Mycenaean (Standardization)

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

I wrote:
<<The original point was that a  language that splinters into dialects is
moving towards imprecision.>>

In a message dated 4/13/99 7:40:58 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:
<<-- no, it isn't.  It's not become less precise, it's developing
differences.  Speakers of the same dialect will have no problem with it.>>

Please be patient and hang with me and I think you'll see what I trying to
get at.

King Nestor's people have just settled two new provinces.
Now he governs three provinces, in which his people all speak the same
language and dialect.  They all refer to cows, aurochs and yaks with the same
sounds and written words.  And they and his ministers understand his tax laws
to refer to his exact expectations as far as taxes go.

Years pass, ministers come and go.  And Nestor notices in one province oddly
low counts of cows and aurochs and no yaks at all.  Upon investigation, he
finds that a dialect has developed locally, where cows now mean cows and
aurochs, aurochs mean yaks and yaks have a new name.  And he finds that his
law "you must pay taxes on all animals" in this new dialect means "you may
pay taxes on animals."

We may just see a "difference" between the dialects here.  (A structural
difference.)  But Nestor sees this as a functional matter - the common
language has become "imprecise."  Words no longer refer to the same thing and
do not have the same effect with this new dialect.

I hope you will understand that the imprecision here is not between speakers
of the new dialect.  It is between speakers of the different dialects.  And
that would be a reason for Nestor to try to "standardize" the language across
his provinces, despite languages natural tendency to splinter.

I wrote:
"precise sound, grapheme and reference."

<<-- what exactly do you _mean_ by this?>>

What Nestor would like his tax collectors to hear is everyone using (more or
less) the same sounds to refer to cows; the same graphemes ("the smallest
unit in writing capable of causing a change in meaning"); and that they both
referred to the same thing (cows or more specifically cows that will yield
the payment of taxes.)  Ventris used this breakdown.  I didn't invent it.

I hope you will find this makes some small sense.

Regards,
Steve Long