Well howdy there fellow students and professor. So how about this Derek Bickerton guy, neat eh?, although I don't entirely understand his vocabulary, (that is what wikipedia is for,) and I don't always get the gist. My quest coming into this class was based in my curiosity at the similarities between Ghana pidgin and Hawaiian pidgin and this guy is walking me through it. So I am very pleased. Where to start? He is on a quest for the substrate of the languages. As he says on page 68, had he successfully found a case in one of the African grammers which demonstrated Guyanese grammer, what would that have accomplished? There are still many other Creoles that wouldn't have those roots. If one were to discover the roots of all the different grammers, that still would not explain the similarities. Absolutely titillating the way he keeps throwing Hawaii into the mix. I read ahead, one of the chapters about Hawaii, and in it he states that Hawaiian pidgin is not a language which was assimilated to conform to European dialects. It is the opposite, European assimilated to Hawaiian because Hawaiians were the dominant culture when Europeans started coming around. So my original interest is flaring up. :) I'll say it again and make a clarification. I don't speak pidgin, but I do sometimes speak with pidgin intonations, and when I do, lots o white folks don't know what the hell I said. I didn't change the grammer, I didn't change the words, usually, just the tones and folks don't get it. My friend from Ghana, however, did get it, and granted lots of white folks do to. He said the same thing about me. He has an accent. He isn't talking pidgin, but the pidgin accent is the same. He said lot of folks don't know what he is saying. What the hell is going on here people? Ok. So here is my next query, Derek B. couldn't find African roots for Guyanese grammer; is there a universal knowledge which tells humans how to break it down so that different dialects are mutually intelligible. This query says nothing to the fact that all pidgins are different yet, perhaps the way we see objects in relation to time, place and meaning trancends the culturally specific way of interpreting it. Ok. That seems simple, it is simple. Where do intonations fit in? Ok enough on that rant.... There's more..... Keep reading

Here is another interesting thought, stemming from the ambiguous use of tense in Guyanese. If context disambiguates a statement, could it translate the same meaning in writing, or would the context have to be set up? To what extent does writing a language change its grammer? I personally like ambiguous words and statements because it doesn't pidgeonhole thoughts. In many ways it is clever and open communication, relying on universal intuitions rather than fallible logic. He says on page 58 that pidgins are usually intimate, home languages. What does this say about context being a vital component of the language. Or  is it? 

So I am in the library and just took a bathroom break and on my way back to my computer a book jumped right off the shelf and landed at my feet! Wild eh? True story. Anyways, it is called, How the brain evolved language by Donald Loritz. I opened to this strange quote. It is a generative  deduction. On page 9 and 10 it states,

"The human brain is finite, but

an infinity of sentences exists

which can be generated by rule

proving language is infinite. Nevertheless

normal human children aquire language quickly and effortlessly

even though no one teaches language to young children

and only human children so aquire language

Therefore

language is innate. It is not so much learned as it is 'aquired.'"

So I read this and it struck me as worth sharing. It reminds me of this sticky concept of universal knowledge of how the mind can exchange thought for word.

Ok guys. Till next time, Miss Erin McGuire