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stranger
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Hi Yorlyee.
When the Bounty mutineers and their Polynesian wives were thrown together on Pitcairn they took elements from one anothers languages to develop a new language, they brought this amalgam of 18th century English and Polynesian with then when they migrated to Norfolk Island in 1856.
To this day ,when they are amangst themselves, they use this language, called simply "Norfolk".. As they also speak English, it would be inappropriate to address them in their own dialect. I can if you want give you a few phrases to give you a "taste" of what it sounds like!
wutawayyou
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Hi Yorlyee.
To this day ,when they are amangst themselves, they use this language, called simply "Norfolk".. As they also speak English, it would be inappropriate to address them in their own dialect. I can if you want give you a few phrases to give you a "taste" of what it sounds like! A friend of mine was married to a Norfolker for many years, neither she nor her boys spoke "Norfolk" but they thought it a huge joke that the islanders believed their patois to be incomprehensible to outlanders. They said that they always found it hard to refrain from smirking when islanders switched from English to Norfok in their presence , apparently believeng that they were obfuscating their conversations.
Last edited by latishya; 04/26/08 09:02 AM.
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old hand
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Friends of ours lived on Norfolk for three years (which is as long as "outlanders" are normally allowed to stay). They loved their time there but not surprisingly it was a very insular place.
There is a town in Tasmania called New Norfolk because the original settlers and convicts from the first settlement on Norfolk Island were resettled there between 1808 and 1813. The second settlement on Norfolk began in 1825 and lasted until the last of the convicts were removed in 1855. The Pitcairners came to Norfolk Island as the third settlement in 1856, and stayed.
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Pooh-Bah
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Hi Wutawayyou
Blended languages are interesting, I knew that Tagalog (sp?) is Spanish based but I wasn't aware of Nofolk. Is it holding its own or losing ground to English? and is it changing over the years eg new slang etc. or is it a static language?
PS Welcome
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Last edited by The Pook; 04/27/08 04:41 AM.
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Hi Wutawayyou
Blended languages are interesting, I knew that Tagalog (sp?) is Spanish based Both Wikipedia and Britannica disagree: WikipediaTagalog is a Central Philippine language within the Austronesian language family. Being Malayo-Polynesian, it is related to other Austronesian languages such as Indonesian, Malay, Fijian, Maori (of New Zealand), Hawaiian, Malagasy (of Madagascar), Samoan, Tahitian, Chamorro (of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands), Tetum (of East Timor), and Paiwan (of Taiwan). It is closely related to the languages spoken in the Bicol and Visayas regions such as Bikol, Hiligaynon, Waray-Waray, and Cebuano.
Britannicamember of the Central Philippine branch of the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) language family and the base for Pilipino, an official language of the Philippines, together with English. It is most closely related to Bicol and the Bisayan (Visayan) languages—Cebuano, Hiligaynon (Ilongo), and Samar. Native Tagalog speakers form the second largest linguistic and cultural group in the Philippines and number about 14 million; they are located in central Luzon and parts of Mindanao. Pilipino (based on Tagalog) is spoken by another 25 million persons as a second language and is increasingly used in literature, radio, and the press and as a language for government and education. Tagalog grammar is notable for its complex verbal system, including in particular three distinct types of passive constructions.
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I too was fairly sure that Tagalog was a creole language from Spanish and the original native language(s) of the region. I have heard people speak it and recognise some words as identical or similar to Spanish. Perhaps some Filipinos call Filipino creole 'Tagalog' when it more properly refers to the native language itself?
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I too was fairly sure that Tagalog was a creole language from Spanish and the original native language(s) of the region. I have heard people speak it and recognise some words as identical or similar to Spanish. Perhaps some Filipinos call Filipino creole 'Tagalog' when it more properly refers to the native language itself? Wikipedia may not be that reliable, but if it agrees with Britannica, that's OK with me. The presence of Spanish-sourced vocabulary does not make Tagalog a creole of Spanish. If it does, then English is a Spanish creole too.
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Carpal Tunnel
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The presence of Spanish-sourced vocabulary does not make Tagalog a creole of Spanish. If it does, then English is a Spanish creole too. Or either a French creole. I would say the simplest, and most likely, explanation is that Tagalog has a large number of Spanish loan words.
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From having looked through a Tagalog reference grammar and a dictionary, I can say rather confidently that Tagalog is a language and not a creole. There are a huge number of other languages spoken in the Philippines. Having watched some Philippine comedies on TV, the amount of code switching between Tagalog and English might make it seem like a creole, but it isn't, and you see something similar happening with Indian language and English.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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stranger
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The presence of Spanish-sourced vocabulary does not make Tagalog a creole of Spanish. If it does, then English is a Spanish creole too. Or either a French creole. I would say the simplest, and most likely, explanation is that Tagalog has a large number of Spanish loan words. I agree! I think the Spanish language crept in during the centuries of Spanish rule.
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Pooh-Bah
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I had not realized that a Creole was not or could not become a language with it's own grammer etc. In fact I assumed that English itself was a creole of Norman and Saxon that continued to develope. From what I had heard I thought that Tagalog had done the same thing becouse of Spanish rule.
