**** Polygenesis, attractiveness of --- as an explanation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ UP: <[LINK]>

Polygenetic approaches are attractive to creolist scholars because they focus on specifiable historical contacts and yield cultural subsystems that are readily interpretable through a substratum/superstratum model of power relations. Older generations of historians and linguists used polygenetic approaches to show how Africans (and other creole speakers) were supposedly physically and mentally incapable of learning European superstrate languages and thought processes. {<[LINK]> tie in with historical sections} Today many scholars use it to demonstrate continuities between the lects of creole communities and their substratum parent languages. {<[LINK]> tie to substratum approaches} One North American creole, Gullah, or Sea Islands Creole, has been explained both ways.

• - Problems with polygenesis <[LINK]>
• - Sea Islands Creole as an example <[LINK]>