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<p class="MsoNormal">Dear all,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">We all know that languages spoken in a certain area (for example, Mainland Southeast Asia) tend to share areal features. But what about time? Do languages spoken at a certain time period, such as say, Bronze Age, share a certain feature
distinct from the features of languages spoken during, say, Iron Age?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">If so, then would a sample of languages spoken only at a certain time period (such as the 21<sup>st</sup> century) also be a temporally biased sample, similar to how a sample of languages spoken only in Europe would be an areally biased
sample?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">In order to create a trully non-biased sample of languages, is it also necessary to avoid temporal bias?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I can think of several “temporal features”:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<ol style="margin-top:0in" start="1" type="1">
<li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">Vocabulary. Languages spoken before the 20<sup>th</sup> century would not have any words referring to “computer.” Bronze Age languages would have no words related to iron.<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">Metaphors. Some have argued that some metaphors, such as TIME IS MONEY, arose only via industrialization (although I
<a href="https://www.academia.edu/37137427/TIME_IS_MONEY_in_Classical_Chinese">have argued against this</a>, claiming that it has also existed in Classical Chinese)<o:p></o:p></li><li class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin-left:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1">Gender-bias. Most languages we speak today are biased towards male, for example the generic pronoun being the masculine singular pronoun. But in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, where
we strive for gender equality, we see that there are conscious changes being made to fix this gender-bias.<o:p></o:p></li></ol>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But in terms of syntax, morphology, phonology, etc. are there specific temporal features?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I would appreciate any insights on this issue.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">From Hong Kong,</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Ian Joo</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">http://ianjoo.academia.edu</p>
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