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?

• 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

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

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.

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.

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.

Text used

• “The Former Age” (the Alfredian prose version) – Old English translation (871-899)

• The Peterborough Chronicle (1155 AD) – 10 sentences

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

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.

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.

Conclusion

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

Problems and Weaknesses

• Small sample size

• Language change over time

• Different texts

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?

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.