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<font size=3>At 06:27 PM 2/25/2001 -0600, Mark Odegard wrote:<br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite cite>Every last member of the Indo-European,
Afro-Asiatic, Uralic ... family of<br>
languages each decends from their own common ancestor, which in turn
descend<br>
from more distant (and essentially unrecoverable) ancestral
languages.<br>
<br>
Creoles and pidgins are the exceptions.<br>
</font></blockquote><br>
<font size=4>I find it implausible to account for language speciation in
IE or any other large family for that matter without invoking language
contact. I actually think that the most plausible account of the
evolution of English, starting with the mysterious emergence of Old
English, cannot do without language contact as a factor... (I can see why
some have been tempted to account for the development of Middle English
or the Romance languages by "creolization"--but they could also
have considered asking what's to be gained by invoking
"creolization" in the first place.) Perhaps eventually every
language will qualify as a creole. Fortunately, we will then agree to
dispense with the disfranchising label as a genetic linguistic or
typological category.<br>
<br>
Sali.<br>
</font><br>
<font size=3 color="#800000">*********************************************************************<br>
Salikoko S.
Mufwene
</font><font size=3 color="#800080">s-mufwene@uchicago.edu<br>
</font><font size=3 color="#800000">University of
Chicago
</font><font size=3 color="#800080">773-702-8531; FAX 773-834-0924<br>
</font><font size=3 color="#800000">Department of Linguistics<br>
1010 East 59th Street<br>
Chicago, IL 60637<br>
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