IE "break-up", dates, etc.

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Roger Wright <Roger.Wright at liverpool.ac.uk> wrote:
 
>On Thu, 26 Feb 1998, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
>
>>There's a difference between "started to break up" and "had become
>>mutually unintelligible".  The Roland is not written in the same
>>language as the Cid.
>
>Yes, indeed, that's certainly part of the point.
>That's the period where I've been putting the break at myself; the idea
>that these texts and others were in different languages was catalysed by
>the invention of different reformed spelling systems for Romance in
>different places, which was the thing that led people to think they
>represented different languages.
 
This is a point more subtle than the previous one, but there is a
difference between "people thinking they speak two different (the
same) language(s)" and "people speaking two different (the same)
language(s)".  The subtlety lies in the fact that people's perceptions
do have an effect on the language.
 
>       We're left wondering if the cognate languages of physically
>contiguous peoples with cognate "languages" can really break up without
>the aid of external political catalysts such as this -
 
Let's take this one step at a time.  (1) The invention, or even
existence, of spelling systems has not been a factor during most of
history and throughout most of the world.  (2) Was the invention of
the Romance spelling systems politically or practically motivated, or
not motivated at all?  I mean, was it: "We're French, so we'll write
in French", or: "I'd like to write in Latin, but nobody would
understand me", or: "What do you mean this is not Latin?", or: all of
the above.  (3) I've always felt that it's the other way around:
political factors [in the widest possible sense] can keep a language
united, but divergence requires no external factors.
 
 
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam