1 00:00:08,340 --> 00:00:11,370 Now we're going to apply the same exercise that we just did. 2 00:00:11,378 --> 00:00:14,047 So here what we did, we showed that there 3 00:00:14,047 --> 00:00:16,850 is no fundamental difference between [INAUDIBLE] 4 00:00:16,850 --> 00:00:19,319 and English, which is [INAUDIBLE] in the history 5 00:00:19,319 --> 00:00:20,353 of Haitian and Creole. 6 00:00:20,353 --> 00:00:23,323 Because what we're doing here, we are questioning this notion 7 00:00:23,323 --> 00:00:25,325 that Creole formation is something 8 00:00:25,325 --> 00:00:27,460 which is very idiosyncratic, which 9 00:00:27,460 --> 00:00:29,262 separates Creoles from non-Creoles, 10 00:00:29,262 --> 00:00:30,530 in a fundamental sense. 11 00:00:30,530 --> 00:00:31,931 Now what we're going to do, we're 12 00:00:31,931 --> 00:00:34,834 going to look at the history of French itself from Latin. 13 00:00:34,834 --> 00:00:40,340 And we're going to ask, so does that history, 14 00:00:40,340 --> 00:00:42,275 can it be in any way compared to what happened 15 00:00:42,275 --> 00:00:43,309 in the history of Creole. 16 00:00:43,309 --> 00:00:44,677 In fact, what we are going to see 17 00:00:44,677 --> 00:00:47,680 is that if we compare Latin and French, in many ways, 18 00:00:47,680 --> 00:00:51,885 they show that French also out Creolization Creole. 19 00:00:51,885 --> 00:00:53,420 We're just going to do it very-- 20 00:00:53,420 --> 00:00:56,623 In fact, what I'm going to do now is very tendentious. 21 00:00:56,623 --> 00:00:58,458 But I'm warning you that it's tendentious. 22 00:01:01,190 --> 00:01:03,460 When I'm comparing French and Latin 23 00:01:03,463 --> 00:01:06,599 is exactly what other linguists do 24 00:01:06,599 --> 00:01:09,602 when they compare, say, Haitian Creole to other languages. 25 00:01:09,602 --> 00:01:11,771 They pick a small set of patterns 26 00:01:11,771 --> 00:01:13,940 and they say, well, look, these set of patterns 27 00:01:13,940 --> 00:01:15,642 make Creole really special. 28 00:01:15,642 --> 00:01:19,679 So now I'm picking these set of patterns I say, 29 00:01:19,679 --> 00:01:23,216 which are very fundamental to the grammar of any language, 30 00:01:23,216 --> 00:01:27,754 which is the order of words. 31 00:01:27,754 --> 00:01:29,556 So scrambling is a technical term. 32 00:01:33,460 --> 00:01:34,960 Any of you know German? 33 00:01:34,961 --> 00:01:35,895 Who knows German? 34 00:01:35,895 --> 00:01:36,563 You know German. 35 00:01:36,563 --> 00:01:39,299 OK. 36 00:01:39,299 --> 00:01:43,503 So German has this property that you can pronounce-- 37 00:01:43,503 --> 00:01:47,941 If you say, I don't know, Mary love pancakes, 38 00:01:47,941 --> 00:01:49,609 you can move things around. 39 00:01:49,609 --> 00:01:53,012 You can say pancakes loves Mary. 40 00:01:53,012 --> 00:01:55,548 NICK: The verb has to be in the second position. 41 00:01:55,548 --> 00:01:56,416 MICHEL DEGRAFF: Yeah. 42 00:01:56,416 --> 00:01:57,917 But the argument is can move around. 43 00:01:57,917 --> 00:02:01,488 So the verb has a strict position, 44 00:02:01,488 --> 00:02:02,989 but then arguments can move around. 45 00:02:02,989 --> 00:02:05,191 It can come first-- 46 00:02:05,191 --> 00:02:06,826 and Latin is of the same nature. 47 00:02:06,826 --> 00:02:08,995 Any you has Latin? 48 00:02:08,995 --> 00:02:09,963 Any of you knows Latin? 49 00:02:09,963 --> 00:02:12,031 [INTERPOSING VOICES] 50 00:02:12,031 --> 00:02:13,633 STUDENT 3: It's the same in Arabic too. 51 00:02:13,633 --> 00:02:15,368 MICHEL DEGRAFF: OK. 52 00:02:15,368 --> 00:02:17,203 So many languages have this capacity 53 00:02:17,203 --> 00:02:21,040 called [INAUDIBLE] Certain kinds of linguists, like at MIT, 54 00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:23,009 would call it scrambling. 