Linguistic Succession in Historic Comparison:

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

It's important to keep historic movements of languages and/or peoples in mind
to show the sort of thing that _does_ happen.

For example, the dispersal of the Nguni language in early 19th century Africa
saw speakers of Nguni moving out from a small nuclear area in what's now
Kwa-Zulu/Natal as far north as Lake Victoria -- 6000 miles, the equivalent of
travelling from the Rhine to China.

This took place in a single generation; 20-40 years.  But only very small
groups of Nguni speakers were involved; they spread like a snowball rolling
downhill, sweeping up large numbers of individuals from other linguistic
groups, assimilating them through their systems of polygamous marriage and
'regimental' military organization.

Genetically, it would be virtually impossible to trace these migrations; they
were more of a cultural ripple in populations already in place, in strictly
_genetic_ terms.  Not much hard archaeological evidence, either, since the
material cultures are quite similar -- some differences in settlement pattern
and pottery.  Most of the distinctive Nguni material culture is highly
perishable in archaeological terms; organic materials.

There are millions of (Nguni) Matabele-speakers in Zimbabwe today, for
example.  Prior to the 1830's, that area was Shona-Karonga speaking.

The Matabele arrived from Zululand via the Transvaal, several tens of
thousands strong.  However, most of those tens of thousands were originally
Sotho-speaking natives of the Transvaal who'd been overrun by the original
small band from the Zulu country.

The number of actual original Zulu-speakers was tiny -- no more than a few
thousand, probably less; possibly only a few hundred.

In the course of 40 years, they moved 1000 miles from their original homeland
and linguistically and culturally assimilated something hundreds of times
their own numbers.

The Turkic expansion through Central Asia and the Eurasian steppe zone is
another example; or the massive expansion of Germanic at the expense of
Celtic in Central Europe.