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  3. The Creole Debate
  • Cited by 47
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    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      28 April 2018
      17 May 2018
      ISBN:
      9781108553308
      9781108428644
      9781108450836
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108553308
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.39kg, 178 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.28kg, 178 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Grammar and Syntax, Historical Linguistics, Language and Linguistics
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    Subjects:
    Grammar and Syntax, Historical Linguistics, Language and Linguistics
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    Book description

    Creoles have long been the subject of debate in linguistics, with many conflicting views, both on how they are formed, and what their political and linguistic status should be. Indeed, over the past twenty years, some creole specialists have argued that it has been wrong to think of creoles as anything but language blends in the same way that Yiddish is a blend of German and Hebrew and Slavic. Here, John H. McWhorter debunks the most widely accepted idea that creoles are created in the same way as 'children', taking characteristics from both 'parent' languages, and its underlying assumption that all historical and biological processes are the same. Instead, the facts support the original, and more interesting, argument that creoles are their own unique entity and are among the world's only genuinely new languages.

    Reviews

    ‘This eloquent and well-researched book on creole languages is the final nail to the coffin of the ideologists who claim that there is nothing special about the grammars of these languages. Chapeau!'

    Peter Bakker - Aarhus University, Denmark

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