55 00:02:23,009 --> 00:02:24,544 It's like scrambled egg. 56 00:02:24,544 --> 00:02:26,478 You can scramble things around. 57 00:02:26,478 --> 00:02:28,414 So you can have a sentence, you have 58 00:02:28,414 --> 00:02:30,350 the subject and the object. 59 00:02:30,350 --> 00:02:32,185 And if you have other things like, 60 00:02:32,185 --> 00:02:33,720 I don't know, like object. 61 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:35,555 If you say, John gave a book to Mary, 62 00:02:35,555 --> 00:02:39,392 you have three roles in that sentence, 63 00:02:39,392 --> 00:02:42,195 the giver, what's being given, what's 64 00:02:42,195 --> 00:02:44,230 received what's been given. 65 00:02:44,230 --> 00:02:46,065 And things can move around in this sentence. 66 00:02:46,065 --> 00:02:47,367 They can be scrambled. 67 00:02:47,367 --> 00:02:49,636 Now Latin has that. 68 00:02:49,636 --> 00:02:51,237 You can scramble things around. 69 00:02:51,237 --> 00:02:52,805 Not French. 70 00:02:52,805 --> 00:02:59,478 So cases, like in Latin, when you say, girl, 71 00:02:59,478 --> 00:03:04,817 it's like [SPEAKING LATIN] You indicate, like in German-- 72 00:03:04,817 --> 00:03:07,253 STUDENT 4: That's because Latin has and leans heavily 73 00:03:07,253 --> 00:03:09,122 on noun and verb endings. 74 00:03:09,122 --> 00:03:10,390 MICHEL DEGRAFF: Exactly. 75 00:03:10,390 --> 00:03:11,558 Exactly. 76 00:03:11,558 --> 00:03:12,759 So those two things are connected. 77 00:03:12,759 --> 00:03:13,393 Good point. 78 00:03:13,393 --> 00:03:14,827 Good point, Jonathan. 79 00:03:14,827 --> 00:03:17,263 In Latin you have these endings that 80 00:03:17,263 --> 00:03:21,601 are called case declensions that tell you whether the noun is 81 00:03:21,601 --> 00:03:23,102 a subject, is an object. 82 00:03:23,102 --> 00:03:26,506 And with that you can move things around more easily. 83 00:03:26,506 --> 00:03:29,576 Now notice that you have it in Latin, and in French you don't. 84 00:03:29,576 --> 00:03:31,544 So in French, like in English, you only 85 00:03:31,544 --> 00:03:33,913 have case marking like on pronouns. 86 00:03:33,913 --> 00:03:36,816 Like he versus him versus his. 87 00:03:36,816 --> 00:03:39,185 You have that on pronouns but you don't have it on nouns. 88 00:03:39,185 --> 00:03:43,723 You don't have the equivalent of he, him, his. 89 00:03:43,723 --> 00:03:46,426 You don't have that on nouns. 90 00:03:46,426 --> 00:03:49,529 But in Latin, any noun will have to carry 91 00:03:49,529 --> 00:03:53,900 an ending that tells you is it a subject, is it an object? 92 00:03:53,900 --> 00:03:54,934 It's called case. 93 00:03:54,934 --> 00:03:57,804 So you have overt case. 94 00:03:57,804 --> 00:04:01,674 In Latin, you don't have articles like "the." 95 00:04:01,674 --> 00:04:03,176 If you learn Latin you have to learn 96 00:04:03,176 --> 00:04:04,410 that you don't have a "the." 97 00:04:04,410 --> 00:04:05,545 In French you have a "the." 98 00:04:05,545 --> 00:04:08,581 So these are four basic properties 99 00:04:08,581 --> 00:04:12,085 that you find in Latin that you don't find in French. 100 00:04:12,085 --> 00:04:14,287 So the point here is that, well, look, 101 00:04:14,287 --> 00:04:17,156 along these four major parameters, 102 00:04:17,156 --> 00:04:19,792 French is very different from Latin. 103 00:04:19,792 --> 00:04:21,827 So if one were to take the kind of words 104 00:04:21,827 --> 00:04:23,963 that are used to describe Creole, you would say, 105 00:04:23,963 --> 00:04:27,533 well, French has broken Latin's grammar. 106 00:04:27,533 --> 00:04:29,269 French has broken Latin. 107 00:04:29,269 --> 00:04:30,637 That's what you would have to say 108 00:04:30,637 --> 00:04:35,308 because we have four basic properties of Latin 109 00:04:35,308 --> 00:04:37,076 that somehow French speakers have 110 00:04:37,076 --> 00:04:40,813 lost as they learned to speak Latin and create in French. 