Can Parent and Daughter co-exist?

[Dr. John E. McLaughlin]

[ moderator re-formatted ]

Rich Alderson wrote:

> Language, although mostly a political concept, is best defined in terms of
> mutual comprehensibility, and different, contiguous generations of a single
> language community do not suffer a lack of mutual comprehensibility.

> As for the example of Eastern Shoshoni and Comanche, were the two groups not
> separated by geography, we would likely not consider Comanche a different
> language but rather a "highly divergent dialect" (demonstrating the political
> nature of the definition of language), and not be tempted to speak of a
> parent and child co-existing.  I do agree that the example is important, for
> making us think about the question harder than learned liturgical languages.

Indeed, some nonspecialists in this language group have considered both
Comanche and Panamint (a language separated from Shoshoni at even greater
time depth than Comanche) to be "dialects" of Shoshoni, yet neither shares
the key criterion of mutual comprehensibility (at some high percentage) with
Shoshoni and it takes months (not weeks or days) of practice before much
comprehensibility can be achieved at all.  Even then, it's always the case
of, "I can mostly understand them, but they still can't understand me," when
a Panamint or Comanche visits Shoshoni country.  Often, the criteria for
language separation in Europe are quite different than the criteria applied
to the Americas.  Chumash is a classic case.  There were 5-7 distinct
languages in this extinct family, yet most classifications of the world's
languages out there list only Chumash as if it were one language.

Here's the problem:  There is no clear dividing line between dialect and
language based solely on mutual comprehensibility.  Is 90% comprehensibility
between two people enough to link them?  How about 80% comprehensibility?
How about 80% comprehensibility on first meeting and 90% after a month of
exposure?  Or 20% comprehensibility?  Or 20% comprehensibility when speaking
at normal speed versus 40% comprehensibility when speaking very slowly?  We
have to make language vs. dialect judgments based on other criteria as well
as comprehensibility.  I once met a couple of fellow hikers on the
Appalachian Trail in western North Carolina.  They were from Scotland
speaking English.  I was from Utah speaking English.  Yet there was less
than 50% mutual comprehensibility.  We finally resorted to the common
context, hand signals, and a very slowly spoken "Swadesh list" of forms to
"communicate".  Were we actually speaking the "same language"?  I've
observed Spanish speakers and Portuguese speakers doing the same thing with
about the same level of success, yet they are considered to be speaking two
languages.  Back to the case of Eastern Shoshoni versus Comanche, Eastern
Shoshoni speakers have virtually no understanding of Comanche on first
meeting, even when spoken slowly, but Comanche speakers have a greater
understanding of Eastern Shoshoni when spoken (very) slowly on the first
meeting.  The Comanche sound shifts have made Comanche more opaque to
Shoshoni than Shoshoni is to Comanche.  This obscures the pure mutual
comprehensibility question even further.

Joat Simeon made an interesting thought experiment about speakers of Tuscan
in an earlier post.  You place the modern Tuscan at one end of the table
with an unbroken chain of ancestors down to the other end who speaks Latin.
In the Eastern Shoshoni-Comanche case, we'll put the common ancestor at the
head of the table and his post-1700 descendants down each side.  The
descendants down the Shoshoni side of the table can still understand the
common ancestor even though there have been some changes over the last 300
years (just as we could still understand American speech from 1700 if we
heard it).  A short ways down the Comanche side of the table, however, there
is a marked change in the language so that granddad has difficulty
understanding grandson and there is no understanding between
great-grandfather and great-grandson.  After that there is no more ability
to talk across the table either.  Now, you might object that this doesn't
happen in the real world--that great-grandfathers can always understand
their great-grandchildren.  You're correct.  But we all need to remember
that an individual's speech also changes during their lifetime, so that
great-grandpa's speech isn't the same at age 80 as it was at age 10.  Joat
Simeon's thought experiment relies on the assumption that everyone at the
table is speaking as they did at the age of 20.  At the head of the table
sits a man who speaks Eastern Shoshoni.  At the foot of the northern side of
the table sits a woman who speaks Eastern Shoshoni and can understand the
man seated at the head of the table.  At the foot of the southern side of
the table sits a man who speaks Comanche and cannot really understand either
the woman seated across from him or the man seated at the head of the table.

John E. McLaughlin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
mclasutt at brigham.net

Program Director
Utah State University On-Line Linguistics
http://english.usu.edu/lingnet

English Department
3200 Old Main Hill
Utah State University
Logan, UT  84322-3200

(435) 797-2738 (voice)
(435) 797-3797 (fax)