The Indo-European Hypothesis [was Re: The Neolithic Hypothesis]-Second post

[Ray Hendon]

Before I read the article on Ukrane I was attempting to phrase my answer to
several questions that had been raised as to the appropriateness of using
the medical model of disease spread to describe the spread of a language.
As you may recall, the medical model postulates two primary variables that
are to be used in predicting the spread of a disease: the number or people
who are susceptible to the infections and the exposure they receive from
those that are already infected.  Knowing these two values allows the modelr
to predict how the disease spreads amoung a population.

Transfering this approach to the study of languages I had thought that each
variable must be viewed within certain age-groups of the population.  So,
for example, the exposure variable would be quite different for an infant as
opposed to a school-aged child, and that of a school-aged child would be
different from that of an adult.  It doesn't take much explanation to see
why this variable must be defined to accommodate different ages.  An infant
spends its time hearing its mother and father and possibly other close
relatives speak.  Since its exposure to language speakers is not a matter of
decision for the child, it is entirely passive in this regard.  Thus the
exposure could be measured by defining how many words per day of a specific
language the child eexperienced.  This is probably not much of a variable in
an aggregate sense, i.e., it is probably fairly stable over all populations
and all languages, since the requirements of motherhood and parenting are
universal.  A Korean child being raised by Korean-speaking parents would, I
presume, have the same probability of learning Korean as a Russian child
would of learning Russian from his family.

But, once the child is of age to go to school, its exposure to languages may
change.  In my area, for example, while probably half of the children hear
Spanish all the time while at home, when they come to school their exposure
to English increases by seven or eight hours a day.  Therefore, children of
school age may change their exposure to a certain language.  The variable,
the number of words heard per day of English, will substantially change from
their lives as infants if they live in a bi-lingual community.

Finally, the exposure of an adult to a given language would be subject to
another set of forces, such as the language spoken in the workplace and on
the streets.

Taking these three levels of exposure, computing them for each age-group and
then weighting the average of all three age-groups would give us an average
level of exposure for the society at a specific time to a certain language.
An average value, the expected value in an arithematic sense, could be used
to describe the average level of exposure to all citizens.

On the susceptibility side of the equation, the same three age-groups could
be used.  An infant, given that there is no choice in the matter, would have
a susceptibility dependent entirely on its ability to hear and comprehend
the sounds it hears.  There would be some fixed distribution of linguistic
abilities in any population: deafness, intelectual adequacy and other
envirnomental variables would yield a fairly constant value of
susceptibility for infants and school-aged children.  There would probably
be some variation in the general interest-level of a school-aged child to
learning a language, but I suspect the distribution of interest in other
languages would be stable for children of any culture.

But for adults the susceptibility variable changes considerably.
Requirements of work, business, politics, and other economic effects would
come into play, causing the susceptibility level to change from that of
childhood.  Most of the merchants and salespeople I encounter in the Mexican
border towns have learned to speak English, presumably because it is in
their economic interest to do so, given their exposure to tourists and the
dollars they might spend while visiting.  They probably do not speak it at
home, but they do learn it voluntarily and use it in the workplace.  Their
exposure and susceptibility is thus enhanced by economic and possibly
political reasons.  The same is true on the other side of the border, where
bilingualism is observed among many business personnel, clerks,
recptionists, etc.  It is in the interest of the business people on the
American side of the border just as it is on the other side, depending on
what language they are likely to encounter while conducting business.

 To capture these variables, some means of measuring them must be devised.
And I believe they can be measured, in any number of ways, some of which I
just mentioned.  The number of words of a specific language spoken per day
in the life of a child, for example, is a number that could be observed, and
the same could be done in school and in the workplace.

 Economic and political motives could be measured with dollar values.  Sales
or shipments of goods to parties of other linguistic groups, for example, is
a value that could be calculated.  And, I suspect it would have a
significant effect on the susceptibility of a given population to learning a
given language.  Prestigue, and other psychological variables that are
thought to influence susceptibility could also be accounted for and measured
or at least estimated.

If I knew these values and the population mix in time period one, it would
be possible to predict the penetration of a specific language within a given
population in time period two, time period three, etc.

The Ukarainain situation gives the linguistimetrician a somewhat unique
opportunity to measure these variables because of the fairly discrete times
that critical variables changed.  The Russian language was probably
introduced into Ukrainian schools at some specific time in their history.
If so measurements of Russian penetration of Ukrainian could be made on both
time-sides of this change and the school-exposure values could be estimated.
The same is true for  migrations of Russian-speaking people into Ukrane.
Plus, many Ukrainians are alive today that lived there before these
migrations and school-related changes took place.  Their memories of
linguistic changes at specific times could be invaluable in estimating the
precise effects of the influence these variables have on language adoption.

Ther are many other issues related to this case.  Longitudinal and
horizontal studies of linguistic changes could be accomplished, and with the
end of Russian domination, the reverse effects could be estimated.  The
incidence of loan-words, changes in the Russian spoken by those living in
Ulkrane, and on Ukrinain by the Russian speakers could be measured.  Perhaps
this kind of effort would be worthwile in helping us understand the dynamics
of this complicated process and make predictions about the future more
useful.

Best wishes,
Ray Hendon