Can Parent and Daughter co-exist?

Richard M. Alderson III alderson at netcom.com
Thu Sep 16 19:23:52 UTC 1999


On 15 Sep 1999, Steve Long wrote:

>In a message dated 9/14/1999 11:29:41 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com writes:

>>Latin "died" by becoming dozens of dialects which gradually lost mutual
>>comprehensibility.  The process is gradual...

>So a parent language "gradually" dies while daughter languages "gradually"
>develop.  So, logically - while this "gradual" process is happening - a parent
>and daughter can co-exist.  Gradually, of course.

NO!

Or, alternatively, yes, sure, but not the way you mean.

At no time in the history of a language do its (unsophisticated) speakers
perceive themselves as speaking anything other than the language of their
remotest ancestors, nor do they expect their remotest descendants to speak
other than as they themselves do.  At most, if there is a development not
adopted by a member of an older generation (say a great-grandparent), they
will notice that "Pawpaw says things differently" but they will not speak
of different languages, nor should they.

The historical recognition that earlier attested language L and later attested
languages S, P, C, F, I, R, O, D, ..., are different can only come with a much
longer view than any single human lifespan--and is irrelevant in the context of
single generations.

Language, although mostly a political concept, is best defined in terms of
mutual comprehensibility, and different, contiguous generations of a single
language community do not suffer a lack of mutual comprehensibility.

As for the example of Eastern Shoshoni and Comanche, were the two groups not
separated by geography, we would likely not consider Comanche a different
language but rather a "highly divergent dialect" (demonstrating the political
nature of the definition of language), and not be tempted to speak of a parent
and child co-existing.  I do agree that the example is important, for making us
think about the question harder than learned liturgical languages.

								Rich Alderson



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