About forcing a language on someone

Plourde Eric plourer at MAGELLAN.UMontreal.CA
Thu Mar 23 05:21:54 UTC 2000


On Fri, 17 Mar 2000, Vidhyanath Rao wrote:

>> [ Moderator's note:
>>   The following message addresses a number of issues brought up in
>> a recent  post by S. M. Stirling (JoatSimeon at aol.com); nothing further
>> on those issues will be posted to the list.  However, a comment in the
>> final paragraph takes us beyond those issues, and back to
>> Indo-European issues, and I will welcome further discussion *of that
>> paragraph only*.  --rma ]

> I agree that the topic is minefield and may not be suitable, but I am
> not sure if that is possible to discuss only the issues in the cited
> para: After all, the question is whether the examples given so far can
> be used as models for PIE spread.

> "Plourde Eric" <plourer at MAGELLAN.UMontreal.CA> wrote:

>> [...] But the people who used the IE languages were
>> probably very violent and bloodthirsty people who imposed their
>> culture (and languages) on the others. How else would they have
>>spread so quickly? How Scythians and the Germanic tribes were
>> depicted?

> Just how quickly did PIE spread? How can we know given the
> uncertainties about the PIE homeland, the time of split, and the time
> of disappearance of non-PIE languages?

> How do we know where PIE speakers stood on the scale of
> bloodthirstiness? And just how do we set up this scale: By the number of
> bodies excavated from conquered areas? And what is that count? and so
> on.

Impossible to count, I agree. I think that the last comment from my part was
totally uncalled for. I was reacting rashly to an opinion that I have found too
often even in scientific spheres. I should have kept those last thoughts for
myself.

> And how does bloodthirstiness help in spreading a language? There have
> been bloodthirsty (from the point of view of the conquered: Alexander
> was supposedly magnanimous, but that is not what Zoroastrians said)
> conquerors such as Genghis Khan who did not manage to impose their
> language on even a third of their conquered lands.

On that matter it is difficult to apply any model except the assumption that
something very specific triggered the kind of "bush fire" spread of IE. I think
that Mrs. Gimbutas' model is too simplistic (like my affirmation) and the
spread could have varied in speed and magnitude and even slowed in some areas
for various reasons (climate (Finno-Ugric), inaccessiblity (Caucasic and
Basque?)  but the two conquerors mentioned in the preceding paragraph were
quick to adopt the local customs (marrying local "princesses" and maintaining
institutions). It is possible that the quick spread of IE languages could have
been similar to the conquest of Anatolia by Turks, who replaced the cultural
elements while most of the genetic and physical elements were left almost
intact.

> The models for `imposing' languages that have been given all seem to
> depend on schools and other such institutions, which were compulsory for
> the subject peoples. Are we to assume that PIE speakers had the same
> setup?

> The whole thread seemed to me to be pointless. The examples given in the
> last 15 years for the spread have been cases of slow absorption via
> client-patron relation into an open hierarchical society, not forceful
> imposition via the sword (which seems to have been limited to religion
> before 1500 CE).

This last statement is highly debatable but is completely outof the subject so
I will refrain from commenting. I think in that matter of contact of languages,
the comparative or reconstructive (paleolinguistic) models have shown their
limitations. We should apply other models, like the ones currently being
generated in the "sphere" of creolistics, among others.



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