Age of various language families

[Jan Terje Faarlund]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
At 20:31 29.09.2002 -0400, Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen wrote:
>There just is no such thing as a rule of language survival. Tribes and
>peoples influence each other by domination and genocide, some disappear by
>famine or floods. The oldest language group of all may have completely
>vanished, the most proliferate may be of quite recent making (as a
>split-off from something which has not remained or cannot be made out to
>be related). The whole expectation the rpompted the question is based on a
>monumental mistake. Sorry, but that's how clear it is to me.
>
>Jens


Finally a sensible response to an absurd question. The idea that there
should be a correlation between age and split in language families
presupposes that languages float around by themselves as independent
entities over the Kalahari desert, the Caucasus, or the Australian
continent. Why do linguists always have to be reminded of somehting which
all non-linguists know intuitively: languages are spoken by people and
transmitted by new generations learning their mother tongue. The splitting
up of language families of course depend on such factors as Jens mention,
and floods and volcanoes do not come at regular intervals, do they? We know
this, don't we?

Jan Terje


Professor Jan Terje Faarlund
Universitetet i Oslo
Institutt for nordistikk og litteraturvitskap
Postboks 1013 Blindern
N-0315 Oslo (Norway)

Tel. (+47) 22 85 69 49 (office)
      (+47) 22 12 39 66 (home)
Fax  (+47) 22 85 71 00