The Indo-European Hypothesis [was Re: The Neolithic Hypothesis]

JoatSimeon at aol.com JoatSimeon at aol.com
Tue Apr 27 16:31:04 UTC 1999


>X99Lynx at aol.com writes:

>This may be a bit off.   "Later emigrants" - "non-native speaking" - didn't
>necessarily "have to conform."

-- they did if they wanted to communicate usefully.  See "founder effect".
The population of the US is mostly descended from non-anglophone immigrants,
but each group of newcomers found themselves in an English-speaking
environment.

The usual result, whether with German-speakers in 1750 or Italian-speakers in
1900 or Spanish-speakers in 1990, is for a three-generation process of
linguistic succession which starts with monoglot non-English speakers in the
first generation and ends up with monoglot English-speakers in the third.
The same thing happened with Hugenots in England or Prussia in the 18th
century.  It's the natural course of events, in the absence of some very
unusual sociopolitical factor.

>While the Dutch  majority in Old New York pretty much adopted English in a
>single generation

-- Dutch was still spoken in Dutch-settled rural areas of the Hudson Valley
into the late 18th century, over 120 years after the English conquest.
Language succession was slow, and generally involved close social interaction
with native speakers of English.

>And  obviously the Pennsylvania Amish did not feel they "had to conform"

-- most of the German immigrants to Pennsylvania did.  The Amish are a
special case, rather like the East European Jews and Yiddish.  Note that as
social segregation broke down in this century, the surviving Jews of the area
stopped using Yiddish.  Which was itself a German dialect, of course.

>Language replacement usually requires something more drastic; settlement of
>native speakers, combined with widespread social and demographic
>disorganization of the native community.>>

>Or it simply requires people who are willing and who have very good reasons
>to change languages or encourage their children's to change languages.

-- that's what I said.



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