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From: steiny@scc.UUCP (Don Steiny)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Linguistic evolution; American/British English
Message-ID: <265@scc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Aug-84 13:02:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: scc.265
Posted: Wed Aug  8 13:02:49 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Aug-84 02:28:15 EDT
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Organization: Santa Cruz Computer, Aptos, Calif.
Lines: 38

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> 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
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