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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">At a guess, it has to do with the fact
that the Han Chinese were farmers, with a stable state society.
Complex societies have many benefits compared with the
hunter-gather lifestyle, but preservation of languages isn't one
of them.<br>
<br>
I can think of two books that deal with this issue: Nick Ostler's
<i>Empires of Words</i> talks about China in particular, and Jared
Diamond's recent <i>The World Until Yesterday</i> talks about the
phenomenon in general. I don't have those books on hand, but I
imagine the citations (or "further reading" in Diamond's case)
might have more on the topic.<br>
<br>
The historical replacement of the Yue languages with the Han is
fairly well-documented; and it seems to be widely accepted that
the spread of Indo-European languages was linked to the spread of
agriculture and/or domestic horses (I've never even seen an
alternative theory). It's not a stretch to suggest that the
spread of agriculture is also responsible for the prehistoric
dominance of Sinitic languages in the North China Plain.<br>
<br>
As for the rule of ecology, it's been suggested many times that
intensive cultivation initially developed in more marginal
environments. Later, the agriculturalists often have the numbers
to take over the more productive environments for farming. Though
it's interesting that the article claimed the Central Valley is
less productive than the coast. Apart from Napa Valley,
originally inhabited by the Wappo, none of the the first-settled
areas are ones that I think of as major agricultural areas, though
some of them are home to major fisheries.<br>
<br>
Regards,<br>
Luke<br>
<br>
On 08/21/2013 10:01 PM, Zoe Tribur wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:f9d6926cee82c2d1b68bc56f23aec0b6@uoregon.edu"
type="cite">Interesting, but one question that I have is why you
don't see large-scale language shift. Instead, you have "areal
patterns" from long-term multilingualism. It's not just that there
are lots of languages, it's the fact that there are so any
language families that makes the Pacific Coast so interesting.
Western China, for example, has lots of languages but far fewer
language families. This kind of situation suggests that language
shifts took place in the distant past, although another
explanation is that these places were uninhabited when the first
speakers of Tibeto-Burman or whatever showed up, and then they
spread, but in some of these areas, the first explanation is more
likely. So what was different about the Pacific Coast that people
living there didn't switch languages? I'm guessing that the
ecological conditions in which they lived might have something to
do with it, allowing many groups to live side-by-side, but that
can't be the whole story.
<br>
<br>
<br>
On 2013/08/20 14:04, Phil Cash Cash wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">UNDERSTANDING HOW MIGRATION PATTERNS
SHAPED NATIVE ETHNICITY, LANGUAGE
<br>
<br>
August 20, 2013
<br>
<br>
During the past 12,000 years, the rich diversity of Native
American
<br>
[1] ethnic and language groups of California took shape as
migrating
<br>
tribes. They settled first on the lush Pacific coast and then in
<br>
progressively drier, less-vegetated habitats, according to a new
study
<br>
led by the University of Utah and published online in
the_Proceedings
<br>
of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS [2])_.
<br>
<br>
“Trying to explain why linguistic diversity is high in some
places
<br>
and low in others has been a big issue in anthropology,”
says Brian
<br>
Codding [3], an assistant professor of anthropology.
<br>
<br>
“For a number of years, people have shown a correlation between
<br>
ecological diversity and linguistic diversity,” he adds. “What
we did
<br>
in this study that was different was to look at it over time –
to
<br>
actually see the process through which different populations
came to
<br>
live side-by-side as neighbors or replaced one population with
<br>
another. We’re showing how the diversity actually developed over
<br>
time.”
<br>
<br>
Access full article below:
<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112927109/native-american-migration-shape-ethnicity-language-082013/">http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112927109/native-american-migration-shape-ethnicity-language-082013/</a>
<br>
[4]
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Links:
<br>
------
<br>
[1] <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.redorbit.com/topics/native-american/">http://www.redorbit.com/topics/native-american/</a>
<br>
[2]
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/08/13/1302008110.abstract?sid=ebe20e72-a555-402b-a4c6-7444c4e82b22">http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/08/13/1302008110.abstract?sid=ebe20e72-a555-402b-a4c6-7444c4e82b22</a>
<br>
[3]
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://faculty.utah.edu/u0850178-Brian_F_Codding/contact/index.hml">https://faculty.utah.edu/u0850178-Brian_F_Codding/contact/index.hml</a>
<br>
[4]
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112927109/native-american-migration-shape-ethnicity-language-082013/">http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1112927109/native-american-migration-shape-ethnicity-language-082013/</a>
<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br>
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