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

JoatSimeon at aol.com JoatSimeon at aol.com
Tue Apr 27 16:40:23 UTC 1999


>rayhendon at worldnet.att.net writes:

>I like the example Steven used to explain how English became the dominate
>language among elites of India whereas Latin failed to become the same thing
>to the English.

-- Latin _did_ become the language of the Romano-British elite and of a
substantial proportion of the urban population there, at least.

It vanished (along with Brythonic Celtic) during the Saxon conquest.  The
Saxons (and Frisians and Jutes and whatnot) came from outside the Empire.

>Wasn't the language spoken in pre-Roman Brittain more uniform than the
>language spoken in India.

-- India contains dozens of distinct languages.  Britain probably had
mutually-intelligible dialects of a single Celtic language.



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