Template talk:cpe-mar

Kromanti

For discussion of Kromanti, see Template talk:alv-kro. - -sche (discuss) 05:41, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

RFM discussion of language name

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Template:cpe-mar

Google Books (once you click through, of course) suggests that (deprecated template usage) Kromanti is in fact the most common name of this language. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 09:32, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

The situation is confusing. My limited understanding is that some authorities treat Kromanti as being the Maroon Spirit Language, while others consider it separate. The former group treats English-like expressions during Spirit ceremonies as Jamaican Creole English, while members of the latter group treat such expressions as MSL proper, and either accept/tolerate the claim that Kromanti is an African language or treat it as a constructed lect (possibly cognisable as a specialised jargon within MSL like Rotwelsch within German). Bilby (1983) gives examples of both:

• MSL: Yes [yes], bigi [big] suma [one], da [this] nyũman [man] ya [here] bin [came, lit. been] fram [from] big ĩsho [sea, lit. big smth.], bot [but] afa [after] im [he, lit. him] bin [came, lit. been] a [to] yangkungku [maroon] pre [place], grãfa [grandfather], da [this] man [man] de [is] a [a] manis [man] ...
• Kromanti: wiakwamba, denko na mi fremili ... wiakwamba, grãfa shukumse

- -sche (discuss) 10:00, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

That is an unfortunate occurrence. I suspect that the Englishy portions of the so-called MSL corpus could be assigned to Patwa without any loss, however. The semi-attested lect with Niger-Congo languages as its lexifier is Kromanti. However, some sources seem to claim that out of these two unrelated creoles used during spirit possession, both are languages in their own right, and the MSL proper is closer to Sranan than to local Patwa. We do need to decide which of these is to be represented by the code {{cpe-mar}}, however, and how to handle the other one. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:55, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, the authorities who use the name "Maroon Spirit Language" seem to use it (mostly?) for the English-y lect. And the authorities who use "Kromanti" use it (mostly?) for the African-y lect, whether they treat the African-y lect as part (with the English-y lect) of "Maroon Spirit Language", treat both as languages, or treat the English-y lect as Patwa or Sranan. Therefore, I think it would be confusing to use "Kromanti" as the name of the English-y lect or of any unification of the English-y and African-y lects. And {{cpe-mar}} is a made-up code named specifically for Maroon Spirit Language. Therefore, to the extent that African-y Kromanti should be separate from English-y MSL (and we and 2 of the 3 camps of linguists seem to agree it should be separate), I suggest we make a brand new code for it, like {{cpe-kro}} or {{cpe-krm}}. Then, we can debate whether to merge {{cpe-mar}} with {{jam}} or {{srn}}. - -sche (discuss) 20:26, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Although I'm trying to widen my creolistic experience, I don't feel like I can make a value judgment on whether {{cpe-mar}} should be kept, so we probably shouldn't mess with it. As for Kromanti, I think it's a bit creole-y but arguably, it ought to be considered a Kwa language ({{alv-kwa}}) like Akan ({{ak}}), the macrolanguage it is sometimes considered a part of. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. We can always merge cpe-mar with jam/srn later, if it becomes apparent that's appropriate. For now, I'll create a few entries from Bilby's list. - -sche (discuss) 03:05, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh, suggesting {{cpe-kro}} for Kromanti was a total brain-fart on my part. I'm glad you caught that! It is indeed not a creole. - -sche (discuss) 03:09, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Template:alv-kro. - -sche (discuss) 03:52, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Striking as suitably figured out. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:02, 15 January 2013 (UTC)