The Middle English creole hypothesis is the concept that the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to t ...

is a creole, which is typically a language that developed from a

pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...

. The vast differences between Old English and

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...

have led some historical linguists to claim that the language underwent creolisation at around the 11th century, during the Norman conquest of England.

History

The theory was first proposed in 1977 by C. Bailey and K. Maroldt and has found both supporters and detractors in the academic world. Different versions of the hypothesis refer to creolisation by contact between Old English and

Norman French Norman or Norman French (, french: Normand, Guernésiais: , Jèrriais: ) is a Romance language which can be classified as one of the Oïl languages along with French, Picard and Walloon. The name "Norman French" is sometimes used to describe ...

, between Old English and

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

or even interaction between

Common Brittonic Common Brittonic ( cy, Brythoneg; kw, Brythonek; br, Predeneg), also known as British, Common Brythonic, or Proto-Brittonic, was a Celtic language spoken in Britain and Brittany. It is a form of Insular Celtic, descended from Proto-Celtic, ...

and English, however evidence supporting the influence of the

Celtic languages The Celtic languages (usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edwar ...

on English is hampered by a lack of written sources. The argument in favour of the Middle English creole hypothesis comes from the extreme reduction in

inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defin ...

forms from Old to Middle English. The

declension In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ...

of nouns was radically simplified and analogised. The

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

system also lost many old patterns of

conjugation Conjugation or conjugate may refer to: Linguistics *Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form * Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language Mathematics *Complex conjugation, the change ...

. Many strong verbs were reanalysed as weak verbs. The

subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality ...

mood Mood may refer to: *Mood (psychology), a relatively long lasting emotional state Music *The Mood, a British pop band from 1981 to 1984 * Mood (band), hip hop artists * ''Mood'' (Jacquees album), 2016 * ''Moods'' (Barbara Mandrell album), 1978 ...

became much less distinct. Syntax was also simplified somewhat, with

word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...

becoming more rigid. Those grammatical simplifications resemble those observed in pidgins, creoles and other contact languages, which arise when speakers of different languages need to communicate. Such contact languages usually lack the inflections of either parent language or drastically simplify them.

Rebuttal

The Middle English creole hypothesis has been rejected by multiple researchers. A thorough rebuttal was presented by Sarah Thomason and

Terrence Kaufman Terrence Kaufman (1937 – March 3, 2022) was an American linguist specializing in documentation of unwritten languages, lexicography, Mesoamerican historical linguistics and language contact phenomena. He was an emeritus professor of linguist ...

. They consider the case for creolization with Old Norse or a French dialect but conclude that in both cases the observed influences can be best explained through moderate borrowing. They specifically note that claimed influences on morphology and syntax are the long-term outcomes of internal processes which began in English before the relevant period, and that the heaviest period of borrowing for French vocabulary occurred after that language ceased to be spoken by most elites. They also note that a number of innovations in English during this period are also seen in other Germanic languages, suggesting that wider historical-linguistic trends were influencing the language. Another key argument against the creole hypothesis is that English retains a high number (283) of

irregular verbs A regular verb is any verb whose conjugation follows the typical pattern, or one of the typical patterns, of the language to which it belongs. A verb whose conjugation follows a different pattern is called an irregular verb. This is one instance ...

, just like other

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, ...

, a linguistic trait that is usually the first to disappear in creoles and pidgins.

References

Bibliography

* Curzan, Anne (2003) ''Gender Shifts in the History of English'' (section 2.6 ''The gender shift and the Middle English creole question'') * Dalton-Puffer, Christiane (1995) "Middle English is a Creole and its Opposite: on the value of plausible speculation" in Jacek Fisiak (ed), ''Linguistic Change Under Contact Conditions'' * Görlach, Manfred (1986) ''Middle English: a creole?'' in Dieter Kastovsky, et al. (eds), ''Linguistics Across Historical and Geographical Boundaries'' * Thomason, Sarah Grey & Kaufman, Terrence (1988) ''Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics''

External links

Brandy Ryan, "Middle English as Creole: “Still trying not to refer to you lot as ‘bloody colonials’”"
University of Toronto, 2005 {{DEFAULTSORT:Middle English Creole Hypothesis Linguistic typology History of the English language Linguistic theories and hypotheses Creole hypothesis Language contact Pidgins and creoles

History

Rebuttal

See also

References

Bibliography

External links