1 / 15

Is It Plausible that Middle English is a Creole?

Is It Plausible that Middle English is a Creole?. Cheryl Stradling. The History of the English Language. Old English (450-1150) Middle English (1150-1500) The issue: Is Middle English a creole, particularly a Franco-Germanic creole?. What is a creole language?.

libitha
Download Presentation

Is It Plausible that Middle English is a Creole?

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Is It Plausible that Middle English is a Creole? Cheryl Stradling

  2. The History of the English Language • Old English (450-1150) • Middle English (1150-1500) • The issue: Is Middle English a creole, particularly a Franco-Germanic creole?

  3. What is a creole language? • A language that originates from a pidgin language and has become the native language of a group of people. • Characterized by mixing of languages, language (structure) simplification, limited vocabulary

  4. Previous Studies • Bailey and Maroldt – proposed that English is a French-based creole • Görlach – English is not a creole • Danchev – English has many creole-like features, but they are universal features of language change

  5. Plausibility • The change from Old English to Middle English occurred due to foreign influences, namely Scandinavian and French. In comparing Old English and Middle English, a number of creole-like characteristics, such as language simplification and language mixing, have been observed in Middle English.

  6. Implausibility • While Middle English tends to exhibit creole-like features, the language maintained it’s underlying structure from Old English. Some linguists suggest that changes most likely occurred due to interlanguage changes.

  7. Methodology • Make a list of characteristics of creoles; each characteristic will be assigned a value of 1 point. • Analyze Middle English according to list of characteristics, giving it a point for every sentence that meets a creole characteristic • Total up the number of points, and find percentage. Percentages higher than 60 will be considered “plausible”. • The characteristics that will be analyzed are: embedded clauses, repeated adjectives and adverbs, use of particles to change verb tense.

  8. Text used • “The Former Age” (the Alfredian prose version) • Old English translation (871-899) • The Peterborough Chronicle (1155 AD) – 10 sentences

  9. Results for: Embedding • Embedded clauses: Creole languages have little or no embedded clauses in their language structure. • In 10 sentences, 7 embedded clauses were found so far

  10. Results for: Repeated Adjectives and Adverbs for intensity • Creoles tend to use repeated adjectives and adverbs for intensity • In 10 sentences, 0 repeated adjectives and adverbs were found so far.

  11. Results for: Use of particles • Creole languages tend to use particles to change their verb tense • In 10 sentences, 0 particles have been found so far.

  12. Conclusion • Although each creole characteristic is still being tested, current findings suggest that it is implausible that Middle English is a creole language.

  13. Problems and Weaknesses • Small sample size • Language change over time • Different texts

  14. Future Work • Larger sample size of Middle English • Same text written both in Old English and early Middle English • English speakers’ perceptions: Do native English speakers think that English is a Latin-based language?

  15. References • Aitchison, Jean. Language Change: Progress or Decay? 3rd edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. • "Creole (language)," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2007 April 9, 2008. <http://encarta.msn.com>. Microsoft Corporation,1997-2007. • Dalton-Puffer, Christiane. The French Influence on Middle English Morphology: A Corpus-Based Study of Derivation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996 • Danchev, Andrei. “Interlanguage simplification in Middle English vowel phonology?” Linguistics across Historical and Geographical Boundaries, vol. 1. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1986. • Danchev, Andrei. “The Middle English creolization hypothesis revisited.” Studies in Middle English Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997. • Görlach, Manfred. “Middle English – a creole?” Linguistics across Historical and Geographical Boundaries, vol. 1. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1986. • Kastovsky, Dieter and Arthur Mettinger. Language Contact in the History of English. Germany: Peter Lang GmbH, 2001. • Vantuono, William. P;d and Middle English Texts with Accompanying Textual and Linguistic Apparatus. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc, 1994.

More Related