<div style="text-align: center;">===========================================<br>L O W L A N D S - L - 19 October 2009 - Volume 04<br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><a href="mailto:lowlands@lowlands-l.net">lowlands@lowlands-l.net</a> - <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/">http://lowlands-l.net/</a></span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">
<span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Encoding: Unicode (UTF-08)</span><br style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);"><span style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153);">Language Codes: <a href="http://lowlands-l.net/codes.php">lowlands-l.net/codes.php</a></span><br>
===========================================<br></div><br>From: <span class="gI"><span class="gD" style="color: rgb(200, 137, 0);">Mark Dreyer</span> <span class="go"><<a href="mailto:mrdreyer@lantic.net">mrdreyer@lantic.net</a>></span></span><br>
Subject: <span class="gI">LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.18 (01) [EN]<br><br></span><div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">Dear Sandy Fleming</span></span></div>
<div class="im">
<div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);"></span></span>Â </div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Subject: </span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">LL-L "Language
varieties"</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"></span>Â </div>
</div><div class="im"><div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">></span><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Uh? You must get some sort of
compensation?</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"></span>Â </div>
</div><div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Compensation? For
your neighbour finding diamonds on his spread! Dream on. It passes for an act of
God hereabouts, even if the mine pipes out all the ground-water for miles around
& sink-holes swallow houses into their depths.</span></div><div class="im">
<div><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>That's what I was originally
saying, I think?</span></div>
</div><div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â Â Â Re
my note on the cyclic travel of language between the grammatical & the
analytic. I will not differ with you. I thought I was filling in a query posted
by the other Mark.</span><div class="im"><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>Anyway, a question that I'm
interested in seems to be going unanswered</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>here, and that is, do
languages change even if there isn't contact with</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>other languages? A small
island with only a few dialects of one language</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>and no outside contact would
be hard to find these days, but such was</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>less unusual in the past, so
would these languages still have kept</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>changing, and in what
ways?</span></div></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â Â Â I
would insist they do but I couldn't motivate it. Iceland is an example of
linguistic isolation these last thousand or so years (not long, but covering one
of our more familiar Indo-Germanic languages), only we aught to bear in mind
they started with Norse colonists on the bounce from other less profitable
enterprises, many if not most, so I hear, ex colonists of Ireland, & most
with a fair labour-force of Irish slaves. This heritage survives, I think, in
their Icelandic alphabet & script.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â Â Â
Trish, the daughter of a family friend, worked there for a number of years
(before the crash) & inevitably learned Icelandic. She says the Icelanders
can all read the old sagas, but as they point out one doesn't speak exactly
that way today.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â Â Â As
I see it children learn to speak by trial & error. If an error turns out to
be useful they retain it. Isn't that the case with slang & jargon? The
latter will develop with the development of new technologies, & the former
will change in every generation since speech as used is as much a tool of
association as it is of communication (who's in & who's out of the group,
& how will you show it? 'U' & non-'U' speech, of course). Both these
will apply even in total absence of contact with another language.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â </span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>Even if it's impossible now
to find languages that aren't in some sort</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>of contact with others, the
question is still interesting because even a</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>language in contact might be
changing in accordance with these internal</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>(or possibly non-linguistic)
forces as well as whatever changes may</span><br style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">>occur due to language
contacts.</span></div>
<div><span style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Â Â Â
I'm with you there, But I really have no contribution to make
myself.</span></div><br><br>
•
<p>
==============================END===================================
<p>
* Please submit postings to lowlands-l@listserv.linguistlist.org.
<p>
* Postings will be displayed unedited in digest form.
<p>
* Please display only the relevant parts of quotes in your replies.
<p>
* Commands for automated functions (including "signoff lowlands-l")
<p>
are to be sent to listserv@listserv.linguistlist.org or at
<p>
http://linguistlist.org/subscribing/sub-lowlands-l.html.
<p>
*********************************************************************