European Genetics/IE

[Rick Mc Callister]

[snip]

>And consider the case of Basque.  With Basque, it is only for the phonology
>that we can track the language back as far as 2000 years.  But we can do
>this much, and the results are interesting.  Almost all of the big changes
>in Basque pronunciation seem to have occurred in the early Middle Ages,
>roughly AD 800-1200.  At that time, the Basque Country was a rural
>backwater, largely cut off from the great political and social currents
>sweeping across western Europe.  After 1200, though, most of the country
>was absorbed by Castile.  It was at this time that the Basques began to
>acquire their reputation as formidable seafarers, developing fishing,
>whaling and trade.  They began to play an important role in Spanish
>affairs, and they played a great part in the Spanish discovery and
>settlement of the Americas.  Basque society was transformed by massive
>emigration; Basque ports became bustling and prosperous; shipbuilding
>became a great Basque industry, as did iron and steel, and eventually
>manufacturing.  Yet, during all of these remarkable political, social and
>economic transformations, the pronunciation of the language scarcely
>changed at all.  Moreover, the scraps of evidence that we have suggest that
>the rich and distinctive Basque morphology has not changed significantly
>since the 9th century, at least.

>So, in the Basque case, rate of social change does not appear to correlate
>at all with rate of linguistic change.  It appears that the language
>changed fastest when it was spoken in a stable and largely closed society,
>but much less rapidly after it was caught up in dramatic social changes.

	It seems logical that increased communication and mobility between
areas would have a leveling effect

[snip]

>Well, not necessarily.  Today there are nearly 7000 mother tongues.  Of
>these, probably no more than a few dozen are creoles (I exclude pidgins),
>even though the European expansion of several centuries ago created
>exceptionally favorable circumstances for creole-formation in several parts
>of the world.  If fewer than one percent of today's languages are creoles,
>we should not be surprised to find that creoles were not exactly thick on
>the ground in the remote past.

[snip]

	Wouldn't it be possible that some languages or dialects may have
started out as creoles and then have become standardized through increased
contact with the parent language. Something like this is claimed for
African-African English Vernacular and it seems plausible that (some) early
regional forms of Romance may have initially been more like Latinate
creoles than daughter languages.

Rick Mc Callister
W-1634
Mississippi University for Women
Columbus MS 39701