A LANGUAGE IS A COMMUNITY
I sometimes don’t know quite who I is or yam, and when I get so stuck I yam finding myself falling back on the egg centric and eggs plosive locutions of one Popeye (praise be to Max Fleischer) and the still more Krazy Kat in pursuit of the beautiful brick throwing Ignatz Mouse (praise be to George Herriman) and praise be to Mr Google who will help you find info on all these characters -links are for lazy wimps- out amongst the rusting hulks of abandoned websites on the litter strewn ocean of info gibber that is our modern internet. Anyway, there is twelve more names added to contributors on the list below from last post and, six fresh bullet points from a power point presentation on pigeons that I am trying to put together…
BULLET POINT ONE 1. Here’s some pigeons. I was going to show you a drawing of Charles Darwin’s pigeons but Mr Google said I’d have to pay and since I haven’t any money I downloaded these little beauties. Coo! Like a bird, on a wire….
BULLET POINT TWO 2. And here’s some pidgin.
“YOU MAKIN SENSE, BUT YOU DON’T BE MAKIN’ SENSE.”
Which, if you can make sense of it, means in standard English “You’re making sense right now but generally you don’t make sense.” (Wouldn’t be the first time in my case, wouldn’t be the first time.)
(klick, kerchunk, whoops, anyway, can we go back one, no, not there, back one, ah yes…. embarrassed silence as the power point presenter tries to find next point…. the mind begins to wander… to remember the days when people just talked.. anyway, ah yes, there it is…thank you and onward…)
BULLET POINT THREE 3.
Question: So what is a PIDGIN?
Answer: A PIDGIN is a language with no native speakers, formed as a means of communication between people with different languages, drawing features from both but dispensing with strange or difficult features. Hence, different ethnic, sociological and linguistic groups thrown together by the tides of history evolved their own languages. Consequently, and for obvious reasons, many pidgins originated in -for instance, Chinese ports, Pacific Islands and the cultural melting pots of the new world.
BULLET POINT FOUR 4.
Question: And when is a PIDGIN not a PIDGIN?
Answer: When it’s a CREOLE.
Question: And what’s a CREOLE?
Answer: A Creole is a pidgin that has become the native language of its speakers. This usually happens when -for the children of pidgin speakers- it becomes their first language.
BULLET POINT FIVE 5
And then Creole can become assimilated and become a dialect. Look at these speech patterns from Black English, an American variant of Standard English.
I DONE GO
I DONE WENT
I DONE GONE
I DONE BEEN GONE
I BEEN DONE GONE
Another example would be the much smaller language community -but of course no less important or interesting- of Cumbrian dialect. Both stand in the same relationship to the dominant language community of which they are a variant.
Question: And what’s a dominant language community?
Answer: A dialect with an army.
BULLET POINT SIX 6
Why am I banging on about this?
Good question. Because, as far as the arts & culture in Carlisle go we are all of us -and we’re all on this journey together – still struggling to find a PIDGIN in which to communicate. The conversation has started but it needs to allow a lot more voices into it. And we need to make a language -can be simple and functional as a PIDGIN- doesn’t need to be highbrow, mustn’t be box ticking, mustn’t belong to any one group or community but to all of us.
Me Cyaan believe it. (Thanks to Michael Smith RIP)
