Talk:Post-creole speech continuum

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what is the Jamaican continuum?

[edit] Merge

I propose that acrolect, mesolect, and basilect be merged here. They are simply three points on the continuum. It makes more sense to discuss them in one place rather than repeat the same points across four different articles. There can be a section Post-creole speech continuum#Acrolect, basilect and mesolect which each of the three pages would redirect to, simply to allow the redirect to jump straight to the definitions of the terms. jnestorius^(talk) 00:35, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

That assumes there would be different sections for each part. But I think you're right, a m and b aren't really that expandable on their own. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't. In fact the simplest would be to change a m and b to #REDIRECT [[Post-creole speech continuum#Stratification]] and replace the wikilinks with bolding in that para, thusly...

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=== Stratification ===

William Stewart, in 1965, proposed that the terms acrolect and basilect be the sociolinguistic labels for the upper and lower boundaries respectively of a post-creole speech continuum.^[1] In the early 1970s Derek Bickerton popularized these terms as well as mesolect to refer to the phenomenon of code-switching used by some users of creole languages who also have some fluency in the standard language upon which the contact language is based.^{[citation needed]} There are no discrete boundaries between the different varieties and the situation in which such a continuum exists involves considerable social stratification.

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...with I suppose more elaboration of a m and b ensuing. jnestorius^(talk) 23:12, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Very true. I'm all for this merger. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

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Before merging, I would anyone who knows better than me to explain me something: are post-creole continuum and basilect–acrolect continuum exactly the same thing? In the articles about Jamaican Patois and Guyanese Creole it is stated that there is a continuum between Creole and English. But in Cape Verdean Creole there is neither a “middle form” between Creole and Portuguese, neither a continuum. There is indeed a continuum within the Creole, with a basilect less influenced by Portuguese and an acrolect more influenced by contemporary Portuguese, but the speakers are always aware the difference between the two languages, they are always separated. Ten Islands (talk) 11:59, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

They are the same. Not all Creole languages have a continuum (like Haitian Creole). If you look at Jamaican Patois you see that speakers only have a concept of the basilect and acrolect (Patois and English respectively) even though they have a command of a range of mesolects. It's probably the same for Cape Verdean Creole. If it's not, then Cape Verdean possibly has a situation called diglossia wherein the two registers (prestige and non-prestige) have two distinct social functions but it's not accurate to call these two registers acrolect and basilect. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 16:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Attention! I have re-checked my sources and Dulce Pereira, in her book Crioulos de base portuguesa (Ed. Caminho, Lisboa – 2006), does call the variations within a creole language as “basilects” and “acrolects”. If her usage of the words is wrong, then let’s go for the merge. If her usage of the words is correct, then there are two situations that must be distinguished:

variations between the Creole language and the lexifier language		variations within the Creole language
Post-creole continuum	Creole language	Basilect–acrolect continuum	Basilect
			Mesolect
			Acrolect
	Intermediate between Creole language and lexifier language
	Lexifier language

Take a peek at these examples, and you will see that there are situations where a Creole language may be less or more influenced by its lexifier language, but being those two languages always separated, without having a continuum between them. Ten Islands (talk) 06:34, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm much too ignorant to comment on TenIslands' point; but whether or not there is a distinction between the basilect-acrolect continuum and the creole-lexifier continuum, there should still be a merger between the three pages acrolect-mesolect-basilect; either into the Post-creole speech continuum page, or to some other page (acrolect-basliect continuum??) jnestorius^(talk) 08:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The link provided seems to argue that there is a continuum with CV creole. If this article doesn't already clarify it, the post-creole speech continuum is not actually a continuum between the most creolized form and the lexifier language but between the most creolized form and the least creolized form, the latter often being almost identical to the lexifier language. So I would put the table like this.

Lexifier
Creole	acrolect
	mesolect(s)
	basilect

While there are multiple mesolects, I'm pretty certain that, as Bickerton defined it, there is only one acrolect and only one basilect. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 09:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Ƶ§œš¹, that in regard to within a creole, the acrolect - mesolect - basilect breakdown should be explained on one page, as oppose to the current three separate pages. I'm fairly new to discussions on Merge topics, so what is the process now? Do we just keep discussing this? Or is there a 'mod', who at some point will make a decision based on the general consensus and either create a new page, or leave things the way they are? Jclu (talk) 19:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Any one of us can merge. Since I've done it before, I'll go ahead and do it. Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)