Stabilized languages

[Larry Trask]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
On Fri, 13 Nov 1998, Roger Wright wrote:
 
> Change is at some times slower than at other times, though.
 
Agreed, of course, but it never vanishes in a living language.
 
> And it just isn't true that "dead" languages don't change. Medieval
> Latin varied astonishingly widely in time and space, Renaissance
> Latin was recognizably different again, and even the modern Latin
> used by the Vatican has been continually acquiring new vocabulary.
 
Agreed, but I wasn't claiming that a dead language can never change, but
rather that absence of change is only possible in a dead language.
 
Larry Trask
COGS
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK
 
larryt at cogs.susx.ac.uk