[Augenstern74]

I'm looking for features of Creole Languages according to Thomason and Kaufman.
Their opinion is that Middle English is not a Creole language. In order to agree with them I need their features of Creole. And how they explain Norsk and French influence on Middle English. Where does Middle English differ from Old English?:confused:

[tickle]

I don't think middle english has anything to do with creole. Middle english was spoken in England after the Norman invasion. How do you get creole anything out of that.

Off to do research !

[ROLCAM]

Old English was mainly a mixture of the Germanic languages of the Angles, Jutes, and Saxons. Old English resembles modern German more than it does modern English. Old English had many inflections, as does modern German, and its word order and pronunciation resembled those of modern German.

The vocabulary of Old English was chiefly Germanic, though some words came from the language of the Celts. The Germanic people had learned some Latin words while they lived on the European continent. These people brought some of those words to the British Isles and added them to Old English. More Latin words were added during the 500's and the 600's, when Christianity spread in England.

During the late 800's, Viking invaders from Denmark and Norway settled in northeast England. As a result, many words from Scandinavian languages became part of Old English. Gradually, many inflections of Old English were dropped. People also began to put words into a more regular order and to use more prepositions to indicate relationships between words.

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Middle English. In 1066, England was conquered by the Normans, a people from the area in France that is now called Normandy. Their leader, William the Conqueror, became king of England. The Normans took control of all English institutions, including the government and the church.

Most of the English people continued to speak English. However, many of the members of the upper class in England learned Norman French because they wanted influence and power. The use of French words eventually became fashionable in England. The English borrowed thousands of these words and made them part of their own language. The French-influenced language of England during this period is now called Middle English.

The Normans intermarried with the English and, through the years, became increasingly distant--socially, economically, and culturally--from France. The Normans began to speak English in daily life. By the end of the 1300's, the French influence had declined sharply in England. English was used again in the courts and in business affairs, where French had replaced it.

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Please note that CREOLE is a French Dialect.
This language is spoken in HAITI and also in MAURITIUS.

[tickle]

That was good input Rolcam, and the invention and increasing use of the printing press in the early 1400s probably encouraged the use of middle english as well. Middle english lent itself more readily to the printed word.

Ms tickle

[Augenstern74]

Hey thanks a lot. I hope your answers will help to some extend tomorrow. :)

[shatriya]

Then how come Hindi and Sanskrit words got into English, that too so many words.
Here is a list of most ot the English words that are derived from Sanskrit.

http://www.geocities.com/sanskritpuns99/sanskrit.html

http://www.geocities.com/sanskritpuns99/influence.html

[tickle]

shatriya, hindi and sanskrit words having nothing to do with the development of middle english. That culture were not direct contributors at that time in England.

[Akoue]

Then how come Hindi and Sanskrit words got into English, that too so many words.
Here is a list of most ot the English words that are derived from Sanskrit.

http://www.geocities.com/sanskritpuns99/sanskrit.html

http://www.geocities.com/sanskritpuns99/influence.html

One of the reasons English has such a massive vocabulary is its reception of huge numbers of loan words from lots of different langauges.

There is a sense in which Sanskrit could be said to be ancestral to all modern Indo-European languages: Like early (Homeric) Greek, Sanskrit is a very old language. Scholars study it, along with Greek, Old Irish, and Latin in their attempt to reconstruct proto-Indo-European language. So Sanskrit belongs to the same family (Indo-European) as English, but there is no direct evolution from Sanskrit to English.

[drkpp]

Old English was mainly .....
______________________________________

Middle English. In 1066, England was .....
__________________________________________________ ________________

Please note that CREOLE is a .....

Excellent information, ROLCAM !
Congratulations on this article, it describes the needed information so well in a nutshell.
Keep it up.

[drkpp]

One of the reasons .....

..... Sanskrit belongs to the same family (Indo-European) as English, but there is no direct evolution from Sanskrit to English.

Very correct & good information.

[Blackkdark]

Okay, The answer to this question is complicated and depends mostly on what background you come from. If you are a linguist, you can define Creole as second-generation product of a Pidgin which is formed by two languages coming into contact, where one is usually from a ruling class.

ROLCAM I don't know what you heard, but as a linguist and a linguistic anthropologist, I have to inform you that creoles do not have to be French. In fact, Hawai'ian is a creole known as Hawai'ian Pidgin. There are Pidgins and Creoles all around the world. Afrikaans was a creole of Dutch, Zulu, English, and other South African languages.


The problem with defining Middle English as a creole is the fact that when Middle English formed there was no such thing as creole. So anthropologically speaking, the people can't define themselves as a creole culture or language, so the answer is no. Linguistically speaking, Middle English has all the features of a creole. Even Old English had some elements of a creole too.

I wrote an long article about it once. Check it out here: Click Download to get the PDF. It's long but it gives a detailed history of the transition from Old to Middle English and some dictionary definitions of creole. Check it out here:
Is Middle English a Creole? by ~Blackkdark on deviantART

If you have any questions about Middle English or Old English, feel free to ask me, send me an email to [email protected].

[elynocente]

Creole is a more generic term. It is incorrect to think that it only applies to French Creole. There are many creoles(meaning creole languages) that don't have anything to do with French. So, DRKPP, it is not "very correct and good information"

[elynocente]

I like Blackdarks answer. That was the understanding that had. Rolcam might need to read a book that I read called " The Story Of English" or something. I can't remember the title,but it was a history of how the language developed. As a matter of fact, French,Spanish ,Portuguese and Romanian and Italian probably all evolved from creoles influenced by Latin and other supersubstrate languages

[kevvin25]

Once you have the example I strongly advise you to put your own work in the poem, it's the fairest thing to do since it's your English homework and it was given to you with a purpose. That's what my <a href="http://private-sat-tutor.blogspot.com/2009/11/private-sat-tutoring-exam-preparation.html">private sat tutor</a> always says and frankly it makes full sense to me. Good luck!