「#1223. 中英語はクレオール語か？」 ([2012-09-01-1])，「#1249. 中英語はクレオール語か？ (2)」 ([2012-09-27-1])，「#1250. 中英語はクレオール語か？ (3)」 ([2012-09-28-1])，「#1251. 中英語＝クレオール語説の背景」 ([2012-09-29-1]) を受けて，もう少し議論の材料を提示したい．直接この問題に迫るというよりは，2言語の混合という過程とピジン化 (pidginisation) という過程とをどのように区別するかという問題を考察したい．
混合の前後に連続性が見られず，"the drastic break" (Görlach 341) があると判断される場合にはピジン化といってよいと考えるが，Trudgill (181--82) も Afrikaans を取り上げて同趣旨の議論を展開している．
Interestingly, there are some languages in the world which look like post-creoles, but which are not. These are varieties which, compared to some source, show a certain degree of simplification and admixture. We do not, however, call these languages creoles, because the extent of the simplification and admixture is not very great. And we do not call them post-creoles because they have never been creoles --- which is in turn because they have never been pidgins! Afrikaans, the other major language of the white community in South Africa alongside English, used to be considered a dialect of Dutch . . . . During the course of the twentieth century, however, it achieved autonomy . . . and now has its own literature, dictionaries, grammar books, and so on. Compared to Dutch, Afrikaans shows significant amounts of regularization in the grammar, and a significant amount of admixture from Malay, Portuguese and other languages. It still remains mutually intelligible with Dutch, however. The crucial feature of Afrikaans is that, although it is now spoken by some South Africans who are the descendants of people who spoke it as a non-native language --- hence the influence from Portuguese, Malay and so on --- and who undoubtedly therefore spoke a pidginized form of Dutch/Afrikaans, the language was at no time a pidgin. In the transition from Dutch to Afrikaans, the native-speaker tradition was maintained throughout. The language was passed down from one generation of native speakers to another; it was used for all social functions and was therefore never subjected to reduction. Such a language, which demonstrates a certain amount of simplification and admixture, relative to some source language, but which has never been a pidgin or a creole in the sense that it has always had speakers who spoke a variety which was not subject to reduction, we can call a creoloid.
標準オランダ語に比べれば，Afrikaans には確かに単純化や規則化がみられる．また，マレー語，ポルトガル語などから言語項目の著しい借用がみられる．しかし，だからといって pidgin だとか creole だとか呼ぶわけにはいかない．というのは，Afrikaans には間違いなく歴史的な連続性があるからだ．各世代の話者は，単純化や接触を経験しながらも，途切れることなくこの言語変種を用いてきたし，接触言語と合わせて即席の便宜的な言語を作り出したという痕跡もない．"the drastic change" はなかったのである．では，この言語を何と呼ぶのか．Trudgill は，新しい用語として "creoloid" が適切ではないかと主張する．
この "creoloid" という用語は，中英語にもそのまま当てはめられるだろう．古英語と古ノルド語との接触は，creole を生み出したわけではなく，あくまで creoloid を生み出したにすぎなかったといえる．なぜならば，古ノルド語との接触は古英語以来の言語変化の速度を速めたが，あくまで自然な路線の延長であり，連続性があったからだ．同趣旨の議論として，「#1224. 英語，デンマーク語，アフリカーンス語に共通してみられる言語接触の効果」 ([2012-09-02-1]) も参照．
・ Görlach, Manfred. "Middle English --- a Creole?" Linguistics across Historical and Geographical Boundaries. Ed. D. Kastovsky and A. Szwedek. Berlin: Gruyter, 1986. 329--44.
・ Trudgill, Peter. Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to Language and Society. 4th ed. London: Penguin, 2000.
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