Grimm's Law and Predictability (ex Re: The Neolithic Hypothesis)

[Ray Hendon]

Cited from NY Times editorial page:

"Opinion polls have shown that Russian-speaking Ukrainians, who mostly live
in the eastern part of the country where there is nostalgia for the Soviet
Union, are twice as likely to side with their Slavic brothers as they are
with NATO. But the same polls show that Ukrainian speakers, many of whom
live in the western part of the country and have historical ties to the West
dating from the Hapsburg Empire, are twice as likely to support NATO. "

If any of you are ever called upon to discuss the role of language in our
civil lives, the above quote from the NY Times editorial may provide a
specific instance that can be endlessly discussed.

It seems in Ukrane that the combined effects of culture, politics, economics
and history can be reduced to a simple linguistic definition.  If you know
the childhood language spoken to a Ukaranian citizen by its mother, you can
predict with good precision what that person's attitude toward NATO will be
today.

The primary language one speaks thus appears to subsume all the cultural,
political, economic and historical effects into a single substitute
varialble, so to speak.

This simple observation, with which, I presume, no too many will disagree,
provides me with a straightforward way of answering many of the questions
that have been asked about the efficacy of adopting the medical model of the
spread of infectious disease to the process of language adoption.  The
unique history of Ukrane provides us with an excellent way of testing the
hypothesis that exposure and susceptibility to a language explains the
adoption of the language.

For those who are interested in this topic, I am posting a second note that
contains the core of my argument and answers to many of your points and
questions about this hypothesis.

Best regards,
Ray Hendon