APiCS online, ASJP

Any readers interested in pidgins, creoles, or mixed languages (one of those things is not like the others!) will want to know that the data for the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Languages, APiCS, is finally online and publicly browsable. Think of it as WALS for pidgins and creoles, basically – lots of pretty maps, with the nice bonus that language-internal variation in features like word order can be represented proportionally by a pie graph instead of having to choose a single value per language.

Also released lately is the data underlying the ASJP (Automated Similarity Judgement Program). The program's results itself remain thoroughly unreliable as a guide to classification – as of the latest version, it auto-classifies Songhay with Masa (Chadic), Berber with East Chadic, Kanuri with various Biu-Mandara (Chadic) languages (and not with Teda-Daza), Turkic with some New Guinea language named Kuot, and Hebrew with Tigre and Tigrinya against the rest of Semitic. For low-level subgroupings they aren't always too bad, though – their Berber tree has become surprisingly plausible. In any event, having the data, you can analyse it yourself, or try running your own algorithms if you feel up to it...

Lingua franca / Sabir

Mi star trovato un bonu libro sopra il sabir: Dictionnaire de la langue franque ou petit mauresque. Avanti l'attaca del Fransis, l'Algerino parlar con il Rumi ne in esbagnol ne in italiano ne in fransis, ma in questa lingua, una miscolantza dell'italiano e dell'esbagnol, muchu facile anche per un muchachu. Il mariniero parlar il sabir non solo in Algieri ma in tutto portao straniero. Ma doppo 1830, il genti star imparato fransis, presto scordato il sabir. Ellu star lasciato giusto qualche parola in l'arab del mariniero, come in Dellys "timpu" (il tempo bello). Per ancora imparar, andar a A Glossary of Lingua Franca, di Alan Corré.