Here's the reply I sent to Dave on facebook, reprinted here for everyone to "enjoy"! I actually have studied the phenomenon of Creole and Pidgin languages quite a bit, and even have given a few lectures at the U of M on the subject.
My email reply:
>>I don't have time to watch this right now, but I will later...
To answer your second question, the answer is undoubtedly yes, and it has happened numerous times in recent history. Creole languages are languages that develop in a single generation from pidgins, which are basically "primitive" very limited kinds of languages used by adults to communicate with each other when there are many languages spoken within a community, but no strong common language with a large number of native speakers. Hawai'i is a good example, as people from Japan, the Philippines, China, Portugal etc. were brought in as workers and overseen by a small number of English speaking overseers. Since very few of the workers spoke English fluently, a pidgin English developed. Like all pidgins, it had very little in the way of "grammar", a small vocabulary, and was highly variable so that each individual person had their own way of speaking. You could only get basic ideas across, and there were probably lots of things you couldn't say, or at least expect people to understand you reliably.
This all changed as soon as a generation of children grew up in this environment. These children adapted the pidgin English of Hawai'i and turned it into a real language, Hawai'ian Creole. This language has a huge vocabulary so that you can say whatever you want, a real and fixed grammar that is the same from speaker to speaker, and has every other feature of language that linguists know about.
This has happened in the Caribbean, in Africa, in New Guinea and other parts of the South Pacific, even right here in Manitoba (Michif, a language derived from French and Cree, though there are some differences with other Creoles), and probably many other places throughout history.
beyond serving a need for the plot, why does the authority necessarily have to be constituted as a woman, and a "witch"? i noticed that all the authority figures are women--why?
is there something about female authority that is particularly odious or dreadful?
i dunno. that aspect doesn't sit too well with me.
The language at the beginning definitely does sound made up. There are words here and there that are clearly derived from English or another European language (vida for life was one that I recall). Also, it seems to have a lot of the properties found in Romance or Germanic languages - things like word order, syllable structure, etc. (it's hard to tell much else about it from such a small sample). This would put it into the category of languages like Esperanto. Compared to something like Mandarin or Inuktitut or Dyirbal (Australia), it is definitely Western European-based, probably both intentionally and unintentionally (i.e. people take a lot of things for granted about language just because their own language does things a certain way, and they don't consider other possibilities that we in fact know do exist).
I think the mothers makes sense in this, as it's from the perspective of a 10 y.o. Maybe it's just me coming from a single parent family, but a bunch of Dad's at the birthday party or rearing children would seem a bit weird. Not that there would be anything wrong with that, it's just customary in North America for women to have a more integral role in child rearing. I don't think it is misogynistic (even with all the hag-witch talk, which I could see make people think that way). In fact maybe the author is trying to speak to women in particular, shedding light on how they/we raise kids. Just a thought.
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7 comments:
I sent this to a few people on Facebook, but thought we might get more ideas about it here.
Here's the reply I sent to Dave on facebook, reprinted here for everyone to "enjoy"! I actually have studied the phenomenon of Creole and Pidgin languages quite a bit, and even have given a few lectures at the U of M on the subject.
My email reply:
>>I don't have time to watch this right now, but I will later...
To answer your second question, the answer is undoubtedly yes, and it has happened numerous times in recent history. Creole languages are languages that develop in a single generation from pidgins, which are basically "primitive" very limited kinds of languages used by adults to communicate with each other when there are many languages spoken within a community, but no strong common language with a large number of native speakers. Hawai'i is a good example, as people from Japan, the Philippines, China, Portugal etc. were brought in as workers and overseen by a small number of English speaking overseers. Since very few of the workers spoke English fluently, a pidgin English developed. Like all pidgins, it had very little in the way of "grammar", a small vocabulary, and was highly variable so that each individual person had their own way of speaking. You could only get basic ideas across, and there were probably lots of things you couldn't say, or at least expect people to understand you reliably.
This all changed as soon as a generation of children grew up in this environment. These children adapted the pidgin English of Hawai'i and turned it into a real language, Hawai'ian Creole. This language has a huge vocabulary so that you can say whatever you want, a real and fixed grammar that is the same from speaker to speaker, and has every other feature of language that linguists know about.
This has happened in the Caribbean, in Africa, in New Guinea and other parts of the South Pacific, even right here in Manitoba (Michif, a language derived from French and Cree, though there are some differences with other Creoles), and probably many other places throughout history.
See: Creole language in Wikipedia
watched this the other day and loved it.
my question/concern, though is this:
beyond serving a need for the plot, why does the authority necessarily have to be constituted as a woman, and a "witch"? i noticed that all the authority figures are women--why?
is there something about female authority that is particularly odious or dreadful?
i dunno. that aspect doesn't sit too well with me.
otherwise i think it's fabulous.
OK, I watched it (I guess I did have time!!)
The language at the beginning definitely does sound made up. There are words here and there that are clearly derived from English or another European language (vida for life was one that I recall). Also, it seems to have a lot of the properties found in Romance or Germanic languages - things like word order, syllable structure, etc. (it's hard to tell much else about it from such a small sample). This would put it into the category of languages like Esperanto. Compared to something like Mandarin or Inuktitut or Dyirbal (Australia), it is definitely Western European-based, probably both intentionally and unintentionally (i.e. people take a lot of things for granted about language just because their own language does things a certain way, and they don't consider other possibilities that we in fact know do exist).
I think the mothers makes sense in this, as it's from the perspective of a 10 y.o. Maybe it's just me coming from a single parent family, but a bunch of Dad's at the birthday party or rearing children would seem a bit weird. Not that there would be anything wrong with that, it's just customary in North America for women to have a more integral role in child rearing. I don't think it is misogynistic (even with all the hag-witch talk, which I could see make people think that way). In fact maybe the author is trying to speak to women in particular, shedding light on how they/we raise kids. Just a thought.
i love this so much!
wow.
i really like this.
it sheds some light.
I think both wolfboy and macri have a point. You both highlighted things that require some careful consideration.
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