Rate of Change: A Closer Look

Rich Alderson alderson+mail at panix.com
Wed Jun 27 19:35:32 UTC 2001


On 23 Jun 2001, Steve Long wrote:

> In a message dated 6/22/2001 2:19:29 AM, mclasutt at brigham.net writes:

>> The true Indo-Europeanists can undoubtedly provide detailed information to
>> verify or correct this impression.

> Actually, one can see this the other way around.  It's the linguists in the
> field with preliterate languages that are becoming literate who are in the
> best position to discern a difference between what changes and at what pace
> in preliterate versus literate languages.  The "rate of change" in unrecorded
> languages that were spoken thousands of years ago is obviously not subject to
> direct observation.

You forget that Indo-Europeanists do not study only unrecorded languages, but
the records of a very large family over a period of roughly 4,000 years, which
show that drastic change is often episodic, punctuated, and rapid, while
constant, gradual change is often drastic in its results, making it impossible
in the end to tell which has occurred without the aid of records.

The one thing linguists in the field have been able to verify about language
change is that the rate of change in non-literate societies is roughly the same
as that in literate societies--which means that our tools are doing a good job
when we date our reconstructions accordingly.

Please read chapter 1 of Mary R. Haas' _The Prehistory of Languages_ (Mouton:
_Janua Linguarum, Series Minor Nr. 57_, 1969; no ISBN, but the LoC card number
is 76-75689) for a discussion of the kinds of predictions about the nature of
non-literate language that have been made by non-linguists, and disproven by
linguists.

								Rich Alderson



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