(no subject)

[JoatSimeon at aol.com]

>Or of the Caucasus, the Kalahari, or the Russian Far North. The most
>elaborate and complicated phoneme-systems are to be found far away from the
>main theatre of history.

>Stefan Georg

-- exactly.  This applies to other gramatical structures as well -- note the
extreme conservatism of Lithuanian in preserving the elaborate PIE
declensions.

Languages in use in the 'centers' of history, which are usually multilingual,
get 'worn down' towards simplicity.  It's out in the remote fringes that the
most elaborate complexities remain.