Sociological Linguistics

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear John and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton <mclasutt at brigham.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 1999 9:17 AM

> "Patrick C. Ryan" wrote:

>> Actually, your comments show a jejeune understanding of "evolutionary".
>> Evolution does not promise "improve"ment only change that is successful
>> in enhancing survival.

John commented:

> I'm sorry, Pat, but your statement about Evolution here shows EXACTLY why
> modern languages (and any other language we have any evidence of) are NOT
> evolving.  Let's take the loss of the second person singular forms in
> Modern English (the 'thee' and 'thou' forms).  What was "survival enhancing"
> about that?  What it did was make English hugely ambiguous in terms of
> specifying the number of addressees.  Enhanced survival?

Pat responds:

We find many evolutionary changes in animal life for which it is difficult
to assign a specific evolutionary advantage; and, in fact, some changes
appear to take place as random variations that survive because that are
genetically somehow connected with other changes that do evolutionary
advantage.

Do we have any good idea of why it happened? And, perhaps, what is more
interesting: when some speakers lost the singular pronouns, what "advantage"
the loss had that enabled it to become standard usage.

John continued:

> How about the Great Vowel Shift?  Did it lessen the number of distinguishable
> vowels in English?  No (unless you don't count diphthongs).  Did it increase
> or decrease ambiguity?  No.  What was the "survival enhancing" effect?  Zero.
> Were speakers of Anglo-Saxon any less able to cope with their environment
> than we are?  I don't think so.  Could we discuss nuclear physics without all
> the Greek, Latin, and French loanwords that entered the language after
> Hastings and use just our Anglo-Saxon heritage with compounding?  Absolutely.
> The Icelanders do it just fine.  As I have asked you dozens of times before
> Pat, where's your hard evidence?  You always rely on "logic".  "Logic" says
> that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and that the earth is
> stationary.  "Facts" proved otherwise.

Pat responds:

Were AS speakers less able to cope with their environment? The answer is
resoundingly "yes"; the question of whether their language had a bearing on
this is another question.

"Logic" does not really say anything about the sun or the movements of the
earth. Regardless of the "facts", the appearance is that the sun rises in
the east, etc., and the proof of that is that, knowing as we do that it is
scientifically inaccurate, we still publish sunrise and sunset tables.

Nice to have you back, John.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803 and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ek, at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu, geiri undapr . . . a ~eim
meipi er mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)