Re: Related languages (Re: A China-Sumer connection)

From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 03/22/05 

Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:56:51 GMT

John Atkinson wrote:
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:423F339B.1D9B@worldnet.att.net...
> > John Atkinson wrote:
> > >
> > > "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@worldnet.att.net> wrote :
> > > >
> > > > No, creoles do _not_ reflect the grammar of one of their source
> > > > languages. It used to be thought that the similarity among all creoles
> > > > resulted from their all developing from a Portuguese substratum and a
> > > > local superstratum -- until many, many creoles were discovered in parts
> > > > of the world that had never been visited by Portuguese advernturers,
> > > > traders, whatever.
> > >
> > > OK, I know only one creole well enough to comment on -- Tok Pisin.[...]
> > >
> > > > Some version of Bickerton's hypothesis that absence of "whole"
> > > > linguistic input causes the "underlying" linguistic capacity of an
> > > > infant to shape its emergent language must be closest to the facts.
> > >
> > > I believe it has some influence, but doubt that it is the *major* causative
> > > factor in producing (most?) creole grammars. (As I said though, I don't
> > > really know what I'm talking about when it comes to the Atlantic creoles.)
> > >
> > > I'd be interested to hear whether Guy and Ross agree with what I say
> > > above -- they're the local experts on Melanesian creoles and Austronesian of
> > > course.
> >
> > The point is to get _out_ of the 'Nesias and look at the Arabic-based
> > creoles inside Africa, for instance; check on Ki-Nubi. Holm's Green
> > book(s) is the fullest resource (the Red is a summary with additions).
>
> OK. The substrate for Nubi and its close relation Juba Arabic would be
> one or more languages of southern Sudan, viz, Nilo-Saharan, likely Dinka
> or Nuer I'd guess, or perhaps more likely Fur (Owens "demonstrates that
> many of [JA's] phonological features come from ... Western Sudan"). I
> know buggerall about any of these. OTOH, Nubi speakers formed the
> backbone of the Kings African Rifles in Uganda, and Swahili was the
> language used by the Brits with their black troops, so Swahili would
> have been an adstrate -- the prefix ki in Ki-Nubi is of course Swahili.
>
> From the scrap of information in Holm's green book (vol 2, p 574), the
> kind of compounds in Nubi ("belly of hand" for palm, etc) certainly
> sound very like those typical of Swahili (where palm = kitanga cha
> mkono), or other Bantu languages. The word order and constructions in
> the four lines of text quoted are very similar to those of pidginised
> Swahili (Swahili sans prefixes).
>
> FWIW, Nubi, like Dinka, Nuer, Swahili, and Arabic are VO, while Fur is
> strongly SOV. Which may suggest that Nubi does *not* get most of its
> syntax from a Fur substrate.

That's the point -- it gets them from "UG," whatever that may be!

> Course, these remarks, being based on minimal data, don't mean a thing.
> I need a Fur grammar!

I don't usually recommend the writings of my friend Alan Kaye (he tends
to write first and ponder after), but his P & C textbook (coauthored
with Mauro Tosti, IIRC, pub. by Lincom, IIRC) might be a good place to
look, since he's an Arabist and takes his examples from the lesser known
Ps & Cs. 

-- 
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@att.net

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