jlg@lanl-a.UUCP (08/06/84)
>After all, American colonists were relatively isolated from other >cultures (except for the Indians, who communicated with the colonists >in English more often than the colonists communicated with them in the >Indian languages) for over a hundred years. Their linguistic >evolution must have been extremely slow due to their geographic and >cultural insularity. Meanwhile, back in England, extensive contact >between the European countries must have caused British English to >continue to evolve, in pronunciation, idiomatic usage, and spelling, >towards the other European languages. This is a backward argument. Biologically, isolation increases evolution rates. This is clearly true of linguistic evolution as well. In the early American colonies the settlements were not only isolated from Europe, but from each other as well. During the time, regional dialects developed which are still known. When travel became easier (or war and economics forced travel) in the 19th century, some cultural dialects formed. These were caused by cultural rather than geographical isolation (e.g. blacks didn't mix with whites, so now we have 'black English' throughout the country). If isolation slowed linguistic evolution, the english should now be changing VERY fast. We are in contact with the rest of the country (and most of the world) on a daily basis. Yet, rather than breed linguistic diversity, this increased communication is slowly eliminating regional and cultural dialects. Meanwhile, in England, I suspect that dialects have changed more slowly (except toward each-other). There have always been a lot of regional dialects in England, and there still are. Which one of these dialects is the descendant of 'The Kings English' is hard to tell (nobody ever said which time period or region was the standard). Association with other European languages probably had little effect (not since the Normans invaded anyway). When I learned German in college, I didn't start speaking more Germanic English than before, nor did my spelling change any. An influx of European immigrants would have had a larger effect on England (guess which country had THAT: and it led to a lot of cultural dialects in the cities). The only real effect was probably the introduction of new word (for which English had no good equivalent). This is still going on, 'detente' for example, is a French word. Here, American English has probably remained consistent with the British, we both adopt the same foreign words. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- J.L. Giles ...inhp4!cmcl2!lanl-a!jlg
steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny) (08/08/84)
**** > Biologically, isolation increases evolution rates. > This is clearly true of linguistic evolution. Anthropological linguists believe the reverse to be true. I learned the "age/area" hypothesis in a linguistics field studies course. The hypothesis is that the denser the population, the faster language changed. This was a heuristic that allowed them to look for genetic relationships. An example is the Cacus mountians. In a small region, presumably the original home of Cacasians, many distinct languages are spoken in a small area. Georgan, Ukrainian, Russian, and others. Of course, this kind of evidence is pure speculation, and thus it is merely a hypothesis. English underwent an incredibly dramatic change from the time of the Norman Conquest (1066) to the publication of "The Caterberry Tales" in the 1300's. Besides just increasing its wordstock, its entire syntax changed. It changed from a synthetic language to an analytic language. It went from a language with a syntax sort of like German to a language with a syntax sort of like Chinese. "Clearly" the presence of the Norman French had something to do with the rapid change. I am skeptical that isolation increases the rate of biological evolution. Wouldn't fierce competition for a nitch increase the rate of evolution? Don Steiny Personetics 109 Torrey Pine Terr. Santa Cruz, Calif. 95060 (408) 425-0382 ihnp4!pesnta -\ fortune!idsvax -> scc!steiny ucbvax!twg -/