111 00:04:40,813 --> 00:04:41,814 Now guess what? 112 00:04:41,814 --> 00:04:44,384 If we take those very same properties 113 00:04:44,384 --> 00:04:46,619 and we compare French and Haitian Creole, 114 00:04:46,619 --> 00:04:48,021 they are the same. 115 00:04:48,021 --> 00:04:51,057 Canonical order in both languages. 116 00:04:51,057 --> 00:04:54,761 For pronouns, we have a difference of pronouns. 117 00:04:54,761 --> 00:05:00,166 But for full nouns you have the same verb, object order. 118 00:05:00,166 --> 00:05:03,903 Scrambling, French and Creole, we have the same. 119 00:05:03,903 --> 00:05:06,005 Overt case, the same. 120 00:05:06,005 --> 00:05:08,141 Article, the same. 121 00:05:08,141 --> 00:05:09,208 So what does that show? 122 00:05:09,208 --> 00:05:13,246 That at least along these four parameters, 123 00:05:13,246 --> 00:05:17,684 Haitian Creole is much better behaved than French. 124 00:05:17,684 --> 00:05:23,556 In fact, if you were to create a degree of Creoleness 125 00:05:23,556 --> 00:05:27,060 based on how broken the grammar is, which is often 126 00:05:27,060 --> 00:05:29,962 what lay people do often. 127 00:05:29,962 --> 00:05:34,600 They think of Creole as Jamaican Creole is broken English. 128 00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:36,235 Haitian Creole is broken French. 129 00:05:36,235 --> 00:05:37,704 So here, you would have to say then 130 00:05:37,704 --> 00:05:39,972 that French is broken Latin. 131 00:05:39,972 --> 00:05:44,010 Actually, there is a very well-known historical linguist 132 00:05:44,010 --> 00:05:45,611 called Antoine Meillet. 133 00:05:45,611 --> 00:05:47,013 Antione Meillet was aware of that. 134 00:05:47,013 --> 00:05:48,681 Antione Meillet actually wrote something 135 00:05:48,681 --> 00:05:51,084 which I find very striking. 136 00:05:51,084 --> 00:05:54,854 He said that if we compare the Romance languages, not only 137 00:05:54,854 --> 00:06:00,493 French, but Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, 138 00:06:00,493 --> 00:06:02,895 so they are called the Romance languages. 139 00:06:02,895 --> 00:06:04,430 Actually, I often hear people say 140 00:06:04,430 --> 00:06:06,466 they are romantic languages. 141 00:06:06,466 --> 00:06:10,336 They can be romantic, but the technical term is they 142 00:06:10,336 --> 00:06:14,073 are Romance, Romance languages. 143 00:06:14,073 --> 00:06:18,411 So those Romance languages, they have structures that are-- 144 00:06:18,411 --> 00:06:20,747 actually, he used the term "fundamentally 145 00:06:20,747 --> 00:06:23,883 different from their Latin counterparts." 146 00:06:23,883 --> 00:06:26,753 So linguists, very smart linguists, are aware of that. 147 00:06:26,753 --> 00:06:30,523 And even say that, this is still Meillet, "All this makes," 148 00:06:30,523 --> 00:06:33,058 he called it, "neo-Latin languages fall 149 00:06:33,058 --> 00:06:36,329 into a typological class that is quite remote from 150 00:06:36,329 --> 00:06:38,364 the structural type of Latin." 151 00:06:38,364 --> 00:06:39,932 And that's very clear, right? 152 00:06:39,932 --> 00:06:42,869 I couldn't be any clearer. 153 00:06:42,869 --> 00:06:48,007 So which means that this notion of Creole languages having 154 00:06:48,007 --> 00:06:51,210 broken the syntax of their European ancestors 155 00:06:51,210 --> 00:06:53,813 is very tendentious because [INAUDIBLE] linguists 156 00:06:53,813 --> 00:06:56,716 realized that all languages evolve 157 00:06:56,716 --> 00:06:58,518 through these structural breaks, even 158 00:06:58,518 --> 00:07:02,221 those that are often presented as prototypical genetic 159 00:07:02,221 --> 00:07:02,722 languages. 160 00:07:02,722 --> 00:07:04,290 Meaning that, languages with parents. 