Distance in change

[Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen]

On Wed, 24 Mar 1999, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:

> [...] The dialect of Lazio
> didn't travel at all, and it's still very different from Latin.
> I don't think you need external causes at all to account for
> language change.  It just happens.  The distance, or rather the
> amount of mutual contact, only determines whether two dialects
> will change in the same direction or not.
[...]

I'll make an exception to my policy of only replying to statements when I
disagree: This is simply too good and too important to pass unnoticed. In
Finno-Ugric linguistics it was for a long time a matter of hot debate
which Finnish sound changes were due to Germanic influence - and which
ones to Baltic. It may have dawned on the field since then that any
language can change by itself, but simple things just need to be said once
in a while.

Jens