Does Norfolk have a blend of grammatical rules or just of word origins?
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Good point. Though I would have thought early English was a creole of Norman with the pre-existing creole formed from several previous creoles going right back to the creole of Roman Latin with Celtic languages?
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Pooh-Bah
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ah, a creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooooollllle
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Carpal Tunnel
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Neither Old English nor Middle English are creoles in the strict sense. The Britons during the Roman Empire pretty much adopted Latin as the official state language, while retaining their various Brythonic dialects for non-official matters. When the Roman legions left to protect other, more important, parts of the crumbling empire, Latin started to fade. Then the Angles, the Saxons, and the Jutes showed up. They tended to keep to their newly founded villages, shrinking from the Roman cities which they thought of as the bones of large and dangerous creatures. When the Normans invaded, Norman French became the official or court language, but it did not replace English. When English again became the official language it had changed greatly and received a huge influx of French vocabulary, but it was basically still a Germanic language. I don't doubt that there were pidgins developed where Normans met with the English to conduct some business, but there is no trace of these, and they do not seem to have turned into creoles at some point.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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I suppose you're right, in the strict sense of the word, yes.
Probably the main legacy of Latin from the Roman occupation of Britain is place names (such as the capital London itself of course). There must be quite a few other words that were adopted and remained, but that does not indicate the formation of a creole, you're right. Nor did the later Roman Catholic ascendency over the indigenous Celtic church succeed in making Latin anything more than an ecclesiastical (and largely written) language.
The succeeding waves of invaders: Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Danes, Vikings, etc; had more influence on the language than the Romans since they integrated and were common people not just administrators and nobles. This was often probably only local and dialectic though. The Normans had the greatest effect, yet, as you point out, they did not succeed in changing the language of Britain into a Latin one, largely because it was a top-down innovation.
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There have been three waves of Latin words into English: (1) Old English absorbed many ecclesiastical terms; (2) during the English Renaissance many words were borrowed from Latin; and (3) since the 19th century many terms have been coined from the ISV (International Scientific Vocabulary).
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Pooh-Bah
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it was basically still a Germanic language. And yet our grammer, let alone our vocabulary, is a mish-mash of these two very different systems, isn't it.
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it was basically still a Germanic language. And yet our grammer, let alone our vocabulary, is a mish-mash of these two very different systems, isn't it. From what I've been taught in my English classes, I don't see much non-Germanic grammar.
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I can sure learn something every day here; thanks! The Brythonic languages (from Welsh brython, “Briton”) are or were spoken on the island of Great Britain and consist of Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. Britannica
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And yet our grammer, let alone our vocabulary, is a mish-mash of these two very different systems, isn't it.Our grammar is still pretty much Germanic, but we have lost case endings. There have been influences. We tend to put our adjectives before before the nouns which they modify, while (Norman) French puts them after. Both languages developed a periphrastic verbal system which replaced an earlier inflectional one. English took a whole class of verbs, the pretero-present ones, and turned them into auxiliary verbs that are used in indicating verbal mood: can, may, etc. There are some grammatical features that have been borrowed, e.g., the Romance suffix - er used to derive agentive nouns, replaced the older one. Pidgins tend to be ad hoc and simple languages creating from the vocabulary of the dominant language in a language contact situation. The vocabulary tends to be limited and focused usually on business transactions or getting work done. They tend not to have inflectional systems, but rely purely on word order for syntax. Pidgins are nobody's first language. After a while pidgins get adopted and expanded by some group of people and start becoming a first language. The vocabulary grows and the grammar gets a bit more complicated. Many languages borrow heavily from other ones when they are in contact. Old Irish borrowed heavily from Latin, as did Old English. Middle English borrowed heavily from French. Russian from Tartar and other Turkic languages. But those are all pretty much languages that made it through a contact situation changed but still pretty much a language. You can call them creoles if you want, but they aren't in the sense of how most linguists use the word. English continued to be spoken in England from the time William's troops defeated Harold's and took control of the country. Norman was not the Norman French's first language. They were after all Northmen (or Norse, Vikings). They had dropped their Northern Germanic language for Old French. After a couple hundred years in England, they adopted English. This is similar to what happened to the Franks in northern France, the Goths in Spain, and the Langobards (Lombards) in northern Italy. In each of these situations the dominant group was small and assimilated linguistically to the subjected group's language. They brought some words along with them. Some Romance-speaking subjects no doubt learned Frankish. Learning another language has its economic advantages. But French is basically a Romance language with some Germanic loanwords. [Addendum: Wikipedia has an article on the hypothesis that Middle English was a creole ( link), though it does not cite references. A short article I found online that gives the pro and con sides of the argument ( link). I don't think the creolist have proved their case.]
Last edited by zmjezhd; 04/30/08 04:07 PM.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Many languages borrow heavily from other ones when they are in contact. Old Irish borrowed heavily from Latin, as did Old English. Middle English borrowed heavily from French. Russian from Tartar and other Turkic languages. But those are all pretty much languages that made it through a contact situation changed but still pretty much a language. Modern Greek would be another example. It was also heavily influenced by Turkish, which in turn was of course earlier influenced by Arabic.
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