Mycenaean (Standardization)

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

<<However they do obviously contain plenty of what some on the list would
call "everyday language.">>

In a message dated 4/9/99 11:38:19 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

-- not unless your definition of "everyday language" excludes complete
sentences.

Sometimes.

<<They're all lists, or things of the order "X holds land on rent
of Y".  Highly stylized.>>

By stylized, do you mean "fill-in the blank" kind of forms?  I have not been
able to find a big block of Linear B text to look at.  Apparently there was
enough to identify the language with the historical Arcadian if I understand
correctly and build a vocabulary.  Are there words that don't show up.

<<...no laws,...>>

I believe a saw a codicil listing the damages that levied for various
offenses against women of different status.

<<-- all languages are precise and predictable at that level.  Or do you know
of any one that isn't?>>

At which level?  It's an objective of any communication on all levels.
Unless you are trying to be confusing.  The original point was that a
language that splinters into dialects is moving towards imprecision.  A
language that can somehow be prevented from splintering  - or slowed down
rather, not to be imprecise - stands a better chance of maintaining precise
sound, grapheme and reference.  But of course it also means - as mcv pointed
out - that language will have problems with flexibility when the real world
changes.

<<Languages change, but generally so slowly (on a human scale) that nobody's
conscious of it in a time-span of less than generations.>>

In a message dated 4/2/99 4:00:25 AM, you wrote:

<<-- all spoken languages undergo change in every generation. >>

Regards,
Steve Long

[ Moderator's comment:
  Note that the two statements are not contradictory, though you try to make
  them so.  The number of generations may be small--3 or 4 in the case of the
  New York sociolects studied by Labov--but the changes were essentially invis-
  ible to the speakers in any adjoining pair of generations.
  --rma ]