Editing Creole language (section)

===Exceptionalism===
Building up on this discussion, McWhorter proposed that "the world's simplest grammars are Creole grammars", claiming that every noncreole language's grammar is at least as complex as any creole language's grammar.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|McWhorter|1998}}</ref><ref>{{Harvcoltxt|McWhorter|2005}}</ref> Gil has replied that [[Riau Indonesian]] has a simpler grammar than [[Saramaccan]], the language McWhorter uses as a showcase for his theory.<ref name="Gil 2001"/> The same objections were raised by Wittmann in his 1999 debate with McWhorter.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.nou-la.org/ling/1999a-prototype.html|title=Prototype as a Typological Yardstick to Creoleness|website=www.nou-la.org}}</ref>

The lack of progress made in defining creoles in terms of their morphology and syntax has led scholars such as [[Robert Chaudenson]], [[Salikoko Mufwene]], [[Michel DeGraff]], and [[Henri Wittmann]] to question the value of ''creole'' as a typological class; they argue that creoles are structurally no different from any other language, and that ''creole'' is a sociohistoric concept – not a linguistic one – encompassing displaced populations and slavery.<ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Mufwene|2000}}, Wittmann (2001)</ref>

{{Harvcoltxt|Thomason|Kaufman|1988}} spell out the idea of creole exceptionalism, claiming that creole languages are an instance of nongenetic language change due to language shift with abnormal transmission. Gradualists question the abnormal transmission of languages in a creole setting and argue that the processes which created today's creole languages are no different from universal patterns of language change.

Given these objections to ''creole'' as a concept, DeGraff and others question the idea that creoles are exceptional in any meaningful way.<ref name="DeGraff 2003" /><ref>{{Harvcoltxt|Ansaldo|Matthews|2007}}</ref> Additionally, {{Harvcoltxt|Mufwene|2002}} argues that some [[Romance language]]s are potential creoles but that they are not considered as such by linguists because of a historical bias against such a view.