Langues créoles et origine du langage : état de la question. - article ; n°146 ; vol.36, pg 59-69

Alain Kihm

Description

Langages - Année 2002 - Volume 36 - Numéro 146 - Pages 59-69
Creole languages are sometimes considered a laboratory where language genesis could be observed ~~in vivo~~. One reason for this belief is that Creoles are the only natural languages now extant, the emergence of which can be dated and localized with some precision because (i) it is recent (a century for some); (ii) it presents (or seems to present) the characters of a catastrophe as opposed to the continuous process of change whereby old languages like French and English acquired their identities. Another reason is the present currency of a theory which views the origin of language and the formation of Creoles as due to the same cause, viz. the sudden replacement of protolanguage by full human language. This article evaluates the claims of this theory with respect to Creole formation. It shows its main drawback to lie in the fact that full languages were crucially present on the scenes where creole languages emerged, if only as lexicon purveyors, so that no convincing inferences may be drawn from the historical situation in which Creoles appeared to the prehistorical setting where language originated.
11 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

Informations

• Publié par: LANGAGES
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 38
• Langue: Français

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