Sociological Linguistics

[Dr. John E. McLaughlin and Michelle R. Sutton]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

"Patrick C. Ryan" wrote:

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

I'm sorry, Pat, but your statement about Evolution here shows EXACTLY why
modern languages (and any other language we have any evidence of) are NOT
evolving.  Let's take the loss of the second person singular forms in Modern
English (the 'thee' and 'thou' forms).  What was "survival enhancing" about
that?  What it did was make English hugely ambiguous in terms of specifying the
number of addressees.  Enhanced survival?  How about the Great Vowel Shift?
Did it lessen the number of distinguishable vowels in English?  No (unless you
don't count diphthongs).  Did it increase or decrease ambiguity?  No.  What was
the "survival enhancing" effect?  Zero.  Were speakers of Anglo-Saxon any less
able to cope with their environment than we are?  I don't think so.  Could we
discuss nuclear physics without all the Greek, Latin, and French loanwords that
entered the language after Hastings and use just our Anglo-Saxon heritage with
compounding?  Absolutely.  The Icelanders do it just fine.  As I have asked you
dozens of times before Pat, where's your hard evidence?  You always rely on
"logic".  "Logic" says that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west and
that the earth is stationary.  "Facts" proved otherwise.

John McLaughlin
Utah State University