Descent vs. Influence

[David L. White]

        I had hoped not to have to get into this, but from recent postings
it seems "no such luck".

        It has recently been claimed that influence is or may be taken as a
kind of descent.  Let us look at an example of what that would mean.
        Rumanian has some resemblances to Latin and some resemblances to
Albanian.  Yet the resemblances are of fundamentally different kind.  Its
resemblances to Latin have to do with the descent over time of the set of
arbitrary correspondences between sounds and meanings that any language must
have.  Its resemblances to Albanian on the other hand relate not to
sound-meaning correspondences but rather to things like the distinctions
made, ordering of elements, and so on.  Though these are both kinds of
resemblance, they are not the same kind of resemblance.  Why one is called
descent and the other is called influence should be fairly obvious.  If
influence is descent, then Rumanian is _by descent_  both a Romance and a
Balkan (for lack of a better term) language.  But this is nonsense.  To say
that influence is really a kind of descent because the two are both kinds of
resemblance is like saying that apples are really oranges because the two
are both kinds of fruit.  No.  There is simply no point in obliterating the
meanings of our terms and concepts.   Where there is a difference of meaning
we are clearly justified in using different terms.  I am distressed to find
such back-sliding, even by people who should know better, on what I had
thought were some clearly established points.

Dr. David L. White