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> It started, and continues, as an effort to legitimize a set of languages OK, but this is not a scientific definition. Nothing wrong with such words, but try

• 39896880 2y ago
  The subject of the quote is Creolistics, not the definition of Creole. If you are looking for scientific definitions of linguistic categories you are going to be very disappointed. Language involves humans. Language is messy. As well, any question that involves “meaning” must itself answer the question “to whom?” I answered from the perspective of (some) linguists, but as another user pointed out, non-linguists might very well and with no ill intention consider it an appropriate term.
  • cryptonector 2y ago
    In Spanish 'criollo' is the word for 'creole', and its meaning has changed a fair bit from the French. It's more like "local", "ex-colonial", "dating all the way back to colonial times".
• danans 2y ago
  > OK, but this is not a scientific definition. > Nothing wrong with such words, but trying to logically reason about them is not going to be fruitful Very few phenomena outside of physics have scientific definitions, yet we logically reason about them all the time, as we indeed must to make any sense of our world ethically, socially, and economically. Even making the physical human-built world around us relies a great deal on non-scientific definitions. The entire field of linguistics is based upon reasoning about and finding patterns on top of "non-scientific" definitions. As professor McWhorter (quoted in the article) has said in his lectures: "It's all just a puff of air".