IE and Substrates and Time

JoatSimeon at aol.com JoatSimeon at aol.com
Sat Mar 13 18:50:43 UTC 1999


In a message dated 3/12/99 8:54:07 PM Mountain Standard Time,
alderson at netcom.com writes:

>So can we not assume that somewhere between 1000 and 2000 years is required
>for communications difficulties to become strenuous, and more than 2000 years
>for them to be so large as to prevent communications, i. e., to require one
>party to learn the other's language before communication can take place, if
>both are members of the same general speech community.

-- in general, but not necessarily in particular.  Drastic modification is
possible in a fairly short time -- the Netherlands/Afrikaans divergence, for
instance, or that between Old and Middle English.  Or the way Lithuanian can
be read as a proto-language for Latvian.

I think 'punctuated equlibrium' is a useful model here.  Instead of a steady
gradual series of changes, long periods of relative stasis with short periods
of rapid change interspersed.

Eg., the restructuring of Insular Celtic in the first few centuries CE, or
what apparently happed to proto-Germanic in the first millenium BCE.



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