Can Parent and Daughter co-exist?

[Elizabeth Whitaker]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

At 03:31 AM 9/20/99 -0400, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:

>We're dealing with two related, but somewhat distinct, processes of change.

>First, there's the inevitable change that a language undergoes even if it
>doesn't spread over a wide area, but instead remains confined to one small
>enough that dialects don't diverge past the point of mutual comprehensibility.

>Eg., Greek, or Basque, or pre-1600 English.

I don't know about Greek or Basque, but I doubt that two English peasants who
lived in geographically distant locations (and remember most people before 1600
in England would have had to walk -- *most* of the time -- to get anywhere in
England) such as the northwest and the southeast would have been able to
satisfactorily understand each other's speech.  In modern English, it seems to
be a truism that the more educated tend to be less regional in their speech
patterns.

Elizabeth Whitaker
ELWHITAKER at ftc-i.net