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.