Re: Is English a creole? (was: Indo-European Studies)
Glynis Baguley (gmb@natcorp.ox.ac.uk)
Fri, 28 Jul 1995 17:30:28 GMT
In article <DCADII.Bqx@austin.ibm.com> seumas@vnet.ibm.com (James Walker) writes:
>
> This analysis completely ignores the language-contact situation prior to
> the Norman invasion: the viking invasions and the establishment of the
> Danelaw (viking-occupied England) in the 9th century. This, more than
> the French occupation, is likely to have led to the levelling of grammatical
> paradigms, because the "Danes" and the Anglo-Saxons in these areas
> would have been in intimate and prolonged contact and would have
> been intermarrying, a situation that did not hold with the later French-
> speaking nobility.
Is this known for certain? Was there really no intermarriage between
the Normans and the English? Why not? This seems somewhat implausible.
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