Sociological Linguistics

[Patrick C. Ryan]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Dear Joat and IEists:
 ----- Original Message -----
From: <JoatSimeon at aol.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 1999 4:06 AM

>>proto-language at email.msn.com writes:

>> They're just different.  Languages change because they >do.

>> Pat, aghast: I was with you all the way until this final sentence. Is this
>> Zen?

> -- common sense, actually.  Languages don't "improve" over time, at least
> not the ones we can observe.  They just change.  The process is not random,
> but it isn't evolutionary.  It's more comparable to fashion.

Pat responds:

Yes, it is Einsteinian "common sense". Whatever one happens to believe ---
makes sense!

Actually, your comments show a jejeune understanding of "evolutionary".
Evolution does not promise "improve"ment only change that is successful in
enhancing survival.

As far as language change is concerned, there is no observable process in
this universe which is not, at least potentially, understandable, and
analyzable to terms of cause and effect.

To compare language change to changes in fashion is an abandonment of the
effort to understand how it does change; and this is not because changes in
fashion could not be similarly analyzed if someone thought it worth the
trouble.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
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