The Neolithic Hypothesis (Standardization)

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

I wrote:
<<>What evidence is there that this view of Medieval Latin is any different
>from the texts we have in Hittite, Mycenaean, Sanskrit, Homeric Greek, etc.?

In a message dated 3/30/99 10:46:25 PM, JoatSimeon at aol.com wrote:
-- try proving a negative.  This is silly beyond words.>>

It's not proving a negative.  It's proving a difference.  As far as silly goes
- I refer you to Tasim Basin Mummies who look like Lithuanians.

<<I need merely point out that when Mycenaean Greek was decyphered in the
early 1950's, it contained exactly the sound patterns which reconstructive
linguistics had predicted. (Eg., 'gwous' rather than 'bous' for "cattle")>>

Which proves absolutely nothing and if I remember the Ventris story right it
wasn't exact at all.

But the real question is what rate of change we see in Mycenaean.  A
standardize language should change slowly.  A non-standardized language should
show all the variation that non-standardized languages show.

<<-- you're confused as to the definition of "spoken".  This generally means a
natural language, one learned by children from their mothers and used for
everyday communication.  Latin was not a spoken language in this sense after
the Migrations period.>>

What can I say?  Only languages learned from your mother are "spoken?"  Let's
get this clear.  Latin was spoken.  No if's, and's and but's.  Latin was used
for everyday communication by a whole layer of European society.  Deals were
made, jokes were told, treaties were made and lovers talked, all in spoken
Latin.  "Walks like a duck, talks like a duck, etc."  Spoken means spoken.
Plain English.

<<As early as the 4th century AD authors were commenting on the gap between
the 'vulgar' tongue and the written form, which was mutating into the various
Romance languages.>>

I'm pretty sure the difference was between spoken Latin and the spoken vulgar
dialects.  That's what Donatus talks about and that's what Dante talks about.
I don't think you'll find anyone pointing out that people were not speaking
written Latin.

And Latin did not mutate.  It gave birth to daughter languages.  But it did
not die in child birth.

<<-- this statement is incoherent and incomprehensible.>>

For your benefit, I'll write it slowly.  Non-standardized languages don't get
into writing as often as standardized languages.  Non-standardized languages
can change too fast to be pinned down in written form.

<<Incidentally, most preliterate cultures aren't even aware that language
changes over time.  They have no sense of historic time; they see the past as
very much like the present.>>

This makes no sense.  The most primitive people normalize their language and
will correct anthropologists who misspeak it.  They know that spoken words
have to be standardized when communication is important because otherwise
meaning will be lost.

And besides, this has nothing to do with any early IE language we know about.
Every single one of them knew they had a past.  And everyone of them was
literate.  Herodutus tells about a pharaoh isolating two new-born children to
find out what language was the oldest based on what words they first said -
early Chomskism.  And pre-literate bards of the IE languages were all about
preserving history.

You don't need writing to enforce standardization in a language.  But the need
for standardization is a darn good reason to invent writing.

<<Even medieval Europeans thought this way.  That's why Chaucer has Trojans
dressing, speaking and acting like his contemporaries,...>>

You've got to be kidding.  Do you really think that Chaucer, trained in Latin
and the Classics, didn't know that Trojans didn't speak English.  This may be
a surprise, but the filmmakers of the Ten Commandments didn't really think
that Moses spoke English.  Anachronisms are for the benefit of the audience.
They may fill in holes about what we don't know about.  But the purpose is
dramatization, not reconstruction.

<<-- once a language is no longer used and learned by children from their
parents, it fossilizes because it's not subject to the usual pressures of
linguistic change.  The pace of change in it slows down dramatically.>>

Look what you are saying here.  If kids learn language from their parents,
then that language changes.  All of creation disagrees with you.  Getting it
passed on from your parents is supposed to be what passes it on unchanged.

"Learning it from your parents" has no application for generations of
Americans who did no such thing but nevertheless acquired a second-language
that was scorching hot with change - and that they often contributed to.

<<-- nope.  It died as a living tongue and was replaced by the Romance
languages.  By the eight-ninth century AD, it was dead as the dodo, learned
only by the literate in schools.  Repeated "renaissances" (the Carolingian,
etc.) were required to keep it from disappearing altogether.

Latin was a powerful language for all those centuries – much more effective at
communication and affecting the course of history than many of the "living"
languages you are talking about.  Like Chaucer you are anachronizing.  Because
Latin wasn't a national language or spoken among the common folk (actually it
was, but that's another matter), you are arbitrarily eliminating it.  The test
of a language is whether it works like a language.  And Latin did that in
spades.  (Walks like a duck...)

You are under the impression that a disciplined language of limited
distribution is not an language.  The distinction you are making isn't
rational.

Regards,
Steve Long