rate of language change

[Peter &/or Graham]

>><<The rest of Low-German equally lost a major part of its
>>inflection, in contrast with High-German...>>

>So, we're still stuck with the fact that only High German kept its complex
>inflection more or less intact. Maybe we should rather look for an
>explanation for THAT. Isolation in the Alpine region ...

Hardly.   The High German dialects covered perhaps two thirds of the modern
Germany-speaking area.   The standard language is most closely allied to the
dialect around Meissen, precisely because that was the dialect most widely
known.   Nowhere near the Alps.   We might however look at the timing.
Luther's Bible fixes High German to some extent (e.g. the -e endings in ich
mache etc, for which he was laughed at even in his own time).   Without a
literary standard the Low German dialects could change more rapidly.  So
just when did their loss of inflection occur?

Peter