Middle English creole hypothesis

Some authors have suggested that creole be defined in terms of a checklist of features, even with no knowledge of the language's sociohistory.

[13][14][15] Proposed checklist features include lack of gender distinctions or overtly marked passive voice; SVO word order; tense-modality-aspect systems that use exactly three preverbal particles; among others.

Overall, a comparison with its [Germanic] sisters reveals English to be significantly less overspecified semantically and less complexified syntactically.

[17]While they emphasised the influence of French, both Bailey & Maroldt[1] and Poussa[3] also discussed the possibility that it was contact between Old English speakers and the invading Vikings during the ninth and tenth centuries, that was responsible for much of the loss of Germanic inheritance, followed only later by a Norman French influence.

Even if Middle English does not fully satisfy the criteria that would make it a creole, it has been argued that it might still be characterisable as a semi-creole.

Recognized examples of semi-creoles include Afrikaans (Dutch as morphologically streamlined by contact with Khoisan), Reunionnais French, Lingala, and Shaba Swahili.