161 00:07:07,090 --> 00:07:07,720 Go ahead, Nick. 162 00:07:07,727 --> 00:07:10,430 NICK: Were the Gaulish languages, 163 00:07:10,430 --> 00:07:15,268 did they have those features that neo-Latin language? 164 00:07:15,268 --> 00:07:17,069 MICHEL DEGRAFF: That's a very good question. 165 00:07:17,069 --> 00:07:19,439 [INAUDIBLE] Yeah, I don't know about Gaulish language. 166 00:07:19,439 --> 00:07:21,007 That's what you are going to find out. 167 00:07:21,007 --> 00:07:23,776 So how did French develop those patterns? 168 00:07:23,776 --> 00:07:26,245 Is it from the substrate languages, 169 00:07:26,245 --> 00:07:28,147 which is like the Gaulish? 170 00:07:28,147 --> 00:07:29,515 That's a very good question. 171 00:07:29,515 --> 00:07:31,651 Yeah, that's exactly what you would want to ask. 172 00:07:31,651 --> 00:07:35,721 Because we know, and in the case of Haitian Creole, not all-- 173 00:07:35,721 --> 00:07:37,623 and I want to stress, not all-- 174 00:07:37,623 --> 00:07:40,393 but many of the features of Haitian Creole 175 00:07:40,393 --> 00:07:43,930 were inherited from the African substrates. 176 00:07:43,930 --> 00:07:46,132 For example, the fact that you have the article 177 00:07:46,132 --> 00:07:48,034 after the noun not before the noun, 178 00:07:48,034 --> 00:07:50,336 that's straight out from the Gbe languages, 179 00:07:50,336 --> 00:07:51,504 which have the same pattern. 180 00:07:55,900 --> 00:07:58,370 So there's a common thread here in the argument. 181 00:07:58,377 --> 00:08:01,380 Those breaks that you see in the history of Creole languages, 182 00:08:01,380 --> 00:08:02,949 you also find them in the history 183 00:08:02,949 --> 00:08:04,784 of non-Creole languages. 184 00:08:04,784 --> 00:08:07,353 JOSE: Is Afrikaans a Creole? 185 00:08:07,353 --> 00:08:09,121 MICHEL DEGRAFF: That's a very good point. 186 00:08:09,121 --> 00:08:13,392 So there was one linguist who some time ago called 187 00:08:13,392 --> 00:08:14,861 Afrikaans a Creole language. 188 00:08:14,861 --> 00:08:17,296 And he got into big trouble because the Afrikaans 189 00:08:17,296 --> 00:08:20,533 speak-- is very upset. 190 00:08:20,533 --> 00:08:22,468 JOSE: It's like a Creole, but for Dutch people. 191 00:08:22,468 --> 00:08:23,102 MICHEL DEGRAFF: That's right. 192 00:08:23,102 --> 00:08:23,936 Exactly. 193 00:08:23,936 --> 00:08:26,739 So the Afrikaaners were upset that they 194 00:08:26,739 --> 00:08:30,643 dared compared the Afrikaans language to Creole. 195 00:08:30,643 --> 00:08:34,413 Because for them, Afrikaans was a variety of Dutch 196 00:08:34,413 --> 00:08:36,849 and it should not be never called Creole. 197 00:08:36,849 --> 00:08:38,351 STUDENT 4: What year was that? 198 00:08:38,351 --> 00:08:40,820 MICHEL DEGRAFF: Oh, that was in the early '80s, 199 00:08:40,820 --> 00:08:43,088 I think, early '80s. 200 00:08:43,088 --> 00:08:46,492 But that was a very live discussion, in fact. 201 00:08:46,492 --> 00:08:48,861 At some point there was a linguist who had to step back 202 00:08:48,861 --> 00:08:50,930 and say, well, OK, Afrikaans isn't a Creole, 203 00:08:50,930 --> 00:08:51,797 it's a semi-Creole. 204 00:08:51,797 --> 00:08:55,401 [LAUGHTER] 205 00:08:55,401 --> 00:08:57,670 JOSE: So I guess that's [INAUDIBLE] 206 00:08:57,670 --> 00:09:00,373 MICHEL DEGRAFF: Yeah, definitely. 207 00:09:00,373 --> 00:09:03,509 So what I have to add, that linguist, actually, his name 208 00:09:03,509 --> 00:09:09,315 is John Holm, the late John Holm, I asked him, 209 00:09:09,315 --> 00:09:12,051 how do you measure semi-Creoleness? 210 00:09:12,051 --> 00:09:16,422 How many features must you have to be a semi-Creole? 211 00:09:16,422 --> 00:09:17,790 Which goes back to that question, 212 00:09:17,790 --> 00:09:21,661 can you define Creoleness based on a set of features, which 213 00:09:21,661 --> 00:09:22,929 is very problematic, actually.