Talk:Syntactic similarities of creoles

Monogenetic[edit]

According to the monogenetic theory of pidgins (by Hugo Schuchardt?), lots of pidgins and creoles are related. The Portuguese took a relexified version of Lingua Franca and used it with Africans, and Asians. They used it with African slaves brought to the Americas. The customers and competitors of the Portuguese (Spanish, French, Dutch, English) used this "broken" Portuguese to talk to slaves and trade partners, relexifying it again.

So in this view, Lingua Franca, Chinese Pidgin English, Saramaccan, Papiamentu, Bislama, Haitian Creole, Black Vernacular English, are related, mostly in grammar and in some items of vocabulary: savvy, na, pickanniny,... --Error 01:04, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That would imply that the portuguese had the power and presence in every single area to create the languages. That just isn't backed up by the evidence. AEuSoes1 07:32, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Portuguese Empire was present at least in North, West, East and South Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean, Ormuz, India, Indonesia, China, Maluku, Japan, the markets and ports of Europe. And it is not necessary for them to be present in every area, just that when a European sailor and a Asian merchant try to talk, they resort to the "broken language that other foreigners understand" (that is, a version of Broken Portuguese used elsewhere) and fill the gaps with their languages. --Error 01:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and there are dozens of places where the Portuguese Empire was not where pidgins were created such as central Africa, New Guinea, Scandanavia, Hawaii, the American South and Midwest, etc. It makes zero sense for a Norseman and a Russian to decide to speak broken Portuguese to communicate. AEuSoes1 01:30, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't Tok Pisin related to Bislama?

From TP's article,

pikinini - child (from Pacific Pidgin English, but ultimately from Portuguese influenced Lingua franca)
save - know (from Pacific Pidgin English, but ultimately from Portuguese influenced Lingua franca, cf. "savvy")

Hiri Motu is not, though. Basque-Icelandic Pidgin had items like chave, but you are probably aiming Russonorsk. Hawaii was visited by English-speaking mariners who started with a broken English that, according to this theory, would be a descendant of broken Portuguese. If by "American South and Midwest" you mean Amerindian pidgins, I see your point. If you mean slave talk, the slaves came from Portuguese-influenced areas.

I mean, if pidgins and creoles not influenced by Portuguese, English, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, show commonalities in a lesser degree that those influenced, the commonalities may had been caused by a common origin.

--Error 06:11, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The point of the monogenetic theory (which is also called the theory of relexification), from my understanding, is to explain away the syntactic similarities of creole languages so that we don't have to worry about implications regarding Universal Grammar. Such syntactic structures, as we can see in the article, are quite different from Portuguese. This is independent of phonology and the lexicon. Naturally, when you have a bunch of European-speaking people going out and creating situations where pidgins are formed based on their languages there are going to be some extra similarities. AEuSoes1 09:26, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

...they may not have grammatical similarities to Portuguese, but if they are all descendants of a Portuguese-based pidgin (or creole), then they have grammatical similarities to that language. The monogenetic theory makes a lot of sense, and is why non-european-based pidgins and creoles should always be considered when studying universal grammar (-> arabic-based and african language-based creoles).

It only makes sense if you gloss over all the instances where creoles formed outside of areas of European influcence. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 22:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is true that the monogenetic theory is not very plausible, but this is an encyclopedia, and we are not supposed to suppress what seems implausible (that would be OR), but report what researchers on this topic have postulated. And as a matter of fact, the monogenetic theory enjoyed quite some popularity until about the middle of the twentieth century. It has been largely discarded ever since and replaced with universalist, substratist and superstratist theories. It should be noted however, that some researchers start to reconsider certain facets of this theory, e.g Salikoko Mufwene Jasy jatere 09:58, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

regarding the counterexample of Tok Pisin, it should be noted that Tok Pisin does not confirm very well to the syntactic similarities Bickerton adduces. In that sense, absence of Portuguese rule would actually help to explain this Jasy jatere 09:58, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If we want to present it as an older theory that's fine, but as an encyclopedia, Wikipedia should give credence to viable theories and it would be undue weight to present the monogenetic theory as equal to the currently held one. Simply because Tok Pisin doesn't conform very well to all of the syntactic similarities doesn't give evidence to it being relexified Portuguese. That's like saying a problem in the specifics of the theory of Evolution gives evidence for Creationism. Æµ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 17:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see he

Needs expansion[edit]

The article is cryptic and needs to be expanded. It is basically a list of technical terms that are neither explained or linked. m.e. 09:57, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]