebrew (Ivrit) is a creole. However, from what I have read,
>most linguists have concluded that neither is a creole language.
>
>Michilín referred to Chinook as a jargon, but Chinook is an American Indian
>language. There is a pidgin based upon it which Ethnologue.com identifies as
>"Chinook Wawa," also known as "Chinook Jargon" and "Chinook Pidgin."
Yeah, sorry about being careless with the phraseology - many older
people here still understand and can speak Chinook Wawa, probably more
than can speak the Chinook language on which the jargon is based.
Here are a couple of examples using the numerals, 1-10:
Chinook Jargon:
ikt mokst klone sapolill kwinnum toghum sinamoxt stotekin kwaist
tahtlelum
Lower Chinook Language:
e:xt môkct Lo:n la'kit qui'nEm tE'xEm si'namôkct kstô'xkin kui'tst
ta:'-Le:lam
Upper Chinook Language:
iht moht thlun lakit kwinum tuhum sinimoht kwilh kweist yath-luli-hum
The jargon itself is a mix of mostly Chinook, a little English, a lot
of French. Many place names from Oregon to British Columbia are
Chinook and many older white people on both sides of the US/Canada
border still use jargon words in ordinary speech.
For example, skookum chuck means waterfall or fast river (lit. strong
water), while salt chuck means sea. Thus, skookum house (jail).
Cultus means worthless. I live about 60 miles form Cultus Lake which
had nio fish, thus the name until stocked recently with salmon fry.
Tum means heartbeat, leading to tumtum; friend. Mika nika kloashe
tumtum = you are my good (close) friend. Tillicum means "a people" and
is a place name. Klahowya - Hi there!
You can fill your boots here!
http://www.fortlangley.ca/Chinook%20Jargon/lord.html
>See
>http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=CRW
>
>
>This use of "jargon" is one which is now almost completely unknown in
>English (well, American English, anyway). It's one of the older meanings of
>the term. The following is from *The Century Dictionary,* an American
>Dictionary of 1895:
>
>
>[quote]
>
>*1.* Confused, unintelligible talk ;
>irregular, formless speech or language ; gabble ;
>gibberish ; babble.
>
>[...]
>
>Specifically*--2.* A barbarous mixed speech,
>without literary monuments ; a rude language
>resulting from the mixture of two or more dis-
>cordant languages, especially of a cultivated
>language with a barbarous one : as, the Chinook
>_jargon ;_ the _jargon_ called Pidgin-English.
>
>[end quote]
>
>
>I expect that "jargon" was used at the time when speaking of both pidgins
>and creoles, the concept that a creole was a fully-formed, grammatical
>language, much different from a pidgin, having not yet been understood. As
>you indicated, English would be a creole, not a pidgin, if it was considered
>to be a mixed language in the same sense that a creole language is. The
>"without literary monuments" would not apply to it, of course, but the same
>is probably true of some of the languages which we know to be creole
>languages, such as the creole version of Tok Pisin (which is said to exist
>in both a pidgin and a creole form).
>
>
>>
>> Another language which should have accents but rarely does is Tagalog.
>> The official spelling has three accents which look like the French
>> acute, grave and circumflex except any of them may appear on any vowel
>> and their meanings are quite different. Acute indicates stress (in
>> Spanish style, only where it is not standard), grave indicates a
>> following glottal stop (if it is not automatic for other reasons), and
>> circumflex means both of these. However they are rarely used. There
>> are some ambiguities as a result but they don't cause significant
>> problems to natives.
>>
>> Seán O'Leathlóbhair
>
>
>--
>Raymond S. Wise
>Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
>
>E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
>
Michilín
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